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Good: Passable adventure for younger gamers, graphics and voice acting capture the feel of the movie

Bad: Not-so-great adventure for older gamers, repetitive, dizzying camera, tedious key hunting, irritating checkpoint system

Who Writes This?: "My head feels like I just took a math class!"

If the makers of Monster House got one thing right, it's this: if you're going to rip off another game, at least rip off a good one. Thankfully, the ripped-off game in question is Resident Evil 4, which happens to be one of the greatest games of all time. Monster House, on the other hand, is not.

The game is based off of the recently released animated film of the same name. Its plot revolves around a trio of 12-year-olds named DJ, Chowder, and Jenny. DJ lives across the street from a reclusive old man named Mr. Nebbercracker, whose house has a nasty habit of eating stray objects and people. Our trusty pubescent heroes have decided that they've had enough, and have set out on a mission to kill the house itself, a job which apparently requires nothing but Super Soakers, a slingshot, and a camera.

The majority of the game revolves around controlling the three different characters as they explore the mansion in effort to find its heart and kill the house. The gameplay itself bears a striking resemblance to Resident Evil 4, at least if they took out the aiming system and replaced actual firearms with water guns. The game's camera is situated behind the character, and can be rotated to the left or right of the player to gain a better view of the surroundings. Often though, the camera gets in the way of the action and is more of a pain than it is helpful. In combat, you will frequently find yourself struggling just to keep the enemy in your sights.

Combat is actually a fairly simple matter of looking towards the enemy and hitting the fire button. Each character has a different type of water gun, with DJ's firing at an average rate and doing average damage, Jenny's firing more like a machine gun but doing less damage, and Chowder's firing much like a shotgun with a wide but short blast range. The weapons are also upgradeable as the game progresses, but this actually has a fairly insignificant effect on combat. All of the characters come equipped with their own unique special attack. DJ has a camera that stuns enemies, Jenny has a slingshot that causes damage and is used in a few puzzles, and Chowder has the ability to shoot water balloons, which do damage to a large area. While the different abilities are interesting, they don't exactly add a lot of depth to combat. One last tactic players have at their disposal is the ability to lock onto enemies and circle around them while firing. Unfortunately, this feature is rather poorly implemented, as it's often difficult to lock onto enemies that are more than a few feet away.

Between firefights (waterfights rather) players also encounter a number of simple Resident Evil-style puzzles. These run the gamut from hunting for keys to breaking furniture for keys to pushing boxes for keys. In short, much of the game revolves around searching and backtracking all in effort to find keys. While younger gamers might not mind this routine, most adventure veterans will quickly grow tired of the monotony. To make matters worse, the enemy variety is pretty small, and the sheer amount of fights you'll have to put up with in your journeys becomes grating after a short period of time. I can only tolerate so many fights with walking chairs and television sets with arms before I start to get bored.

Another minor problem comes with the game's checkpoint system. With no in-game save feature, players are sometimes stuck replaying entire levels should they die. Since the game is fairly easy overall, this isn't too much of a problem, but there are a few notable instances where this can be very aggravating. Much like Resident Evil 4, Monster House features a number of pseudo-interactive cut scenes, where timed button presses are critical to your character's survival. Since the required button is entirely random, there will be times where you will accidentally hit the wrong button and suddenly find yourself redoing the last 30 minutes of gameplay.

Even with the annoyance of redoing levels, the game still falls on the short side. The entire game should only take 7 or 8 hours for most players to beat, and with no alternate difficulty levels, there's almost no incentive to go through again. The game does offer two extra distractions to keep players busy a little longer. The first is a collectible monkey mini-game which is spread out through the main quest. Uncovering these hidden monkeys unlocks art galleries in the game's main menu. The other extra feature comes in the form of Thou Art Dead, a Castlevania-influenced side scroller, which uses game tokens hidden throughout the main quest. The extra offers a bit of retro-gaming nostalgia, but its novelty wears off quickly.

The game's graphics and sound are actually two of its strongest points, as both capture the feel of the movie quite well. The character models look very close to their movie counterparts, and the environmental design is appropriately cartoony and childishly creepy. Unfortunately, occasional framerate drops and lighting problems mar the otherwise acceptable graphical package. The sound is exceptionally well done, with nice voice acting provided by the lead actors from the film. The music is also spot-on, featuring a number of selections from the film that complement the mood quite nicely.

While the game does a good job of capturing the look and sound of the film, the fact remains that it's really nothing more than a young gamer's Resident Evil 4, sans the innovation, tight control scheme, and sense of adventure. Fans of the movie might enjoy the look and feel of the game, but ultimately there's just not enough quality gameplay here to warrant a purchase.

Graphics: 7.0

Sound: 8.0

First Play: 6.0

Replay Value: 4.0

Gameplay: 6.0

Overall: 6.3