Godzilla: Save the Earth for Xbox Reviews by Gamers

Once upon a time it was perfectly fine to throw in some classic characters, let them fight a bit and call it a day. That was the shape of things for when Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee came out and a couple years later we now have Godzilla: Save the Earth. In the meantime the gaming world has also seen War of the Monsters tackle the same material in a much more dynamic way. So when the same developer brings out a game that's basically the same as the old one with some minor additions as well as online capability there's little reason to be excited unless the title drops in price.

The appeal of Save the Earth is the same as before: up to four classic monsters from the Godzilla movies get on screen to duke it out. There's lots of breathing of fire, punches, tail whips, and even monsters tossing each other into skyscrapers. To up the ante there are now a total of 18 monsters to fight with, an increase from the original 11. The title is also a complete lie since much of the game is about destruction of buildings by bashing them or even throwing them around.

The fighting in the game is deceptively simple at first and deceptively deep as it progresses even further. It's entirely possible to jump into the four-player mode and duke it out with some friends and have a great time doing it, pulling off some cartoonish moves like spinning Godzilla on a spike, and not worry at all what the buttons really do. After that there is a bit of strategy to learn and some tactics, but to be honest it's not really that much. It's a party game with a little bit of depth, but nothing to really dig into with a buddy over several sessions.

One of the biggest assets and problems with the game is that it mirrors pretty closely the action of the movies. If anything, this is a B-game for the B-movies with the slow controls for the characters and the slow movements in the animations themselves. The overall effect doesn't seem to be that much more evolved that the movies with the overheated men in the stuffy rubber suits.

This lack of polish is seen in many other parts of the game in several different areas. The buildings almost all share the same way of falling down. The building shakes a bit and slowly slides to the ground as a little pile of rubble grows to meet it. There are a few skyscrapers that have some damage (i.e. chunks can get taken out), but the feeling of the game is like seeing a movie being filmed on a set that's filled with cardboard boxes painted up as office towers.

This clumsiness has other effects in the battle system with moves that are forcibly linked together that show off many seams in the design. A personal favorite is the grabbing move when one monster picks up another. The monster being grabbed suddenly goes completely stiff and straight and then slides towards the grabber as if by tractor beam. When the monster is held up he'll still be stuck in one pose unless the player tries to fight to wiggle free.

There are many other areas of clumsiness in the game that are laughable when up close to the camera in the one-on-one battles, but these fade away in importance in the four-player battle which is the clear focus of the game. With a few friends over, the melee mode is clearly the king and the variety of moves for the insanity helps the game become something better. This is where Destroy All Monster Melee shined and the game has barely changed since then.

Another thing that's the same is that the single-player is pretty much a write-off unless you really want to earn some points to unlock all of the characters and environments. There are some challenge modes, like blowing up ships or throwing boulders around, but they're little more than side quests of a side quest of a game that is a constant stream of one-on-one fights with other monsters. Except for the large amount of destructible objects there's little that's exciting about the single-player experience aside from collecting new items.

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