Shrek: Super Party for GameCube Reviews & Ratings by IGN

Activision hasn't taken too many late nights to think out this one. They've snagged the familiar and popular Super Smash Bros Melee formula and laid down the Shrek franchise right on top of it. The result, not too extraordinarily, is Shrek Super Slam, a two- to four-player action-fighting game with giant green trolls, talking donkeys, and valiant sword-fighting cats who brawl like the best of them.

In development with Shaba Games for Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Xbox and due this fall, Shrek Super Slam blends hilarity, classic situations, and great characters into fun-for-the-whole family entertainment. Or rather, Shaba Games' title is, more realistically a light-weight, movie-licensed, formulaic copycat game that Activision hopes will be fun for the entire family. Let's just say this one isn't for all you hardcore folks.

The game features five single-player modes, Melee, Story, Practice, Ladder, and Mega Challenge and offers 16 levels derived from movies, old fairy tales, pop culture and more familiar sources. There's the Gingerbread Man's mansion, with its chocolate Jacuzzi, for instance, or the giant castle surrounded by the mote of fiery lava. Each dynamic location offers moving backgrounds and interactive environments. For instance, the castle we just mentioned features random arcing fireballs that fly across the bridge in which you fight, often knocking you senseless. The fireballs and sometimes your own devastating moves can cause damage to the environments.

Shaba Games enables players to forge through the single-player story mode, offering good variation in levels, and rewarding gamers with unlockable moves to strengthen them for multiplayer mode. Using the game's "slam meter," players can unleash deadly attacks that cause damage to a single or multiple enemies, such as Shrek's Green Storm, a giant green fart cloud. Puss N Boots offers another payoff move with his "Love Stun," indicated by floating hearts.

Each level offers potions, much like in Super Smash Bros., enabling players "instant slammability," among other short-lived special powers that add variety and variation to the button-mashing brawler.

In the end, Shrek Super Slam is a fun little game for gamers who just can't get enough of Shrek, and who really don't want to think all that much don't care too much about originality, and who think they need a break from the Nintendo classic on GameCube. Hey, you got to give it to Shrek and his buddies, they've got attitude to spare, and for a game of this nature, that goes a long way.

©2005, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved