Game Reviews

Hollywood Monsters

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iOS
| Hollywood Monsters
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Hollywood Monsters
|
iOS
| Hollywood Monsters

Let's get the confusing series chronology out of the way first. This isn't an iOS port of Hollywood Monsters - it's actually an iOS port of the tenuous sequel Hollywood Monsters 2, which is better known as The Next Big Thing over here in the UK. Got that? Good.

The game tells the story of two mismatched reporters in a world where movie monsters are real, and leads you through a point-and-click adventure that's sometimes funny, sometimes intelligent, but more often than not too esoteric for its own good.

I vant to suck your blaad

The narrative switches between two characters - Liz Allaire and Dan Murray. Liz is young, enthusiastic, and insane, whereas Dan is a cynical sports hack with gambling and drinking problems demoted to the society beat by an angry editor.

What begins as a simple assignment soon spirals into a reasonably captivating mystery as Liz and Dan are dragged into a world of teleportation booths, resurrections, angry giants, and Egyptian themed death traps.

The controls are fidgety at best, and annoying at worst. In an attempt to streamline things, only important objects are tappable - hit one of them and you'll move over to it. Unfortunately, it's not always clear what's important, so you'll need to have the clue icons up for most of the time.

The fact that you have to tap a specific spot in order to wander to the next screen is a particular frustration, and while the sensitivity levels are fine you can't help but think that giving the player greater freedom of movement would have worked an awful lot better.

Cut!

Then there are the puzzles that you have to complete to move through the game. These rarely have a basis in logic, often leaving you bouncing between objects and locations with no real understanding of why you're doing it and whether you're doing it right.

There's fun to be had, and interesting characters to interact with, but too often you feel like you're just flailing around in the dark, hoping you'll click on the right thing.

It's a shame, because the premise and story of Hollywood Monsters offer up a lot of potential. Too often, though, that potential gets lost under muddy controls and murky, convoluted puzzles.

Hollywood Monsters

There's fun to be had here, but Hollywood Monsters has you reaching for the hint button too often to be considered a classic
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.