Co-Optimus: It was a dark and stormy night. In the distance, thunder rolled. Rain fell in sheets across the windshield. The bright blue and neon green paint job was dull, almost black in the night. Inside, an athletic blond young man drove, a pretty red headed girl clad in purple in the passenger's seat. A bespectacled girl in an orange sweater read a book by a tiny flashlight. In the back, a wild-haired, scruffy youngster and a large brown dog munched on bone shaped snacks. Mystery, Inc. was on its way to the scene.
Though they'd never developed a more sophisticated story-based game game before, Australian independent developer Torus Games took on the challenge of working with Warner Bros. on Scooby-Doo! First Frights -- and in this postmortem, outlines how the small team delivered a Wii game that lives up to the ideas and ideals it started with.
This is a game definitely aimed at the lower end of the age bracket. If it's the case that Scooby Doo himself is the drawing point of the title then by all means give it a go; it's a playable game that does nothing to strongly offend. But there are better, smarter and more fun titles out there that look down on First Frights and laugh. Oh, how they laugh.
Scooby-Doo! First Frights is a surprisingly well made little game. It's always nice to see a licenced kids title with actual effort put into in. While the game doesn't try anything fancy and borrows heavily from the LEGO formula, it's still very fun for what it is. Younger fans will have a blast, especially in co-op.
