SkullMonkeys

"Lots of Style but no Substance"

I actually heard from this game from my big sister. We were talking about something totally random and then my sister, knowing how much I am into video games, told me about a game she had played on her friend's place. Her description of the game was pretty vague, but it sounded exciting, so we went ahead and borrowed it.

At first, the game was pretty exciting, as my attention was mostly directed to the amazing claymation graphics and oddball musical score. As the novelty wore off, it occurred to me that Skullmonkeys was a rather ordinary platformer. This wouldn't have been so bad, but as the game progressed, it also became evident that the game was very repetitive and stage design was bad.

OVERVIEW:

Skullmonkeys is a fairly linear platformer, where player jumps his way through stages and occasionally fights bosses.

THE CATCH:

Skull Monkeys features state-of-the-art claymation graphics and stylish musical score, even occasionally having lyrics! Also, there are sometimes cutscenes between stages.

GRAPHICS:

The best thing in the entire game is it's graphics, that is, like I already said, entirely claymation. This gives the game unique visual appearance, and the game has some rather stylish looking environments and enemies.

SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC:

Not very far behind the graphics comes the sounds. Sound effects are very good, and the skull monkeys scream like actual monkeys. There is other authentic sound effects like farting and burping (maturity and taste are not exactly finer points of this game).

The music is very atmospheric and memorable. Sometimes they have actual lyrics and one theme even had yodeling (which annoyed my sister and brother to a no end, but I loved it to death).

GAMEPLAY:

As an actual game Skull Monkeys is best described "like Super Mario Brothers, but not fun." It is very clear that the gameplay was copied from Super Mario Brothers without thinking does it even fit on this game. For example, Clay, the protagonist, can kill skull monkeys by jumping on them, causing them to explode. However, this makes no sense since Clay probably weights around 70 kg, while a average skull monkey probably weights around 300 kg, so the monkey's body could easily support Clay's weight with out collapsing, much less exploding. Pedantic, certainly, but that is not an only similarity not making sense - you can get an extra live by collecting 100 orbs of varying colours. How that is possible is not explained, since it was not an original idea, but one copied from an another game.

Skull Monkeys also features collectible weapons that mostly are quite uninspired. The most elementary is the green orb, a fairly boring projectile. Then there is clay bird that might seem novel at first, but basically operates like any other homing missile in a typical shoot'em up. Then there is a fart clone, that can be summoned to replace Clay for a while. If the clone is killed, big deal, you can still continue as Clay. If the fart clone survives long enough, Clay will replace him. Last, but not least, the developers decided to give player not one, but two smartbombs.

The stage design is the bane of Skull Monkeys, since they are mostly a collection of platforming cliches. These said cliches are then overused to the extreme. The farther you get, the more stages are just variations of the same cliche, over and over again.

CHALLENGE:

This game gets very hard about the halfway around. Clay is killed by a single hit, unless he has an halo, and since a hard part is always followed by the same part made gradually even harder, dying happens a lot. Bosses also get frustrating after the first two.

THE STORY:

A bad man falls from the sky, to the planet of skull monkeys. He becomes the leader of the skull monkeys and commands them to build a space ship called Evil Engine 9. One of the monkeys, the radio operator, becomes worried about the situation and sends a message requesting help to a man named Clay (because he's made of clay, ha ha. how clever).

Not an stellar plot but is good enough. The plot is told with FMV sequences, that actually have good voice acting. Unfortunately, more effort is used for juvenile humour that hardly gets a laugh even the first time around than trying to get anywhere with the story.

LONGEVITY:

This game is interesting as far as the novelty of claymation graphics lasts.

SUMMA SUMMARUM:

Skull monkeys is an game that uses original and unique presentation to draw attention from unoriginal and derivate gameplay. While Skull monkeys might be an interesting game from a visual standpoint, the task of playing it is an dull and displeasant experience.

It can be easily seen that the developers are talented animators but pretty incompetent game makers. This begs a question, why they chose to make a game in the first place?

It is still better than Abe's Odyssey. Lest we forget.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/06