Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia really wishes it was born in the '80s. It's got its heart in the right place, aiming to capture the kitschy vibe of such zombie-murdering classics as Zombies Ate My Neighbors and creating a gameplay design that feels like a 3D mash-up of Gauntlet or Ikari Warriors. When you throw in four-player co-op play, a bunch of goofy competitive multiplayer modes, a lengthy campaign, and a ridiculous number of monsters to kill, the recipe for some good old-fashioned fun would seem to be in place. But Monster Madness botches the execution. This includes a counterintuitive control scheme, oddly balanced difficulty, obnoxiously repetitive combat, and a nearly useless camera in co-op mode. Eventually such problems become too numerous and too annoying to tolerate, turning what could have been a simple monster-killing romp into a scattered, clumsy mess.
Rating:5 out of 10
