GENRE
	Adventure
	DEVELOPER
	Terra Glyph
	PUBLISHER
	THQ
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1
	CONTROLLER PAK
	yes
	RUMBLE PAK
	no
	RAM PAK
	no
	BUY NOW AT

While I have read other reviews of this game on other sites previously, I was still skeptical. After all, I am a true fan of Scooby-Doo and loved the cartoon (well, except for that Scrappy-Doo and Scooby-Dum nonsense). Therefore, with such a love for the game, surely I'd be able to look past any flaws and be thrilled to play a game based on a favorite cartoon.

Right?

Wrong.

visuals

The visuals are easily second generation, circa about 1997 or '98. This could be forgiveable since the developer was trying to replicate a cartoon's look and feel, but not being able to ever make out the details of a character's face (any of the main characters from the show) is pretty sad in 2000. The backgrounds, on the other hand, are serviceable and do an acceptable job of recreating an atmosphere like the original cartoon series'.

A strange aspect of the character design in Scooby-Doo is that occasionally, when you happen to drag Scooby and Shaggy outdoors, they suddenly look much lusher and have intense shading and depth to their figures. This looks nice at first because it's the first semblance of depth you really get to see in the game's graphics, but the inconsistency of no other lighting effects in the game whatsoever (at least as far as characters are concerned) ruins the entire experience.

The primary redeeming factor of the visuals is at least there is a lot of variety. The number of textures and designs produced for the game are large, and it's always a pleasure to run into a cameo picture of another Hanna Barbera franchise character (Flinstones, Huckleberry Hound, and Snagglepuss, just to name a few).

I'm still dumbfounded, however, why the game's environments were even put into 3D. All of the game, aside from some poorly laid out downhill chases, are all static camera angles. Why waste time building these 3D environments when the developer could have instead, say, made high resolution, water color backgrounds (a la Resident Evil) that made the game look even more like the cartoon?

audio

If you've heard Pokémon Puzzle League's "smooth jazz" renditions of the classic Pokémon TV tunes, you know what to expect here. The composition of the soundtrack is similar in melody to the cartoon's, but Terra Glyph opted to use the minimum of the N64's sound card's power, providing instead horrendous midi renditions of the cartoon's music, frequently with a smooth jazz feel.

Yet a lacking soundtrack could have easily been forgiven with a great bag of sound clips-- and what better franchise than Scooby-Doo to pull sound clips from. Unfortunately, sound clips are few and far between. Only Shaggy and Scooby say anything, and what they have to say is very little-- even if they do repeat their phrases often. Otherwise, expect screens and screens of text, a couple sound clips from Scooby and Shaggy if they get scared or separated, and a handful of typical cartoon sound effects.

I understand that this is a kid's game, but that's no reason to give them the short end of the stick and put out a game that seems to barely skate by on the minimum requirements in every aspect. In a day and age where buys a game like Banjo-Tooie with plentiful, varied, and fun sound effects for voice, or for bucks more you get Perfect Dark with an entirely voice acted storyline, and even Resident Evil 2 has full video, it's pretty unacceptable that a game so perfect for voice and sound clips (even a recording of the show's theme song, please?) doesn't have hardly any.

gameplay

We all know that gameplay is king and can be the saving grace of any title. Unfortunately, Scooby strikes out again here, and more noticeably than in any other aspect.

First of all, this has to be the most simplistic adventure game ever devised. Every single level is the same. Fred, Daphne, and Velma wait for you in some location while you and Scooby do all the work-- running around rooms to find randomly scattered clues and trap components. Sometimes, one or more of the other members of the Scooby gang is also kidnapped and you must track them down.

While wandering around doing these chores, occasionally you run into the monster, who gives chase, but if you manage to go into another room, 9 times out of 10 the chase ends. If you get scared too much by the monster grabbing you, or if you too often happen to run into a mouse or spider that typically pops up out of nowhere, Shaggy and Scoob freak out, run away, and you have to start at the last important event you triggered in the mystery.

Every mystery also ends in a drawn out chase throughout the game's rooms to a waiting point where Fred's trap always catches the villain. At this point, Fred and Velma jabber a couple screens of text, explaining the entire mystery you just played and had only the vaguest understanding of-- this isn't because there is no mystery to speak of, it's just the set up of the mystery at the beginning of each level is as simple as it can get. The worst flaw in this set up, though, is that when the villain is unmasked, in some mysteries you've never even seen this guy once or heard him mentioned. Nothing like pulling a trick straight out of the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer, huh?

Okay, okay, so I will say it again: this is a KID'S game. What's the big deal, it should be simple, right? Well, I feel sorry for any kid who has to play this game, because despite the simplicity of the set up, the carrying out of the tasks--moving your character around, that is-- is beyond tolerable. Control, it's always control, isn't it?

I mentioned above the game is set up in Resident Evil-style static camera angles. Let's therefore paint an all too frequent example of the game's biggest flaw with that in mind...

You are running as fast as you can from the evil Witch Doctor. You are pushing left on the controller stick to run off the left side of the screen. The screen goes black for a millisecond and then pops up another camera angle of the room you're running in. You still have the control stick pushing left, but in this new camera angle, Shaggy is running up to the top of the screen. If you want to him to turn left again to run through another door, and you haven't released the control stick from its current position of left, you need to push DOWN. That's right... push down to go left. Now, let's say the new camera angle freaks you out, or frickin Scooby runs in front of you for no reason, and you let go of the control stick by accident (which is stupid because the monster is always right behind you and you really can't afford to be grabbed). Now, after releasing the control stick, pushing left actually will make Shaggy go left on the screen and through that door. Huh? It's all too confusing, and when you're being chased 40% of the game or trying to tip-toe around spiders and mice that are just off screen but still able to scare you due to ridiculous camera angles, it's all too unacceptable.

The thing is, this problem could have been eliminated if the game were set up like a true 3D platformer without static camera angles, or if Terra Glyph simply mimicked the Resident Evil control design, which, while awkward, doesn't make you wonder if pushing left equals right, up, or left-- in Resident Evil all you have to do is pay attention to which direction the character is facing and you know.

Furthermore, if Scooby-Doo is only going to get in the way, making escapes and a bad control scheme worse, and not have any value whatsoever, why not just make him sit with Fred, Daphne, and Velma and wait on Shaggy? There were several times when I was being chased by a goon, and Scooby would randomly and illogically run in another direction and get stuck behind a bush or a bookshelf. "RAAAAAAAGYYYYY!" he'd scream, but I'd just smirk and leave him there. It was simpler just to have him out of the way-- after all, he pops up next to you when you move into another room.

multiplayer

Wouldn't a multiplayer mode of freeze tag through a spooky mansion with secret passages and trap doors be a blast with the Scooby gang? Yes, it would, but such a mode is not in this game.

overall

Perhaps if I didn't adore the Scooby-Doo cartoons so much I would have been more forgiving. Yet to see such a cheap effort made, and to see yet another game released that truly gives kids the short end of the stick makes me feel very disappointed. It's not fair to manipulate kids like that or charge for something that could have been so much better.

5.0/10