By Ned Jordan

Monster vs. Aliens is in a scary category. Monsters? Aliens? No, the category to which I refer is game's based on movie licenses, a category that gets even scarier when you're talking about movie's primarily aimed at kids. After turning all the lights on and checking all of the doors twice I sat down to play Monsters vs. Aliens and found that it's not all that scary after all. It's by no means a great game, sitting on the left side of the large zone on the curve reserved for games that are merely average, but it can probably hold the interest of kids that liked the movie. More sophisticated or mature gamers should spend their precious few gaming hours pursuing monsters and aliens in some other game.

Monsters vs. Aliens gives you the chance to play as three characters from the film, but each of these is pretty much a one trick pony, making the game a three trick pony of sorts overall. Ginormica is the woman mutated to super size, but in the game she chooses to use her powers to fashion skates out of whatever vehicles she can get her hands on (or rather, feet into). Her levels are of the skating variety that you've seen in plenty of games before – jump that gap, duck that obstacle, grind that rail. The Missing Link is some sort of bizarre lizard-fish-monkey thing and is the game's token platforming character. His levels are of the crate-smashing, enemy-bashing kind. The last character is B.O.B. the blob. His levels tend to puzzle-like mazes where his blob qualities are used to do things like stick to walls and sucking things up while avoiding slipping through grates.

The mechanics for each of the three characters levels are used over and over again throughout the game, so the gameplay soon grows old for anyone who can't handle repetition the way a younger kid can. They all over-use various controller shakes and waggles the way many Wii games do, integrating motion control into the game for the mere sake of having motion control. The game adds collectibles in the form of DNA strands that can be spent in a DNA lab between levels to collect unlockables. This adds an element to the game that the kiddies may like, but it's not enough to overcome the game's repetitive nature.

Monsters vs. Aliens is not terrible, but it's not great either. Kids who enjoyed the film will probably be OK with it, but it would have been nice if they were given a more compelling game.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 64%. A game best left to kids who really, really liked the movie. Other kids and everyone else should look to get their gameplaying fun elsewhere.