If you have noticed the insane amount of movie-based games being released or announced this past while, youre not alone. It seems every movie, no matter how poor, is getting a game to go along with it these days. Thats why occasionally its nice to see a game like Scooby Doo: Night of 100 Frights being released simultaneously with the new live-action (and horrific) movie. Why you ask? Well because its based on the cartoon instead and according to THQ, is being released this summer just by coincidence. Well, do you want to know what I think about that? Its total BS! This is every bit an attempt at the cash cow that is licensed video games.

Scooby Doos look is very hit and miss. I did like the character models that, while plain, conveyed a cartoon-ish look that really suits the game. The characters are also animated well, especially Scooby Doo, who looks like a great 3D version of himself. Graphically however, the rest of Scooby Doo isnt so special. Foremost are the environments, which generally are very bland and consist of extremely low texture detail. Not all of the levels look bad, but they all have a muddy, PSone-ish look to them. Had developers Heavy Iron Studios not been pushed to finish the game in time for release, cleaner, more detailed level textures would have really upped the graphics score.

A pet peeve Ive always had with developers are those who aim for a younger demographic for their games, yet raise the difficulty way too high. This is one of Scooby Doos (many) problems. The game is clearly targeted for the 8-12 year old age group, yet I managed to have enough difficulty with it myself! Now to be fair, most of the difficulty comes from the terrible camera (which isnt controllable! Argh!) that never seems to give you the most effective angle. Scooby controls adequately, but that doesnt mean squat when you cant see where your jumping. Another frustration is the collision detection, which is forgiving enough when battling the games enemies, but is way too exact when it comes to item collection. You pretty much have to touch almost the entire item to collect it, which for a kids game is ridiculous. As an avid platforming fan, these blemishes didnt bother me nearly as much as Scoobys other fallacy; lack of variety. From the start to the end, you collect snacks (Scooby snacks that is!) to open doors and thats it. There are powerups you collect (double jump, shovel to dig, etc.) but these merely serve to contain you from going straight to the end. They actually degrade the game to tedious backtracking through the use of warp gates, which is unnecessarily confusing for the developers target demographic. These flaws make Scooby Doo too difficult for the younger audience and too bland for the older.

One aspect I loved about Scooby Doo however was its sound. Spot-on voice acting from the entire original cast brought back memories, and Tim Curry as the Mastermind is very entertaining. The sound effects are perfectly silly, although Scooby repeats himself a lot and it can get very annoying (I tell you, if I ever hear Scrrrooby Snacks! again Ill cry). During boss battles theyve even included classic Scooby Doo songs, with all the singing, which are just awesome. I must say though, I enjoyed the absolutely ridiculous laugh track the most. Nothing beats hearing an audience laugh while playing a game.

If there is anything that surprised me about Scooby Doo, it was its length. For a poor attempt at a license grab I figured the game would take me no longer than 3 or 4 hours. It actually turned out to be more around 6-7, however thanks to the awful camera, I died about a thousand times. There also is the temptation to go through again to collect all the snacks (and hidden tokens) but upon realization of the games poorness, youll likely refrain.

All in all, Scooby Doo is your run of the mill childrens platformer. However, with its many flaws (especially the issue of difficulty) youre better off going with something else for your young-uns. If youre looking for a game for yourself, go with Jak & Daxter or Rayman; Scooby just cant compare to those other games variety. So to quote the hilarious Dana Carvey, Scooby Doo? Scooby Dont!