Monster Bash

Ah, the great Monster Bash which started my platform gaming, and which I demanded to have for Christmas as a full game. Episode one alone stood for some awesome eye candy with multiple animated actions, many enemies, the main character Johnny Dash doing different actions (like walking, running, crawling, climbing, shooting, flying a broom, even shooting at you, the player, if you idled for too long) for a 10-year old me it was an astonishing feat to see. Now that GOG has all three episodes there is no need to convince anyone anymore to "purchase the remaining two", as Apogee put it back in the day - that was the shareware model. Instead you now get all three episodes here, and trust me they are really worth of the price GOG is offering you. I remember when my mom bought it for me for $35 back in 1994! All three episodes (or, Monster Bash) include 30 levels in total, with all increasing in difficulty, and a LOT of different enemies and puzzles (there are hints available to help you though). Only the last 10 levels are of mild challenge, though, but trust me, the graphics and animations which were outstanding in 1993, the music, puzzles and gameplay are totally worth to pick up this, in my opinion, the best Apogee game of all time!

You clear levels by freeing puppies and kittens from their cages while painting the whole area red with monster blood. The hero is a young kid wearing white body pajamas with blue poky-dots on them and a red baseball cap, not exactly the description of your average monster slayer, but the kid kicked some serious butt. For a kids game it has a lot of gore and carnage (but lets face it, most kids would love that). I always liked this game as a kid and I do like the way you have to "work" to reach the objectives at times. It's still a fun game and old school game fans should get a kick out of it.

(3 1/2 stars) GOG's version worked fine for me (simply DOSBox) aside from a screen resize issue (easily fixed by making adjustments in the Graphic Mode Setup). Monster Bash kept me entertained for a dozen(?) or so hours, with colorful graphics, amusing enemies, and relatively fun levels, but I'm not someone who is willing to spend lots of time trying to beat difficult levels. Thus, eventually, I ended up using the "lives" cheat to fully complete the game. I also felt like it outstayed its welcome for the last few hours. I'd recommend it on sale for at least 50% off and for someone who doesn't mind old-school difficulty or is okay with using a cheat code.

I didn't even know about this game until two weeks ago, so I can safely say nostalgia didn't affect my final score. Still, I liked this game for what it was. The game uses the Keen engine, which is both a blessing (smooth scrolling!) and a curse (EGA graphics in 1993 were getting seriously ancient). The platforming is good enough, and the level design is quite impressive. You can't leave an area until you have found all of the pets, but I never really got lost, so that's a credit to the level designer for sure. Trying to get all the loot and skulls is a nice diversion too. And the game gives you hints for each level, which helps quite a bit. On the other hand, the shooting just isn't very good (you'll need to master that damn rock), and like many other shareware games from the time, the paid-for second and third episodes aren't nearly as good or memorable as the free first episode. In particular, the third episode has a lot of annoying platforming with semi-blind jumps. You'll be reloading your save state a lot. Still in the upper echelon of DOS platformers, I feel, although Commander Keen 4 was generally better.