Impresiones de Matt Cassamassina sobre GODZILLA DESTROY ALL MONSTERS: MELEE

This game is just cool. I brought it over Peer's yesterday and we played it for several hours in two-player mode, and then his buddy came over and we played for 45 minutes with three players. It's really well done.

The development house behind the game also created the Microsoft Xbox tech demos at GDC a while back -- remember the butterflies and such? So one thing is for sure, it knows how to take advantage of technology. Godzilla runs in both progressive scan and Dolby Pro Logic II -- a bit surprising given that few other third-party titles do.

There are all sorts of modes of which you have probably read about in some of our official impressions. So I'll skip that. Peer and I played versus mode -- only a few selectable characters available at first; you can unlock more by beating the game in adventure mode, the meat and potatoes of the single-player game.

Lots of things come together for this game, believe it or not: first, is the technology, of course. Everything looks great, from the high-detail character models, to the excellent animation, the brilliant lighting effects and the destructable city models. Second is the control, which feels like a King of the Monsters meets a 3D fighter-type setup. And third is the cheese factor -- the developer has intentionally spoofed the Godzilla series and highlighted its B-movie quality. To this end, matches are preempted in single-player mode by an FMV of alien invaders complete with over-the-top spooky background music. And within the game itself, all sorts of funny things happen, from the simple way that the monsters look -- like just human beings in suits -- to the way Godzilla can breathe fire on the foots of his foes, at which point they will hop around and clutch their feet in pain.

Peer and I were cracking up, especially in three-player mode when two creatures could team up on the other guy. Really a ton of fun. Expect a pretty good review of this one.

Godzilla's single-player mode is short lived, in my experience. I whipped through it in less than 20 minutes, probably. In its defense, though, I was playing on easy.

Still, you begin with the game with only four selectable characters out of a possible 10 or so, and you have to beat the single-player mode to unlock them, new stages, and gallery photos. There is quite a bit of depth there.

But like in SSBM, it's designed as a multiplayer experience, and it works well here. Two-player is great, three player is fantastic and I imagine four-player is all out war -- in a good, way.

I don't think I've seen Orga in Godzilla yet.

As for the fluidity, it runs at a constant 30 frames per second. While it doesn't run at 60, the cities are pretty big, there's lots going on, and the detail is high, so it's very forgiveable. Plus, the nature of the game doesn't need the faster speed so you probably won't even notice that it's running at 30 and not 60. Unless you are a geek, like me.

The control and city destruction is nice. It's really satisfying to pick up a building and toss it at a giant, hulking monster. Or to shoot lightning at him, causing the enemy to fly backward with a force, smack into a building, and crumble it.

Matt