War of the Monsters

by Sony Entertainment

Product Features

• After humanity turned back an alien invasion, a strange green ooze leaked from crashed spaceships into the environment. From that ooze grew a set of gigantic monsters and now the biggest and strongest monsters are fighting each other. Humanity can only stand and watch in fear!
• Choose to play as any of 10 different monsters, from the robotic Ultra V to Preytor, the tremendous praying mantis
• Learn your combos and special moves and use them against the other monsters, as you demolish human cities
• The victorious monsters will get to test themselves against massive, deadly bosses for even more chaos and destruction
• Use the environment as a weapon -- hurl radio towers like javelins, or knock over buildings to bury your opponents

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00007KE6C
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: January 14, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,118 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #13 in Video Games > PlayStation 2 > Action > Fighting
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com

At first look, it's easy to get excited about War of the Monsters--it has colossal mutated beasts fighting each other in various dreary cityscapes, and it's all wrapped in the campy confines of '50s sci-fi and horror flicks. But after a few go-rounds, the game's frustrating controls and limited replay value may leave you feeling flat.

As the game's background story goes, the monsters were spawned from radiation spilled from downed UFOs that were thwarted in their plans to take over Earth. Cities everywhere are now powerless to stop the rampaging savages, which include a King Kong rip-off named Congar and the Godzilla-inspired Togera, to name just two. The game is all about the thrill of bashing the other guy senseless in an unrelenting rampage that would leave city planners everywhere quivering in fear. The fighting is fierce and brutal--monsters are sent hurtling through the air with a variety of multi-hit combos; entire buildings are crumbled by either throwing your opponent into them or by an errant punch; cars, buses, radio antennae, steel pipes, and other objects are picked up and thrust into monster flesh. One can even hear the sound of tiny human bodies being squished underfoot.

Unfortunately, War of the Monsters seems to have a mind of its own at times since monsters are inexplicably difficult to control. Things are swell one moment as you're zeroing in for the kill but the next you're swaying side to side like a punch-drunk fool. The controls are frustratingly unresponsive when your monster gets stuck in a corner or pinned against a wall. And be prepared to hit the reset button several times, as the game tends to freeze quite often when paused. --Larry White

Pros:

• Satisfyingly brutal fighting action
• Well-done look and feel

Cons:

• Unresponsive controls
• Limited replay value
• Fights devolve into button-mashing frenzy

Product Description

War Of The Monsters is an all-out 3D action game where you get to beat up on everyone and everything around you -- you're a hundred-foot monster destroying cities to prove your supremacy! Multiple game modes, great graphics and a fun sci-fi story -- all that plus massive destruction as you try to win the War Of The Monsters!

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing fun!!, January 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: War of the Monsters (Video Game)

It's like they took everything that I loved about the monster game genre (King Of The Monsters, Rampage), used it and improved it! So, yes you can feel the king of the monsters feel in it. But, it does it's own thing which is a lot bigger. The single player is very enjoyable and with solid A.I. and absolutely packed with features. You also have options of easy or normal, easy being challenging and normal being hard!. So far I've used Magmo and Ultra. You can really feel the differences. Magmo is super slow, but strong. He's just amazing to watch in action.

Ultra V will probably be everyones favorite. He's like using a transformer or samurai mech toy you had as a kid. Lazer eyes (Complete with the 'bzap bzap' sound effects), a plasma samurai sword and turbo boosters. Every monster I have seen so far is impressive. And, the intro is one of the best I have seen in a game in a long, long time.

The control system becomes 2nd nature within a few minutes of play and the camera is almost flawless. Playing the game with the mechs is an absolute blast. And it feels different then playing with the other monsters. It's hard to explian. Definitely, my favorite character is Ultra V. A Samurai Mech who knows Kung Fu, shoots lazers froms his eyes, has a grappling hookfor the classic 'Get Over Here' move', and a plasma sword. The sound effects of his jet boost are classic, and the metal impact his strikes and landings make are nothing short of spectacular. His Gundam voice has to be mentioned also. My friend has fallen in love with using Robo 47, the American Mech. A very cool robot if I do say so myself. Other cool ones are of course the lava monster, Magmo. Ultra powerful. The rock monster, Agamo who has the best voice in the game. His sound effects are amazing, youcan hear the rock against metal, or whatever surface he is hitting landing on.

