Game Reviews

Monster Mayhem

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Monster Mayhem
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| Monster Mayhem

If only chasing away life's real monsters – taxmen, former flings, in-laws – was as easy as a swipe here, a tap there.

Indeed, if only all of the demons that bug us in our day to day lives were as cute and frankly alluring as those that populate Monster Mayhem graveyard.

It's almost hard to put down the hordes of adorable beasts in this modified castle defence game. These creatures from the pit are anything but your friends, though, and job numero uno is to prevent them from escaping their sombre resting place.

Guarding the ghouls

This essentially means you're on guard duty, taking out monsters as they approach from the right. Their target are the gates on the left: your health is directly linked to said gate. The more they shake its railings, the closer you are to game over.

The best practice is to take them out before they even come close to making a break for it, for which you have a variety of weapons at your disposal.

Always available is your knife, which lets you hack and slash your way through the waves of attack by making short, sharp swipes on the screen. While unrestricted by ammunition, it also isn't the most efficient way to take down your foe.

As such, picking up points – either through successful play or sucking up the coins the carnage leaves behind – is essential because they enable you to unlock, upgrade or buy ammunition for the seven other weapons in between levels.

Death by design

This is where Monster Mayhem really gets fun. Though you're still largely doing the same thing stage after stage – tapping or swiping every single enemy that wanders on screen – the way your foe is wiped out is, in itself, quite entertaining.

Flamethrowers naturally garner much of the attention, each monster set ablaze with the coup de grace coming in the form of their head popping off. You can call upon a continuous lightning strike from above or hammer them with a machine gun.

In true top trumps style, a full profile showing their strengths and weaknesses is unlocked the first time they come into play. This allows you to tactically deploy weapons to exploit these weaknesses, not to mention take pleasure in each and every death throe.

The monster mash

Unlike more stoic castle defence games, Monster Mayhem is brilliantly designed to keep you entertained throughout. Your weapons showcase just as much diversity as the collection of fiends and freaks to be killed.

Only the boss battles disappoint. Visually amazing, they aren't particularly challenging. They don't spice things up enough to warrant any change of pace. Your attacks remaining identical as you simply battle a larger, more resilient foe.

Although Monster Mayhem is something of a one trick pony from beginning to end, its cast of creepy characters and the variety of ways you can take them out make this a ghoulish engagement by which it's hard not to get infected.

Monster Mayhem

Though a little monotonous in parts, Monster Mayhem keeps you entertained with inventive enemies and a collection of captivating weaponry
Score
Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.