"Like, Zonks! This could have been a lot better."

Scooby-Doo, a named that has been popular with kids since my parents were in grade school. Everyone loves Shaggy and Scooby's frightened antics and huge appetites, but when it comes to video games, they let us down.

Story: 6/10 The game is set up very much like a Scooby-Doo TV show. The gang gets a book called the "Tome of Doom" that can suck up ghost, mummies and dead hillbillies. The Five levels are episodes and each one has sub-plots but they all relate to a bigger story that comes together at the end of the last level.

Gameplay: 6/10 You play as Shaggy or Scooby, they are just about the same except scooby can fit into small spaces. You basically walk around and collect clues, pieces of a sandwiches, catch ghost and do logic puzzles. There a couple of race course you have to survive(I use the word literally, they're extremely treacherous and will keep you there for a while, especially since the jump response is so slow.) This game is a mix of button mashing, puzzle solving and exploring. Your health bar is called the "Cool Meter". When Shaggy and Scooby are totally freaked out they run out of the level which is like dieing. But you can replenish your cool meter with scooby snacks.

Controls: 6/10 A is probably the most used button as it accesses everything, B pulls up an inventory of what you've collected on that level like clues. Y switches you from Shaggy to Scooby. X pulls out the "Tome of Doom", R makes you tiptoe and L pulls up more stats. The C-stick is used wisely for steering the camera. These controls work fine, but Scooby-Doo sometimes seems unwieldy and hard to steer.

Music/Sound:7/10 The title menu has a 70s era groovy beat. Throughout most of the game you don't notice the music too much, but it is fitting. The endurance race levels music seems faster and more noticeable. The crashes and other sound effects all sound just like it came off the show.

Graphics: 4/10 Bligmey! This game could have come off a Nintendo 64 without an expansion pack! The characters look like 3-D cartoons. Not cel shaded but almost like plastic action figures. The trees in the background are flat and so are a lot of other things. They keep the colors right for the characters but the FMV scenes are just about as bad as the game is. This game doesn't even come close to what a game cube could put out.

Replayablity:6/10 This game has a descent amount of bonuses. 5 mini games, art work, character models. All unlockable by collecting clues and sandwich parts on each level.

Conclusion- I was surprised and a little disappointed when the game ended and I found out that the all the monsters were real. In all the Scooby-Doo TV shows the monsters were always fake and the only real book with words that powerful is the Bible. Nonetheless, the game was still funny as Shaggy and Scooby overate, got scared and cracked jokes in between. Even with the poor graphics this game is a descent selection for Scooby-Doo fans and anyone who likes puzzles and exploring more than big guns and street brawls.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/23/06