When you reach the top there's no place to go but down. I don't think this rule applies to the best game designers out there, certainly not David Jaffe. The 11th spot is held by the best game ever to come out of Incognito (Incog Inc.). Before a good chunk of the team and David went to Sony Santa Monica. I can say with absolute certainty that I enjoyed this game more than God of War. Not to say that GoW didn't deserve to be in my all-time favorite games but War of the Monsters (WotM) pulls further into the details of a great game concept, into the details of balanced fighters and classic monster movies.
If you look at God of War as part of the Incog. legacy you can see where the game came from. The idea of one man versus the world was spawned in Warhawk. The dramatic characters, filled with tragedy and violent backgrounds were undoubtedly inspired by Sweet Tooth and the cast of Twisted Metal.
The massive levels, great particle effects and smooth animations pulled from what they learned in Downhill Domination, the mountain bike racing game. Kratos' final battle with Ares is one of the best ever designed in any videogame. The heart of GoW's fighting engine and the scale of Ares and Kratos at the final battle can be traced back to Incog Inc's 2003 sleeper-hit War of the Monsters.
War of the Monsters is the best brawler on the Playstation 2.
Think about it for a second.
I rank WotM ahead of Urban Reign and Beat Down. ahead of Iron Phoenix, the Bouncer, the craptacular Marvel Nemesis, Naruto, One Piece, Def Jam and every Mortal Kombat adventure game. You name the brawler on any other system and I would rank WotM above it. Lizard Man would not agree with the ranking over the Smash Bros. games. It wouldn't deter me from doing so.
That is because WotM is greater than the sum of its parts. It meets and exceeds my definition of a great game. The graphics are superb, the animation smooth, the fighting engine is balanced, the enemy AI is ruthless, the character design is brilliant, the plot well developed and the story is universally great. WotM is a concept that is executed better than any game before or since.
I must acknowledge a few of the monster games that came out before WotM. The classic computer game Movie Monsters by Epyx, Midway's Rampage and my previous favorite monster brawlers/wrestling games, King of the Monsters 1 and 2 by SNK.
Aside from being a great brawler, War of the Monsters has a certain charm to it. In part because the entire game, from beginning to end, plays like a series of movies. Instantly the game feels like a lost memory of a drive in theater, a rubber suit (kaiju) flick from Japan or a black and white horror movie that you saw when you were a kid. In fact all of the game menus are set on and around a drive-in theater. Check out
the official webpage to get a sense of what I'm talking about.
The characters in the game are an homage to many of the classic movie monsters. For example the giant praying mantis called Preytor is inspired by the giant ants from the movie "Them." The giant dinosaur based on Godzilla is called Togera. The Japanese robot called Ultra-V is inspired by Mazinger-Z/Tranzistor-Z. There are 10 characters in the game with four skins that can be unlocked for each. Some of these skins are supposed to represent a completely new monster, making the total count of playable characters at 40.
With a few visual cues, a few lines of text and plenty of imagination the story unfolds. An alien invasion terrorized the Earth. Scientists invented shield generators to destroy the ufos hovering around the major cities. However the downed ships released radioactive waste which caused mutations in animals, robots and even inanimate objects. These newborn monsters began to battle for supremacy amongst the cities.
Each level is prefaced with a movie poster. Classic pulp images and shock graphics herald the golden age of monster movies from the 50's and 60's.The images and titles of the posters (and even the detail of actors' names) help keep the cinema theme running well into the game. The posters even feature fold lines as if they were pulled from a magazine. The graphics on the posters and the levels they represent as inspiring as the classic movies they were based on.
There is no dialogue in the game. The monsters communicate with a few gestures, and very short in-game cinemas keep the pace moving. Your character becomes the star in a series of monster battles. For anyone that's ever wondered what a Godzilla game would be like if it were ever done right, now is your chance. Plus I cannot emphasize that the devil is in the details.