The destruction of the city is amazing, eveything is destructible and it visually implemented to perfection. Smooth framrate throught the entire game, for both single and multiplayer modes. It's about as much fun as I have had with a game, maybe ever. It's hard to say whether it will go down as one of my all time faves, because I can't test it's staying power like that yet, but it's a blasr.

It feels like a monster movie come to life. I feel like a little kid playing it. As do my friends. Togera (the Godzilla/Beast from 20,000 feet below) has got to be one of the coolest looking monsters I have ever seen. Especially his Mecha-Togera outfit. His green fire breathe is cool as hell, a great special. I can say the same about all the monsters really. They are straight out of some great campy 50's Horror flic. The designers really captured that great work those old movies did, it makes your imagination feel great while you play. It's like a really great toy come to life. My friend I just got done playing a MARATHON session. We went at it tooth and nail late one night as his Ultra V took on my Robo-47 in an epic 'best of three' fight that took nearly an hour to complete. We unlocked a few secrets. The best being this (Not about Sweet Tooth, who is a secret character in the game!)....is that you can unlock skins! It's become apparent to me that the 4th version is either an entirely new design or an amazing offshoot to the original. This is a very cool treat in my opinion. Unlocking the 4th of each monster is almost like getting a new character. These aren't just skins, but new designs! Kudos to Incognito for including something so cool. And multiplayer, wow. Whereas bouts in most fighting games are over in a few minutes, you can make a single fight last for over 20 minutes. As you learn the levels, you start to understand how to best use the items, and can really keep things challenging. Health and energy icons spawn in specific locations to help make the fights about more than just beating on each other so their is endless replay value. This is some of the most fun I have had with a 'new' game in a long time.

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The game Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters wanted to be!, December 9, 2002

By 

Steven L. Kent "gamereader" (The GREAT Northwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: War of the Monsters (Video Game)

War of the Monsters is fast, frenetic, and incredibly fun! Players take control of a 50's-style monster movie monster. There's a glowing plasma creature with one great eye, a Kong-style gorilla, a lava monster, a distinctly American-style gargantuan robot, a sleeker Japanese-style robot, a giant praying mantice, and more.

Unlike the slow, hulking, Toyo Studios-style monsters in Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters, the beasts in War of the Monsters are fast and manueverable. These guys can scale buildings and leap from tower-to-tower.

They also use weapons, and it is amazingly cool. You can pick up a girder and use it like a bat. You can pick up a radio tower and hurl--impaling your opponent. This is Super Smash Bros. with fangs!

The game has enough options to give it semi-respectable depth.

The biggest drawback to this game happens to be Godzilla's greatest strength--four-player competition. Godzilla has it, War of the Monsters does not. You either battle the computer or a friend--a single friend.

You can place bots on the battlefield, but four-player or online battles would have been a great plus.

That said, Incog (formerly Incognito--the Utah company that created Twisted Metal Black), the Sony studio that made War of the Monsters, has done a great job with War of the Monsters.

Incog is establishing itself as one of the few great studios. They proved they could do car wars way back in their Singletrac days--The folks at Incog met at Singletrac, where they did Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2.

Sony probably made a great choice, a quiet game like War of the Monsters might well get overlooked during the Christmas rush. They delayed the game for a early 2003 release, and hopefully people will try and appreciate this totally groovy game.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where Oh Where Has this Monster title Gone?, January 14, 2005

By 

J. Ruehs (Glendale, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: War of the Monsters (Video Game)

War of the Monsters is, hands down, the best Monster fighting game out there. Don't pay attention to what the original reviewer said about the "weaknesses" of the game concerning the freezing when paused or being backed into corner and all the nonsense. None of those problems occurred for me. The sad thing about this title is that you cannot find it anywhere anymore. For some reason it just did not take off, yet it is an all around awesome game that got high marks in the gamer mags. Purchase it used from Amazon it is definitely worth the buy. Don't spend your money buying Godzilla: Save the Earth unless you are a fan of the Godzilla genre. War of the Monsters is 100 times better than Godzilla: Save the Earth (although I do like this game). I guess this game just suffered a similar fate to Prince of Persia (great game, just no one was into buying it) although you can still find many copies of Prince of Persia for $19.99, whereas War of the Monsters has followed its biological examples into extinction history.