Shrek Superslam

Is a beat'em up based on Shrek a good idea? Let's find out...

There aren't that many cut scenes in the game, just in the story mode. There are introduction animations for each character before each fight but these are always the same. The fight arenas are also typically Shrek with lots of colourful backdrops and lots of items hanging around that can be broken up and used as weaponry. One challenge involves throwing gingerbread men opponents into the fire in the bakery, for instance.

Being able to have four players in a fairly simple and frantic game lends itself to the party game area. The lack of support for Xbox Live means that to play it as a party game you have to get your friends round. The resulting game can be quite fun but compared with other titles of this type, like Super Smash Bros, it tends to feel a little sluggish and the frame rate does tend to drop off slightly as you get more action on screen.

With over 20 characters and 16 arenas there's plenty of variety for you and your friends. You can also inject some computer controlled mayhem into your battles, up to a total of four characters in one battle. The free for all battles can get quite difficult to follow and to try and keep track of who's in the lead and how many more slams you need. There's also a king of the hill mode where you can gain points for each second you occupy an area of the map. These two multiplayer modes can get tedious as there's not much scope for variety.

Shrek Superslam tries to tread the line between fine fighting and button bashing. This creates a game that's easy to pick up and play and that it's possible to inject some finess into. You can create combo attacks, attack reversals and wall attacks as well as a variety of throws and of course utilise the scenery. This is the line walked by it's predecessors Super Smash Bros and Powerstone and these show how to walk that line more successfully. That's not to say that Shrek doesn't do a good job but it doesn't manage to liveup to the legacy of its predecessors.

The characters don't move with the speed and finesse of those in Smash Bros and the fighting has less finesse. The recognisable characters help to make this title stand out and it's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're a big fan of Shrek then this is definitely a title worth checking out. If you're not but you like this type of game then there are better examples out there.

This review comes courtesy of our friends at www.boomtown.net . The home of harcore PC, Xbox, PS2, GameCube and handheld gaming news, previews, features and reviews.