Each monster is about 100 feet tall. The sense of scale is never lost throughout the game. Each level is populated with details. A secret military base has cyclone fence and guard towers that only come up to your ankle. You can even read the warning sign on the miniature fence. Cities have unique billboards, stores have posters in the windows and office buildings have electronic signs. The nine levels in the game (plus a few bonus levels for other game modes) were designed to help give you a feeling of weight and mass. The trees in a park snap and fall as you walk over them. Tiny pedestrians flee in terror and you can actually step on them and see the blood splatters left in your wake. You can pick up cars or trucks, target opponents and let them fly. You can grab helicopters out of the air, topple skyscrapers... well you get the idea.
Despite the size of the characters, they still manage to move rather quickly through the environment. The game has a very rapid, almost frenzied pace. You really can't take too much time appreciating the details because there is always a monster ready to stab you in the back. Like other brawlers, each monster has their own strengths and weaknesses. There are heavy hitters, quick fighters and all-around brawlers. All of the monsters have the ability to perform devastating combo attacks and even fire off special moves. These special attacks vary. All have a close range and distance special moves. For example Kineticlops, the monster made out of electricity with one giant eye, has a special attack that allows a jolt of electricity to pass through multiple opponents. If timed right this jolt can cross an entire level and take out all of the opponents. These special moves often mean the difference between winning and losing a battle.
Using the environments is a must for victory as well. Every level in the game has a secret or two waiting to be discovered. The hilly Baytown (San Francisco) has lots of places to hide, a monster that does enough damage to the city can actually cause an earthquake to completely change the lay of the level. Atomic Island has a nuclear reactor that can be made to vent and burn opponents to death within a few seconds. The Japanese island of Tsunopolis is susceptible to tidal waves... These hidden level triggers were first introduced in Incog's Twisted Metal.
So what about the bosses in the game? WotM would not work without the use of three of the toughest and most original boss characters in any game. Goliath Prime, a massive robot and boss of the secret military base in Rosdale Canyon. Vegon, a giant three-headed plant monster from Atomic Island that can swallow the other characters in the game whole. Last but not least is Cerebulon, the leader of the alien menace and possibly the toughest boss that Incog has ever created. Each of the bosses evolves during the course of the battle. Like all great videogame battles, strategy must be employed if you want to live long enough to see the next level.
People that are into the art of videogames should track down a copy of the game. I talked a bit about this game with Ryan Braman, the artist that did the cover art of the recent Rampage Total Destruction game as well as the Tips and Tricks magazine featuring Rampage. Those fortunate enough to work in the media got their hands on a press kit styled to look like a tattered movie kit.
This kit not only included a demo of the game, but a media cd with video and images as well as a massive poster. If you are one of the lucky people that got their hands on a copy of the media kit and don't want it any more how about hooking me up?
Not that consumers were short changed. The box art from Japan was just as dramatic as the one in the USA version. In fact the details from the game spilled over into the packaging as well. The instruction manual is written like the fictional newspaper used in the game, the Global Observer. In addition to the booklet there is a fold out poster with a graphic on one side and a full newspaper page on the other. I have not been as impressed with a booklet for a game since. Seriously, aside from Incog and Sony Santa Monica, who else takes the time to recreate as much detail in the manuals?
The only gripe many people have was the length of the game. Even after you unlock all of the 2-player mini games (whose load screens look an awful lot like Colecovision titles) and character skins, the entire experience wraps up too quickly. We are left with a feeling that this game could easily have been twice as long. We only caught a glimpse into the minds of Incog and David Jaffe. For what it's worth I still say the adventure was still worth it.
There were enough details in the game for people like me to obsess over and enough replay value for those that long for a great monster brawler. War of the Monsters is what the recent Rampage should have been. War of the Monsters is what every Godzilla game could have been. But rather than lament the games that could have and should have, we are left with the one game that
is. This is the greatest monster brawler ever created, and one of my favorite games of all-time. Believe it!
I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me
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