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IGN Review of Godzilla Unleashed
Why is it so hard to make games involving giant monsters fighting in recognizable urban landscapes fun? Going all the way back to the NES, Godzilla games are rarely more than a cheap, mediocre cash-in on the Toho license. Kaiju fans will likely get more enjoyment out of watching Godzilla vs. Monster Zero for the millionth time than giving the giant lizard's latest game a play.
Godzilla: Unleashed is another four-player brawler starring the radioactive lizard and all his giant monster buddies. The roster includes a good chunk of the kaiju creatures fans know from the movies as well as one new abnormality called Obsidius. There are nine real-world locations waiting to be leveled by you and your otaku friends. Each beast shares the same control scheme but has its own special attacks and throws.
This is not a nuanced fighting game requiring timing, reflexes, or strategy. This is a button masher. My four-year-old cousins were able to pick it up for the first time and immediately start wreaking havoc. It's great that the game is easy to get into, but the lack of depth means it gets old really fast. Not all of the controls work well, either. When launching a ranged attack the right stick can be used to aim but it proves rather difficult to hit your intended target. Better to let the game's auto-aim do the work for you.
Since the monsters are all so different in design it would have been nice to individualize the way they are controlled and manipulated. This would have been the perfect opportunity for a developer to create a bunch of stats for its characters like speed, strength, and range, then vary the stats across all monsters so there are more options for the player to consider than just their appearance.
The single-player mode is extremely repetitive. Players pick their monster, then fight the bad guys one by one. The environments to be battled in are only "interactive" in the loosest sense of the word. Buildings will be knocked down, and smaller ones can be picked up and thrown, but that's it. I would like to have seen the arenas play a larger part in gameplay: trick your opponent into stumbling over a low building, push taller skyscrapers over onto the enemy, pick up telephone poles to use as clubs… It's not a good sign when a game makes you think of all the things you wish you could do with it but can't.
Unleashed is not very easy on the eyes. Cities vaguely match their real-world counterparts, but lack detail. Buildings don't crumble -- they sink into the ground leaving no rubble. As Godzilla, who weighs somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000 tons (look it up), makes his way through water he makes no splash. There are some decent effects, though, attached to ranged attacks like Godzilla's atomic breath.
Kaiju fans will be glad to hear the authentic roars for each monster have been included. However, the recognizable Godzilla march is noticeably absent. In its place is some of the cheesiest videogame metal this side of Eye of Judgment. Some of the sound effects are of very poor quality, as well, sounding like low-bitrate mp3s.
I gathered up a few IGN editors to try out the four-way multiplayer battles, and after just a few rounds nobody wanted to play anymore. There's not enough here to keep most gamers' attention past a few minutes. Once you've seen each monster's special moves the game holds no other secrets to be discovered.
©2007-11-30, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Godzilla: Unleashed is another four-player brawler starring the radioactive lizard and all his giant monster buddies. The roster includes a good chunk of the kaiju creatures fans know from the movies as well as one new abnormality called Obsidius. There are nine real-world locations waiting to be leveled by you and your otaku friends. Each beast shares the same control scheme but has its own special attacks and throws.
This is not a nuanced fighting game requiring timing, reflexes, or strategy. This is a button masher. My four-year-old cousins were able to pick it up for the first time and immediately start wreaking havoc. It's great that the game is easy to get into, but the lack of depth means it gets old really fast. Not all of the controls work well, either. When launching a ranged attack the right stick can be used to aim but it proves rather difficult to hit your intended target. Better to let the game's auto-aim do the work for you.
Since the monsters are all so different in design it would have been nice to individualize the way they are controlled and manipulated. This would have been the perfect opportunity for a developer to create a bunch of stats for its characters like speed, strength, and range, then vary the stats across all monsters so there are more options for the player to consider than just their appearance.
The single-player mode is extremely repetitive. Players pick their monster, then fight the bad guys one by one. The environments to be battled in are only "interactive" in the loosest sense of the word. Buildings will be knocked down, and smaller ones can be picked up and thrown, but that's it. I would like to have seen the arenas play a larger part in gameplay: trick your opponent into stumbling over a low building, push taller skyscrapers over onto the enemy, pick up telephone poles to use as clubs… It's not a good sign when a game makes you think of all the things you wish you could do with it but can't.
Unleashed is not very easy on the eyes. Cities vaguely match their real-world counterparts, but lack detail. Buildings don't crumble -- they sink into the ground leaving no rubble. As Godzilla, who weighs somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000 tons (look it up), makes his way through water he makes no splash. There are some decent effects, though, attached to ranged attacks like Godzilla's atomic breath.
Kaiju fans will be glad to hear the authentic roars for each monster have been included. However, the recognizable Godzilla march is noticeably absent. In its place is some of the cheesiest videogame metal this side of Eye of Judgment. Some of the sound effects are of very poor quality, as well, sounding like low-bitrate mp3s.
I gathered up a few IGN editors to try out the four-way multiplayer battles, and after just a few rounds nobody wanted to play anymore. There's not enough here to keep most gamers' attention past a few minutes. Once you've seen each monster's special moves the game holds no other secrets to be discovered.
©2007-11-30, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved