Developed and published by Epyx in 1986, The Movie Monster Game is a love letter to classic monster movies of the mid 20th Century. In it you play as a gigantic creature, laying waste to various cities around the world.

The game features six different monsters to play as: Godzilla – the infamous giant fire-breathing reptile (properly licensed from Toho, no less); The Glog – a radioactive blob; Tarantus – a huge mutated spider; Mechatron – a large renegade robot; Sphectra – a giant mosquito, and Mr. Meringue – basically a Ghostbusters Stay Puft Man tribute. There are six different cities to demolish (London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Moscow and Tokyo), and there are five different scenarios to play out (Escape – leave the city before the army destroys you; Destroy Landmark – knock down a specific building; Lunch – eat as much as possible; Berserk – smash down as many buildings as possible, and Search – find your monster offspring hidden somewhere in the city).

The cinematic experience extends into the menus and cut scenes. You start at the box office, which allows you to choose your monster, your city, and the scenario, then you enter the theatre and the curtain raises for the ‘main attraction’. A short preamble explains what you’re about to see, before the game hands control over to you.

Each monster has special abilities, an endurance meter, and a hunger bar, although the latter is only active during “Lunch” sessions. The endurance meter, however, is important in every scenario. If it reaches zero the monster will conk-out and the game will end, returning you back to the theatre for an epilogue. Pressing the space bar during the game cycles through a monster’s abilities, and pressing the fire button will then use that ability. That said, using special abilities too much will tire the monster out quickly, so they have to be used sparingly.

To destroy buildings you simply have to walk into them repeatedly, until they collapse. The monsters can also walk in water; can crush cars, jeeps and tanks by walking over them, and can also eat people by doing the same.

The Movie Monster Game is a brilliant idea that is let down by the game’s slow pace and lack of variety. The monsters move at a snail’s pace, and the destruction is disappointingly unspectacular. If the developers had sped the action up a bit, and introduced more ways to break things and more graphical variety, then this could have been a classic, but instead it’s just merely okay. The Movie Monster Game unfortunately leaves you wondering what it could have been, rather than enjoying what it is. At times you spend more time waiting for the game to load than actually playing it, which is not how it should have been. It’s a big, fat missed opportunity…

More: The Movie Monster Game on Wikipedia
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