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IGN Review of Scooby Doo! Who's Watching Who?
Scooby-Doo! Who's Watching Who? has one major thing going for it. There is no Scrappy-Doo. Yes, that sound you hear is a collective cry of joy around the world. However, the fact that this is one of the game's strongest points is not a good sign.
Who's Watching You is your typical platformer. Each level starts out with a themed hub world, and from there you collect Scooby dog tags to unlock three sub-levels. These levels are divided into an "Investigation" stage (generic platforming), a "Driving" level (crashing into walls with the clunky Mystery Machine), and a "Chase" sequence (falling into holes you can't see). The point of each level is to find clues strewn about and solve that "episode's" mystery. These clues can then be analyzed by Velma via a series of frustrating, unpolished mini-games. When you get enough dirt on a suspect, you can try to catch them by setting off a series of traps when they walk under them (such as pushing a cannon on top of a suspect). The Scooby gang plays for keeps.
Unfortunately for poor Scooby, the game is haunted by an unending series of glitches and bugs. During the investigation levels, a spotty framerate and wonky camera are the main culprits. The camera likes to swing around for no reason (especially in some of the later levels that are mainly made of small corridors), and the jittery framerate leads to many hair-tearing deaths. Not to mention that it's common to fall through objects, walls, floors, and enemies. Oddly enough, it's actually hard to fall into some gaping holes... holes that you're supposed to fall in. All of these cases usually lead to an untimely death, so it's not fun having to fight enemies and the gameplay at the same time. This should have been called "Scooby-Doo: Who's Controlling Who?" I'll give you a hint: it's not the player.
The driving levels are not much better: the controls are unresponsive and crashing into walls is the norm. Most of these levels are of the usual "drive around and collect stuff" sort, but there are a few variations. Like an utterly bizarre capture-the-flag level, where you have to race against a flying boat to grab pirate skeleton hats and return them to glowing points on the map. I'm still not quite sure how that helped anyone solve a mystery, but we'll go with it.
However, the worst levels are the chase sequences. In these, Scooby and Shaggy are constantly running towards the camera while the main monster pursues them. During these parts, the player has no control over the camera so there is no way of telling what's ahead (which is unfortunate, because it's usually a giant hole that wants to eat you). During these cases, one can only hope that the game glitches them out of these holes when they fall it.
The game is not all bad though. Each level has a pretty distinct feel to it, and the graphics have a clean, cel-shaded look that matches the cartoon quite nicely. There are frequent CG cutscenes with voice actors from the cartoon, so the game really does feel like you're taking part in an actual episode. The series' trademarked humor is also intact, and the developers have provided unlockable sound tests and character art if you don't know what to do with all of those dog tags you've accumulated while dying.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Who's Watching You is your typical platformer. Each level starts out with a themed hub world, and from there you collect Scooby dog tags to unlock three sub-levels. These levels are divided into an "Investigation" stage (generic platforming), a "Driving" level (crashing into walls with the clunky Mystery Machine), and a "Chase" sequence (falling into holes you can't see). The point of each level is to find clues strewn about and solve that "episode's" mystery. These clues can then be analyzed by Velma via a series of frustrating, unpolished mini-games. When you get enough dirt on a suspect, you can try to catch them by setting off a series of traps when they walk under them (such as pushing a cannon on top of a suspect). The Scooby gang plays for keeps.
Unfortunately for poor Scooby, the game is haunted by an unending series of glitches and bugs. During the investigation levels, a spotty framerate and wonky camera are the main culprits. The camera likes to swing around for no reason (especially in some of the later levels that are mainly made of small corridors), and the jittery framerate leads to many hair-tearing deaths. Not to mention that it's common to fall through objects, walls, floors, and enemies. Oddly enough, it's actually hard to fall into some gaping holes... holes that you're supposed to fall in. All of these cases usually lead to an untimely death, so it's not fun having to fight enemies and the gameplay at the same time. This should have been called "Scooby-Doo: Who's Controlling Who?" I'll give you a hint: it's not the player.
The driving levels are not much better: the controls are unresponsive and crashing into walls is the norm. Most of these levels are of the usual "drive around and collect stuff" sort, but there are a few variations. Like an utterly bizarre capture-the-flag level, where you have to race against a flying boat to grab pirate skeleton hats and return them to glowing points on the map. I'm still not quite sure how that helped anyone solve a mystery, but we'll go with it.
However, the worst levels are the chase sequences. In these, Scooby and Shaggy are constantly running towards the camera while the main monster pursues them. During these parts, the player has no control over the camera so there is no way of telling what's ahead (which is unfortunate, because it's usually a giant hole that wants to eat you). During these cases, one can only hope that the game glitches them out of these holes when they fall it.
The game is not all bad though. Each level has a pretty distinct feel to it, and the graphics have a clean, cel-shaded look that matches the cartoon quite nicely. There are frequent CG cutscenes with voice actors from the cartoon, so the game really does feel like you're taking part in an actual episode. The series' trademarked humor is also intact, and the developers have provided unlockable sound tests and character art if you don't know what to do with all of those dog tags you've accumulated while dying.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved