|
Scooby Doo! Mystery Mayhem Review
 |
Developer |
Artificial Mind
|
| Publisher |
THQ
|
| Genre |
Adventure
|
While Night of 100 Frights gave Scooby fans a taste of what Scooby gaming could be, it essentially turned out to be a fairly traditional platformer with the only saving grace being the Scooby Doo references, characters, and ghost models. Ambient laugh tracks also helped to establish Scooby as a game dedicated to the fan, but little else.
Mystery Mayhem though, does a much better job of drawing gamers into the television show’s atmosphere, and even though the gameplay itself is generic and stale, the aesthetics of the game are enough to keep the show’s fans interested all the way through to the end.
Gameplay – Instead of taking the tried-and-true method of traditional platform adventuring that THQ’s Night of 100 Frights did, new developer Artificial Mind takes the reins and creates a game that the player actually gets to work through getting solved, mostly by offering several mini-mysteries that serve as the game’s levels. All of the mini-mysteries link to the overall storyline, but each plays out like a true episode of the show, which really is the game’s greatest triumph.
The player takes the role of Scooby and Shaggy. When you play as one, the other immediately follows. You can switch who you play as in real time at will. The only reason to do this is to get your hands on Scooby for squeezing through small spaces that Shaggy can’t. Other than this one aspect, playing through the game using either character is the same, and has no bearing on the adventure.
Gameplay is straightforward fetch-questing with a few bits of Scooby-inspired monster chases and mine cart riding. You explore an environment for clues, which you then take to Velma to decipher them. You’ll also solve a few simple puzzles and flip some switches. Along the way, you encounter plenty of ghosts who will attempt to make Shaggy and Scooby lose their cool (basically a depleting life meter). Shaggy and Scooby can fight back using the Tome of Doom, an ancient book that sucks ghosts in. The technique in catching ghosts is not unlike that of Luigi’s Mansion, though Mystery Mayhem’s method is even more simplified. Simply mash on the appropriate buttons to vacuum a baddy right up, changing required buttons occasionally or requiring the player to vacuum life away a little at a time (depending on the spirit’s attack pattern). If this were any other game, it wouldn’t be any fun at all, but since the gameplay is masked by an overwhelming dose of Scooby-ness, fans of the show will easily forgive the game for being so simplistic.
The controls feel very loose, and though you can maneuver the camera yourself, it can be a pain at times, often sticking you with an unhelpful angle. Though the fetch quests get old, there are a few notable elements thrown in that give the gameplay some life. For example, you’ll experience a mine cart mini-level where you steer Shaggy and Scooby out of the way of obstacles on the track. Another level has you leading a ghost into a trap engineered by the Scooby Gang (and naturally, it goes awry). Still another has the cowardly heroes trying to stay within the light because the pitch black areas make them lose their cool. And as if that weren’t enough, you even go through small sequences where you chase someone through a hall of doors, or play mini games like grabbing the most food in the kitchen within a time limit, etc. Even though it’s simplistic, the style and feel of the show is always present, which makes the gameplay more fun than it should be.
Graphics – Graphically, Mystery Mayhem holds up nicely to many of today’s games in a similar genre, but it doesn’t come close to some of the better releases in the same category. That said, Mystery Mayhem is a reasonably good-looking game, sporting some solid Scooby-style color hues for the environments. The game’s settings consist of a library, a movie set, a western theme park, a swamp, and a hi-tech laboratory. Character models don’t translate the best into 3D, but the effort could’ve certainly been much worse. From a visual standpoint, the shadowing techniques used in Mystery Mayhem is by far the game’s greatest accomplishment, looking eerily realistic in spite of the game’s obviously campy ambience. But even though the shadows look great, they fail to project correctly across the environment at times.
The framerate stays mostly steady, only slowing down a bit on occasion. Animation is fairly smooth as well, with no noticeable flaws. The cutscenes add lots of Scooby-style flavoring to the mix as well.
Sound – The voiceover work here steals the whole show. The game is packed with dialogue that is brilliantly executed by the authentic voice actors, all whom sound reasonably like the original TV show’s characters. The music too – while not spot on for some reason – is eerily similar to that of the TV show. Whether it’s a licensing issue or some other troubling thing is a mystery, but the music sounds almost exactly like that of what you’d hear if you were watching the show on television, save for a few notes here and there. Just like in Night of 100 Frights, the laugh tracks are present and accounted for, only adding to the Scooby Doo authenticity.
Bottom Line -
For Scooby Doo fans, this is the best made game based on the license by a long shot. Though the gameplay itself is relatively simple and boring at times, the interesting storyline and episode-like game progression is pure bliss for Scooby fanatics. The voice acting, cutscenes, animations, mannerisms, and music is all there, engulfing the player into the story enough to make him/her think that they are indeed, watching episodes of the old television show.
The game is a bit short, and the gameplay is far from exciting, which makes it hard to recommend it as a purchase, but if you’re a die-hard Scooby Doo fan, you owe it to yourself to play this.
Review by Brendon Hivner
|
