Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia is a zombified cornucopia filled with non-stop arcade action, dozens of monsters to blast away and send back into the ground from whence they came and zombie dancing. You take control of one of four overly-clichéd teenagers; Zack, who thinks he's living in an RPG, the gothic Carrie, super strong and super pessimistic, the slacker Andy, a skateboarder who has a crush on Jennifer but will never have a chance, and the prissy Jennifer, with a chest that would make Tomonobu Itagaki proud. The game takes place in the town of Suburbia, your average, run-of-the-mill sprawling suburb. I guess it's also worth mentioning that the whole town has been overrun by zombies and it's up to these four kids to defeat this undead horde and save their neighbors because, for whatever reason, they're the last group of people to be attacked and also the only ones capable of surviving a zombie onslaught.

The game has a real B-movie feel to it, because the characters are incredibly generalized, the lines are ridiculously cheesy and even the cut scenes have a shoddy quality to them. The game never really takes itself seriously and I for one am a fan of this direction, as it really gives the game a unique feel. It differs from all the serious games out there and as such is a real breath of fresh air. There are five areas on offer, each containing three to five stages, which take you through the suburbs, a shopping mall (this is practically mandatory when zombies are involved!), the high school, a cemetery and a castle. Although there are four difficulty levels available, Monster Madness is hard. Even on Child's Play, the lowest setting, a lot of areas are very challenging. Then there are other areas that are downright frustrating. A lot of times I contemplated what would be a more painful experience - continuing to play Monster Madness or going into my garage and hitting myself over the head with a hammer! Even though it's tough, the game has a great sense of humor. You'll probably find yourself chuckling at some of the jokes along the way, while homage is paid to various games and movies. In the first level of the third chapter, aliens come to Earth, saying they are going to finally get revenge for the slaughter of their people for two decades. Then they hold up a picture of a space invader!

The graphics of Monster Madness are definitely eye candy and no mistake. Running on the Unreal Engine 3, expect next-gen quality with a hint of shininess. Also expect to find over-exaggerated physics, which I love, as this further adds to the zaniness that the game has to offer. The characters are all comically designed to fit their stereotypes and the enemies are pretty much what you'd expect to find, plus more. You'll see some of the obvious ones, like zombies and skeletons, some interesting ones, like Bob Zombie, an undead Jamaican who enjoys reggae and throwing cars and some crazy ones, like the wheelers, which are zombie torsos that use wagons as transportation. All the characters are unique, and you'll never run into one and think it's the same model as another character with a different color-set. Every environment is absolutely packed with enemies, scenery and objects, all of which are lovingly crafted in gorgeous detail and look totally 3D, with a fun, slightly exaggerated cartoon style used to great effect. The effects are great, whether you're burning something with your flamethrower or getting electrocuted by a power line. Unfortunately, probably due to just how busy the screen often gets, the game suffers from some slowdown. Every once in a while, even with just one player, you will experience frame rate drops, which is incredibly annoying when it happens. Fortunately, periods of slowdown are sporadic and short, but even so, a game of this caliber should not really have any slowdown at all.

The levels are very well made and fun to play. A lot of the items around you are destructible and can be used as weapons, or just kicked around to mess with the physics. You won't be putting this game down due to boredom, but rather due to extreme anger! There are a lot of different goals throughout the missions too, which really add to the variety of the gameplay. You won't get tired of just hacking and slashing zombies, because that isn't the only thing you're doing. Occasionally you have to fight a set number of enemies in Monster Fests, which can get really difficult if you don't have a good strategy going into battle. There are also levels where you have to fly in a UFO to defeat your enemies, escort your janitor to open a door for you and drive away from an insane driver trying to run you off the road. The types of goals are as many as they are crazy and they never feel rehashed or tacked on. In one level you're even turned into a zombie and you have to dance to get other zombies to follow you to your goal!

While the graphics are luscious, the sound is really hit and miss. Most of the music fits the mood perfectly, giving the game the horror-themed soundtrack it needs. For example, the menu music is something you might expect out of a Castlevania title. There are also some rockin' tunes that really get you pumped for the fights you encounter. Unfortunately, there are levels where the music is dull. In these levels, you won't even realize there's music playing and when you actually take a minute to notice it, you'll probably end up realizing that you would have been better off if you hadn't. The characters you use all have a handful of lines, but after playing for a while you'll probably find yourself tired of them. The voice actors for the characters fit their appearance very well, but the same can't be said for the monsters. I honestly think that one person did all the voice work for your enemies! You'll hear the occasional grunts from most of them, while Evil Clowns laugh, Fat Zombies sound like peons from Warcraft and fart, and zeppelins scream as they crash into the ground and explode.

The bosses, on the other hand, are more complex, as you would expect. They actually have lines, although not very many. It also seems like the voice actor(s) just didn't even really try with some of them though, and this does get annoying, hearing the same, half-assed line of dialog over and over again. Prepare yourself for the worst when you fight Mr. Huggles, a Barney spoof who talks in that ridiculous voice as if he just got punched in the stomach. And to make matters worse, he squeaks every time he moves. Which he does a lot. This makes for a boss fight that either makes you want to either mute the TV or rip off your ears. Not pleasant at all. Without going into complete detail about other bosses, there are others that are just as annoying. Well, maybe not as annoying, because that's close to impossible, but almost as bad. I just have to mention one last character, though. The Leprechaun. Now, I could be wrong, but I thought leprechauns had Irish accents. Not this one. The voice actor tries, but fails miserably, sounding more like a teenage boy going through puberty.

