Scooby hides from a dimwitted zombie.

Fans of the original cartoon series will see a lot of familiar faces among the spooks running around Mystic Manor.  The developers even tried to make the game resemble an episode from the series by including a 3D rendition of the cartoon's opening credits and a laugh track.  You can also look for "monster tokens" which unlock monsters in the game's "Monster Gallery" for later viewing.  Unfortunately all of these efforts fall short.  The laugh track just plain seems odd in a video game and on top of that it is muted to the point of sounding more odd than funny.  When you find a monster token and unlock a monster in the gallery, you get to look at a static 3D model of the monster and you also get to read a few trivia tidbits.  Perhaps if your efforts were rewarded with a video clip of the monster from the series or if you could move the monster around it would be worth collecting the tokens, but as it stands there's not much of a reward for the effort.  The biggest disappointment of all is that the monsters from the classic series are basically interchangeable, and they mostly wander around in circles.  The series was filled with scenes of Scooby being chased by monsters, not of him sidestepping monsters walking in circles.

After watching the game's opening sequence I was looking forward to the chance to guide Scooby through a new mystery, but that enthusiasm was worn down by its generic platform gameplay.  There is nothing new here, and the tried and true platform elements are simply ho-hum.  Making it through a level to find a wacky invention to increase your powers sounds like fun, but when the payoff is that you can jump a little higher or ram easily avoided enemies you'll find your excitement rapidly waning.  What you've got here is a very generic platformer best left to obsessed Scooby fans or an evening's rental.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 63%.  The game does a good job of capturing the look of Scooby Doo, but has none of its spirit.

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