Monsters INC. Scare Island

Written by Tom Clare in PSOne Game Reviews, Saturday 20 March, 2004

A decent Disney game? INCredible!

With only the very occasional exception, Disney films have perhaps fallen out of favour in the recent times previous to the release of Monsters INC. But it wasn't just the film that breathed new life into the ailing franchise - PSOne game Monsters INC. Scare Island was making smaller but equally significant waves on the console front.

In my experience, games of films have rarely fared well - in the past few years we've had the rather naff Small Soldiers and the ultimately disappointing The Italian Job, and many others harking back to the 16-bit days with the likes of Indiana Jones and the £70 atrocity that was Batman Returns.

However, not all film tie-ins are bad - the PlayStation has seen Die Hard Trilogy and Alien Resurrection both triumph and Disney have proven themselves as quality developers, although their last true classic, World of Illusion, was released nearly ten years before Monsters INC. What do these three successful tie-ins have in common? None were developed for release alongside a movie.

Monsters INC. doesn't have this luxury however, although the developers have done well to distinguish the plot and antics of the game as quite different from that of the film. Scare Island basically sees Mike and Sully (the two furry stars of the film) training to scare kids in an academy.

All this proves a good excuse for a 3D platform game spread across 12 levels. The 12 levels are themselves spread into themed sections - urban, oasis and snow/ice areas. Naturally, only a few levels are open to the player to begin with, but through scaring 'nerves' (robot simulations of kids) and collecting Monsters INC. coins you can gain bronze, silver and gold awards that go toward opening up new environments.

The levels may not be terribly original, but they are rather pleasant and also impressively large. It's a graphically vibrant and colourful game with solid if unspectacular animations and some nice effects. There are few glitches and the camera system is uncomplicated; allowing you to swing it 360 degrees around your character to get the most convenient view of your surroundings. Presentation is of the usual high standard expected of Disney and the numerous clips from the film add nicely to the overall polish of Monsters INC.

Aside from the old jumping around, exploring and bouncing on baddies formula, the main innovation lies in the 'scare' system. Once you have caught up with a nerve, you are transported into mini-game with close-up views of the said robot and the character you are playing as. By tapping various instructed buttons on the control pad, Sully and Mike will launch themselves into a variety of ridiculously funny poses in an attempt to scare the...erm, circuits out of the nerves. Both characters regularly raise a smile with their antics - Mike poking himself in his enormous single-eye and then squealing in pain is a side-splitter and Sully blowing up a paper bag and popping it in the nerves face is always worth a watch too. The colour-coded nerves vary in the amount of scaring they need to be officially deemed 'scared', but as the game is aimed at the younger end of the market, they hold little challenge and are more of a nice distraction.

At certain points in the game you are given the chance to race one-on-one with the bad guy from the film, Randall. These intermissions involve zooming down slides whilst skilfully avoiding obstacles and tripping over Randall himself - good fun all in all and probably among the most challenging sections of Monsters INC.

Nicely, there is a training section to ease youngsters into the game, which is basically a step-by-step guide to the basics (controls, scaring and general exploration). Unlike many training options in platform games, this is actually quite enjoyable and fairly relevant too.

The voices are not provided by Billy Crystal and John Goodman for the game although fans will be pleased with the resemblance which is for the most part, very convincing. They each have several lines of dialogue to mutter and sound just like their film counterparts.

Monsters INC. is actually quite a long game, despite the difficulty being set quite low (it's easy to amass 30 or 40 lives in no time at all). The fact that you will have to return to earlier levels having unlocked certain abilities later on (such as trampolines) means that there is plenty of value to the 12 levels, as each needs to be explored fairly thoroughly to uncover everything. Children will not get bored too quickly due to the strikingly changeable level designs and the chance to unlock a large selection of clips from the film (be aware though that they do act as spoilers as they mark all the key moments of the movie).

Having already been in the shops for around a year and a half, you should be able to track it down for around £12 new, and is still available in most stores that continue to support PSOne software (Woolworth's, Choices, Asda etc.).

It's by no means a classic (not by a long shot), but though Scare Island is neither the most original, enjoyable or ambitious of platformer's, it does everything it sets out to do very well. It's pretty, it's amusing, the controls are responsive and uncomplicated and it delivers a good few days worth of 3D platforming fun.

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