Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia has been around for far too long, surfacing into the media from time to time for the past couple years. Finally Southpeak has released the game into the mass market for the Xbox 360 and PC with many upgrades and improvements from its first appearance. What is more enjoyable than slashing up thousands of zombies, werewolves and mystical creatures? Monster Madness throws in not only that but up to four player co-op goodness we’ve seen in the past with top down shooters along side online multiplayer and a fully interactive world. But with the next-generation at a high standard, how does this traditional shooter stand out in the crowd?

The main appearance that works extremely well for Monster Madness is its comic book Halloween visual style. The game is full of comical jokes which blend well with the overall experience and contains more than a handful of monsters. Because of this there are around 66 different monsters to fight through the game – including bosses – many of which cause more chaos and balance towards the difficulty to an overall high. At the beginning of the game you are forced to go up against zombies, and then as the game progresses, so do the monsters as it travels deeper into fiction by including other creatures which is a positive experience.

Gameplay is fairly simple and straight forward. You control your character with the left stick and aim them with the right and swing or shoot away. You will have a large arsenal of weapons at your disposal. You can pick up anything in the world and use it as a weapon, and depending on the size, you character will react different. Since you have four characters to choose from, each has their own specific weapon they prefer and will give them a slight boost in power. For example, if you’re the Goth chick Carrie, she will generally aim towards sharp objects such as swords or saws where as the nerd Zack will enjoy dual projectiles or blunter objects such as a plunger. Each character has a special attack but it is hard to activate it.

Controls are, at its peak, a mixed bag. The controls aren’t that fluid and you’ll find yourself flustered as they feel sluggish and do not respond to your input. Swinging a melee weapon or shooting a projectile weapon is pretty much what you will be doing for the majority of the game, while there are certain spots such as when you fight the boss Granny Zombie where the environments will actually be useful in helping you defeat enemies, the game becomes a bit too repetitive even with its large selection of beasts and feels like there is only one way to kill. What would have been nice, when it comes to power-ups, would have been the ability to hold onto healing items instead of using them instantly or purchasing them from Jolt vending machines.

The camera is the most difficult to control portion of Monster Madness. From the problems that crop up from the standard overhead view. You’ll either be too close or too far away from the action to make the gameplay enjoyable. Even the novelty of the unlockable first person camera wears off after you realize it doesn’t improve anything. While fiddling with the camera, collision problems will become apparent and targeting will be a pain.

Monster Madness bills itself as an action shooter game and it fits that mold. The fairly straightforward level design and time-based objectives make you frantic as you use weapons and the environment to mow a path to the end of the level. True to the genre’s form, the gameplay will grow repetitive and the environmental traps are never seemed as good as the first level.