Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia review

Regardless of what scholars, music magazines and Tenacious D continue to espouse, the finest song ever committed to tape is inarguably"Monster Mash." "Stairway" this, Beethoven that - Bobby "Boris" Pickett's macabre anthem simultaneously made us recoil in fear for our very lives and channeled an unknown desire to cut a rug with Dracula and throw back cocktails with the Wolfman. In that same spirit, we strode confidently into Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia's top-down, third-person blast-a-thon expecting a similar mix of the unholy and pleasant, but alas...

Monster Madness ' singleplayer game is loud, obnoxious and just plain shallow. As hard as it seems to botch the winning scenario of a town overrun with ghoulish beasties and the blood-thirsty dead, apparently all it takes is some horrible voiceoversandthe most cringe-inducing foursome of adolescent stereotypes possible. Zack alone is easily the most irritaing character in recent memory.