Monsters Inc Scare Island

Summary
Mike and Sully have just graduated from university, and now they are ready to get a job. First they must go through training on Scare Island, and learn how to scare children.

Description
Type: Platformer
Platform: Playstation 1, PS3, PSP, Playstation Vita
Players: Single Player
Age: 3 plus
Game Time: 8 hrs
Developer or Designer: Artificial Mind and Movement
Publisher: Sony

Pros

Cons

Review



Long before Monsters Inc. University hit the cinemas, Disney Pixar brought out Monsters Inc. Scare Island. Also called Scream Team in the US, the Playstation One game was released in 2001, but is now also available for download from the Playstation Store for the PS3, PSP, Playstation Vita.



Instead of basing the storyline on the film, it is a prequel in which Mike and Sulley are sent to Scare Island, a training academy where you learn how to scare children before joining the workforce.



You can choose between playing Mike or Sulley, but I recommend Mike. He is lighter, so jumps higher. Sulley's height also makes him disappear off the top of the screen when he jumps.

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You start your training with a tutorial that teaches you the controls. These are really simple to uses, and the camera is excellent. You can rotate easily to get a good view of the landscape without and jerkiness or odd angles. The voice over by Roz is also great, as her sardonic monotone voice makes everything comical.

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Instead of using real children on Scare Island, you have Nerves - robots that simulate a child's reaction. Nerves come in different colours, blue being the easiest to scare, and red being the hardest.

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To scare Nerves you need to collect primordial ooze. Once the scare meter is full you can start scaring. This is done by repeatedly pressing the buttons displayed on the screen, which can cause RSI after a while. Another criticism is that the meter never needs replenishing during a level, no matter how many Nerves you scare. This makes the the constant resetting of collectable ooze after every save superfluous, and eliminates part of the challenge.

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There are three training environments, including Urban, Desert, and Arctic; each is divided into four locations, such as the City Park or Oasis. The aim is to scare eight nerves and collect ten tokens in each location. After this you can challenge Randal to a race.

Although fun, Monsters Inc. Scare Island is too easy, and shouldn't take even a casual player more than eight hours to complete. Just a few things could have improved this game and made it more challenging: the need to replenish primordial ooze, less lives, getting rid of the hints that tell you what to do.

Categories
#disney
#pixar
#1_player
#single_player
#playstation
#playstation_1
#download
#sony
#platformer
#adventure
#kids

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