Scooby Doo! Classic Creep Capers

"Scooby dooby don't. Buy this game, that is."

Scooby-doo has had to endure a lot of stuff through the years. From the endless stream of uncreative wannabe shows to that spinoff puppy scooby thing that I always hated (even when I was a kid I thought it was mind-bendingly stupid), but not even that Scooby-doo knockoff cartoon with the shark that talked like curly from the three stooges and walked around on its tailfin could measure up to the massacre done to the franchise like Scooby Doo: Classic Crap (oops, I mean "Creep") Capers.

The game tries to be a survival Horror aimed at kids. Sadly, it skips the "Survival" part and simply skips to the "Horror," as in "This game is a Horror to play." It's kind of like what the first Alone in the Dark game would've been like if it wasn't any fun at all and came equipped with a stupid dog that screamed "Raggy" every five seconds.

The biggest problem I have with this game is the way it tries to be funny. You know that kid you used to know who thought he was the funniest thing alive even though he was the only one who laughed at his own constantly repeated joke? Well, they ground him up and compacted him into game cartridges, and here he is. Scooby Doo and Shaggy are supposed to be funny here, but they just aren't, and I cry inside when I think that there are people out there who are so comedically challenged that they would even consider the possibility that little kids would find the stuff in this game mildly smile-and-nodworthy. It plays by a philosophy kind of like the "If you can't find anything funny to say, throw in a fart joke" rule that crappy movies love so much, only worse. It's more like the "If you can't think of anything funny to say, be as annoying as humanly possible." rule that they made up for this game.

Gameplay: 1/10

You play as Shaggy, and Scooby follows you around. Having a health meter that counted down your life would show kids that when somebody's trying to kill you you might actually die, so instead you have a "Courage" meter that counts down whenever you get scared. And by "when you get scared" I mean "when you see an enemy, open a door, or pretty much do anything." Just to give you an idea of how ridiculously this plays out, the dinosaur skeletons in the first level (that are moving of their own free will despite being very, very dead) hit you if you go past at the wrong time, and when the tail hits you it clips through your body as Shaggy and Scooby stand there shivering as scooby exclaims "Raggy!" and a chattering noise plays. You can refill your courage meter by going into a kitchen (there's always one conveniently placed in each level) where you have to grab food that scooby throws out of the refrigerator at you. However idiotic it may be, it manages to be the only decently entertaining thing in the whole game.

The gameplay itself is easy and boring. A great example is this one "puzzle" in the first level that's exactly like those "hide from the guards" things in OoT only crappier. The ones in Zelda make sense because you're in a big area and you're a small kid, but in this version you're a 6 foot tall guy with a 200 pound dog stomping around a tiny room with nothing to hide behind, and the guard doesn't notice you unless you're literally less than a yard away and directly in front of him. If he "sees" you, some "Scary" music starts playing, and he starts running after you like a deformed, obese track star. When he catches you, you teleport outside the museum and hear something along the lines of "I don't know how you got in here (note: there's a ladder leading up to an open window about 20 feet away and in his line of vision) but the museum is closed!" after which you can simply walk back inside to find that the guard has gone back to doing the EXACT same thing.

You pretty much can't die, since health is always readily availible in the kitchen (which you can go into an infinite number of times), and that the items (Item based puzzles in a survival horror game? Never seen that before!!) are not only flashing brightly every time you see them, but each one comes equipped with a description that more or less tells you EXACTLY how to use it and where. I understand that this is a kids game, but even kids will get bored with a game that offers absolutely no challenge at all.

The game is divided into four sections, the first three of which are "based" on an episode of the show (more on that later), basically the only difference from Resident Evil or AITD is that instead of killing several monsters, you need to catch the one monster. For some reason, instead of just doing that to begin with you've got to do a bunch of idiotic pointless quests before you set up a "trap" for the bad guy, and then miraculously find that the monster is the only non-scooby doo character in the scenario. Wow, big surprise.

Oh wait, I didn't mention the FOURTH level!! Yeah, the one that has NO DIFFERENCES from every other survival horror game out there (unless you count that it sucks more than pretty much every one of them) and actually tasks you to fight against ACTUAL ZOMBIES. For NO REASON AT ALL!!

Control: 2/10

The game sticks to the pre-drawn backgrounds with the fixed camera that the first Alone in the dark game had, only it manages to butcher the engine more than you could possibly imagine. When you go from one room to the other, you need to let go of the control stick right away or Shaggy might decide to walk back into the last frame, and the cameras are stuck around at the most awkward angles possible. Scooby has the most sloppily coded pathfinding since FBI: Hostage Rescue, and he loves wandering in front of you and blocking you from going through the door you're trying to open.

Music: 3/10

It tries to sound scary, but it's just annoying. There isn't any recorded dialogue except for a random spoke word thrown in every once in a while, and those random words are repeated more times than I can count.

Storyline: 2/10

The storyline starts off by bringing you through some old episodes of the show, and then goes off on some stupid ridiculous tangent that makes no sense and has nothing to do with anything.

r8ing: dont. buy. this. game.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/06