Gaming Target - Xbox: Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee

Written by Leigh Culpin on June 27, 2003

Full Review: Just УGodzillaФ was too simple a title??

A fighting game. The newest Godzilla game is a fighting game. But does everyone's favorite big green monster manage to do better than the last major film version of the series? Hell yeah.

To be brutally honest, it doesn't do THAT much better on many levels. The graphics are decent but nothing special (and certainly nothing that can't be done on the other next-gen systems), the sound's only average and the gameplay has some issues. But is it fun?? Well that depends on your definition of fun.

The story was pretty much thrown in for the same reason as any other fighter Ц so you can say one's there. It's really immaterial to the game, though it does throw some mild humor in here and there. The Story mode (though it's not called that) pits you against a series of monsters in a series of locals, and eventually you end up fighting a final boss to gain new characters. Typical fighting game structure. However, the game modes don't stop there.

There's also a survival mode, a few multiplayer modes (such as team deathmatch and deathmatch) that let you pit your skills against 3 friends and there's even a destruction mode where the goal is to cause as much damage to the city around you as is possible. While the cities do a respectable job of making you feel large at first, the small arena size and lack of a large number of pedestrians or cars slowly diminish that feeling of size and instead make you feel like you're running around a miniature city set, just like the old movies.

Then again, there are a lot of cities to choose from (once you unlock them all) and they do have some notable landmarks. Regardless of whether or not you actually feel big, it is pretty damned cool to knock over, or better yet, pick up and throw buildings at your opponent(s). There's even tanks and helicopters that will attack you or the other combatants in a last ditch effort to save the city. While these don't generally do much damage, they certainly do help the Godzilla feeling find itself.

Your basic moves are kick, punch, a rage move, and your special attacks (for instance, Godzilla can shoot out a ball of napalm or a plasma beam type deal, whereas MechaGodzilla can shoot lasers from his eyes and rockets from his finger tips). Each monster has his (or it's) own set of combos and abilities; only problem is, the control system needs some work, since pulling off the move you want to can be frustratingly difficult for the first while. However, while there aren't a huge variety of moves for each character, they all do have their own set and there is a decent amount of variation offered. Some characters can even fly for short periods, and one can even burrow underground.

Control system aside, it can be a pretty damn fun game. The biggest issue is the difficulty, which in turn is really only created by the control issues. Once you get past those then the game gets significantly easier and more fun to play, and while there shouldn't really be such a learning curve in the first place, the developers certainly could have done worse.

Graphically the game is all right, but not much more. The characters all look like they should, the special effects are respectable and the cities are well done, but there's nothing awe inspiring or as cool looking as that mediocre-at-best Godzilla movie from a ways back. Once again, the developers could have done worse, but they could have done better too. The same goes for the sound Ц nothing really stands out as terrific (certainly not the music), though everything gets the job done as it should.