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The lovable ogre appears once again on the Nintendo DS. The Shrek series has for a long time been one of DreamWorks’ most successful franchises. It has managed to appeal to a wide range of audiences, though the videogames have usually sided with the younger audiences. Shrek SuperSlam continues this tradition though the game is fundamentally solid.
Shrek Superslam includes some sort of the story, though it is unlikely that many people will go through it since the developers also gave us the choice of skipping through each one. The stories are a bit funny though they aren’t anything of substance.
Instead of traditional platforming fare, Shrek SuperSlam is more like Capcom’s PowerStone fighting game for the ill-fated Dreamcast. Like Capcom’s game, Shrek SuperSlam includes a number of characters including Gingerbread Man, Fiona, Prince Charming, Donkey and of course, Shrek, alongside new characters made for the game. The game has a pretty simple beat-em-up control scheme with the face buttons on the Nintendo DS providing attacks that change slightly depending on the character you’re using. You’re able to link up combos; the game is fairly cheap and lets shameful players exploit the same combo. The game includes weapons, which you find in the chests sprinkled throughout the arenas. You’re able to store three weapons at each time, though they only last a limited amount of time. The weapons include a bubble gun and sword, among others. The game also includes Mega Challenges, which are basically minigames with some battles, puzzles, and touch screen games.
The game’s visuals are very respectable. The character models closely model those from the movies as is usual for the Shrek games. The animations are equally adequate. The game’s environments are very interactive with a lot of it being destructible. The backgrounds aren’t quite as detailed as other Nintendo DS titles, they work with the game very well.
The game’s audio is pretty funny. The sound effects are quite humorous and perfectly fit the Shrek universe. The background music is quite preppy but again fits the game very well. The quality of the sound isn’t as good as we would like though, sounding more like than something you would expect from a Gameboy Advance game.
Shrek SuperSlam deviates from the standard platforming fare of the Shrek series. That said, the game’s combat system is surprisingly fun despite being quite button-mashing friendly. It also retains the Shrek humor found in the previous games. -- Jake Wilson, PGNx Media
---- Nov 29, 2005
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