I know what you are thinking. Monsters Vs. Aliens is just a movie tie in, and for a movie targeted at young kids, at that! Movie tie ins don't exactly have a good record, as far as good video games are concerned. There are a few exceptions to this trend lately, like Kung Fu Panda. Monsters Vs. Aliens is another exception, with interesting characters, a fun style, different gameplay elements, and co-op on top of it all.
The title pretty much gives you all you need to know about the plot. We've not seen the movie yet, but the game, at least, introduces the monsters and pits them against the aliens pretty quickly. The monsters are all based on classic movies. You have Ginormica, a normal woman who grew to enormous height. The Missing Link, a hybrid monkey/fish, is a throwback to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. B.O.B. is a blue glob of goo. Dr. Cockroach is a mad scientist with the head of an insect. Insectosaurus, a colossal caterpillar, rounds out the group.
To my son's disappointment, you cannot play as Insectosaurus. More's the pity. The rest of the monsters are all playable at some point. You can't choose which monster to use for each level, which would normally be a bad thing. However, the levels are totally tied to the monsters abilities, so I can see why the developers went this way. I'd rather see well conceived levels, unique for each monster like this, than generic levels suitable for any monster. Kudos to the developers.
Ginormica is the first monster the player gets to use. Her abilities are mainly tied to her mode of transportation: she steps on a pair of jeeps, and uses them as roller skates. The skates allow her to zoom around quite nimbly for a woman the size of a large building. Ginormica's levels reminded me of a racing game, for the most part, with a few heavy doses of Tony Hawk thrown in for good measure. Ginormica can grind on the walls, jump and duck to avoid obstacles, and when that doesn't work, she can punch her way through them.
The Missing Link is the closest this game has to a typical action style character. He is strong, acrobatic, and has great one-liners to liven things up. In addition to punching, kicking, and jumping moves, the fish monkey can spin on bars and literally bounce around like a pinball in certain sections. Quick time events are used often for The Missing Link. Unscrewing giant bolts to disarm huge cannons was particularly fun, rotating the left stick like crazy. The Missing Link even has a Matrix-esque cannonball attack, which has to be seen to be truly appreciated.
My favorite monster was B.O.B. Being a pile of goo, Bob can walk through screen doors, stick to walls and ceilings, and devour just about anything. All of these abilities work together to create some really clever puzzle style platforming. B.O.B. will fall through a screen if his stomach is empty, but can't do so if he has eaten a crate or alien, which you can see floating around inside him. All of B.O.B.'s skills are used to navigate some mind bending, Escher style mazes. Another highlight was swallowing a guard and using his DNA to open locked doors. By far, this monster's levels were the best parts of the game.
Dr. Cockroach is the last monster represented, and he is where the co-op comes in. A second player can drop in at any time, and controls Dr. Cockroach's beam weapon, represented by a reticle. Usually, I am against this type of co-op, as you may recall from my Wii Call of Duty World at War review. However, it somehow works for this game. For one thing, it would be perfect for a really young player, which is the likely audience. Dr. Cockroach also functions as the narrator, and is in cut scenes, so the second player still feels involved in the story. Doc's beams can be upgraded, too, adding a charge up blast and a tractor beam to the arsenal. If Dr. Cockroach fires too quickly, the weapon overheats temporarily. We found ourselves working together quite a bit more than I expected. On several bosses, Dr. Cockroach ends up doing most if not all of the damage himself. I found myself having a good time with the co-op, even given the limitations of being player two.
Monsters Vs. Aliens is a surprisingly good game. The B.O.B. levels in particular were appealing to even a seasoned gamer like myself. The graphics were pretty much dead on to what you'd see in the movie. If I had any complaints, it would be that the game is somewhat repetitive, but changing up the monsters so often helps to alleviate this. I'd estimate the game to be about eight hours long minimum, with additional content in the unlockables adding a moderate amount of replay value. The co-op isn't as strong as I would have liked, but this game is by far the best implementation of "player two as a set of cross-hairs" I've played. The game itself is very good, and often great; don't let the relatively low co-op score turn you away from it.