With a fairly unusual gameplay mechanic, Monster Madness is probably best likened to retro classic Smash TV, in both the way it controls and the core concept. You move your character with the left thumbstick and you aim by simply moving the right thumbstick in the direction you want to fire on-screen. Right fires your main weapon while left trigger uses your secondary weapon, such as bombs. You can carry a number of main and secondary weapons, and the bumpers are used to cycle through and select them - this can be a pain to do in the heat of the action, although it's hard to think of a better way to do it on-the-fly. The thumbsticks are put to full use, with dodging and jumping achieved by clicking the left and right thumbsticks accordingly, while X allows you to pick up random items on the ground to throw, enter vehicles or activate environmental hazards that damage all enemies in their range, and you too if you're not careful!

In principle the controls are simple enough, but in practice they're not particularly intuitive and do take a bit of getting used to - it would probably have been better if moving the right thumbstick actually fired your main weapon, rather than having to hold down the right trigger as well. Another problem comes when you're in the one of the vehicles, where you have to use the left analog stick to steer, the right analog stick to shoot and the right trigger to accelerate, a combination that's really tricky to get used to when it comes to coordinating speed, the direction of your vehicle and the direction of fire. The camera really can make things even more difficult, as you can't really rotate it, zoom in or zoom out. Sometimes you're in third person mode, with the camera behind you, then all of a sudden it zooms up to an overhead view. The camera also tends to twist and turn by itself, which doesn't help at all when there's a crazy battle going on - which there is almost all the time!

Fortunately, there's a huge arsenal of weapons at your disposal with which to obliterate your enemies, although getting them is the tough part. Each character starts out with a different weapon; Zack has an ax, Carrie has a katana, Andy has a plunger (?!) and Jennifer uses double batons. Later you meet Larry, a macho biker who drives around in a bus and sells you items and weapons in exchange for parts and monster tokens. You can purchase anything from bombs to a shotgun or an amulet that transforms you into a beast to a rocket launcher. You'll also find a variety of everyday items that you can use as weapons scattered all over the levels. Unfortunately, a traffic cone isn't exactly as intimidating or as powerful as an ax, so you won't find yourself using these as much, if at all. Most of these items can only be used as projectiles anyway, so it's not worth the trouble to have to pick them up, throw them, and repeat. Larry also gives you vehicles and special items when you need them, like a vacuum and a mech, which, to sum them up with one word, are awesome. You can only use them for the one area you receive them, however, which is a downer. You get parts to pay Larry with by just looking around the levels; they're scattered all over the place. You'll find clocks, screws, gears, plutonium and more. These can also be used to upgrade your weapons, if you find enough of them. The monster tokens are the main currency of the game; every time you defeat a monster, it drops a bunch of little gems of varying colors and different values. There are also a bunch of vehicles to commandeer during the game too, such as ATVs and UFOs, plus those environmental hazards, like a rampaging lawnmower or an electrified pool of water.

One of the huge aspects of the game comes in the form of the multiplayer. This game could have been an absolute blast to play over Xbox Live with friends in the story mode. Unfortunately, this is impossible. Even the back of the case says "Up to four players can team up on one system, or take the battle online together!" Only the first part is true though; you can only play the story mode with other people locally. It's really a bummer not to have online co-op, because with the game being as difficult as it is, you need all the help you can get. When you enter the Xbox Live menu, you can select ranked or player matches. Both of these selections let you either join someone else's game or host your own. There are two options to pick when selecting a type of field: Arena and Battlefield. Arena levels are tiny, usually as big as your TV screen, and you can have up to four players brawling. You can pick a bunch of playing arenas such as the mall and the school gym, and either duke it out in a deathmatch or capture the flag game. As you would imagine, these games are usually frantic, being in such a confined area. The gameplay is very much like the story mode, but instead of having to buy actual weapons, they're scattered all over the screen. So right from the get go you can blast someone with your rocket launcher or torch someone with your flamethrower.

Battlefield levels are the complete opposite. Here, you can duke it out on huge maps, with anywhere from four to sixteen people, depending on the maps. The play is the same as it is with Arena, and you can also play deathmatch or capture the flag. However, with more space comes more choices. Also included in Battlefield gametypes are King of the Hill, Monster Hunter, where you have to run from whoever's a giant Frankenstein monster until he's dead or time runs out, and Monster Dojo, where you must defeat wave after wave of enemies. The multiplayer is fun and adds some replay value to the game. Surprisingly, there are people that are playing the multiplayer, so you shouldn't have a problem finding a match.

I know a lot of people play games for the achievements, but getting those points is just as hard as the game itself. I'm not saying they're bad - they're actually some of the more creative ones, having you beat the levels a certain way, then the more obvious ones, such as collecting all the monsters in the bestiary, collecting all the costumes and achievements in multiplayer. Achievements always tend to add longevity to Xbox 360 games, but you'd have to be crazy to even want to attempt to tackle them. Just getting a couple seems like an achievement in itself!

Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia is a fun game. Although it does have a couple of flaws like a temperamental camera and some slowdown, as well as controls that take a little getting used to, it's such a blast to play and very addictive once you get into it. The old-school action shines through the minor technical issues and the sumptuous graphics and fun horror theme really do the concept justice. It feels a bit too much like a very good-looking Xbox Live Arcade title to be quite worth full price, but if you like the look of it then it's well worth a rental, and if you spot it on sale then you should give it a go, because the humor and pure entertainment value make it a great one to play in short bursts, alone or with friends.

Reviewed by Ryan Brenner for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).