Monster Madness is a top-down survival twin-stick shooter affectionately parodying B-Movies, notably monster movies. It's very reminiscent of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Artificial Studios and Immersion Games were the original developers while Immersion and Psyonix Studios handled the port, and SouthPeak Interactive was Publisher for both iterations.
The Xbox 360 and PC versions, released in 2007, have the subtitle Battle for Suburbia, while the Polished Ports on the PlayStation 3 (released 2008) and Android (released 2011) have Grave Danger.
Has nothing to do with James Rolfe's Monster Madness.
This game provides examples of:
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can unlock 3 extra clothing options by getting all the characters' Tier 2-3 weapons, every melee weapon, and beat the game on a certain difficulty, except Zack who you just need to complete the Bestiary and Jennifer where you need to S-Rank the game on Madness. The PS3/Android version has you doing various missions and mini-games.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Bigfoot is a standard enemy who likes to kick boulders.
- Blood Knight: Billy. He has no alliance, he seeks revenge against the universe, he just waves his chainsaw around until it runs out of juice then he punches everything until his, or the universes', temporary defeat.
- Brain in a Jar: The Principal is a brain in a jar controlling a mechanical suit.
- Classic Cheat Code: By pausing during game play you can enter the Konami Code to access the cheat menu in the 360 version.
- Co-Op Multiplayer: Four-player co-op play is available.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: After the characters fight their way through the catacombs and the Grim Reaper, they meet the janitor, who reveals that they could've rung a bell for him to open a door to take a shortcut.
- Dead Weight: Fat Zombie is the strongest variation of zombie.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Zack's Character Select idle chatter has him humming to the music.
- Enemy Summoner:
- Captain Bones can only be defeated by the heads of its conjured allies.
- When a Harpy dies it'll lay an egg that'll hatch into another Harpy if you don't crack it fast enough.
- Witches can drop black cats.
- The Engineer: Gremlins are a Type One with tennis ball turrets and that cursed wrench.
- Escort Mission: In one part, you have to escort the janitor to his destination.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies
- Evil Counterpart: The Ghoul Squad, Death has summoned a rag-tag bunch of concentrated evil based on the fears and dislikes of the Heroes.
- Anthony: A hard working, shotgun wielding, country boy with a raccoon eating his head. Andy's long torturer.
- Butch: Mean, stupid, and strong as Hell with a minigun in tow. Death's "gift" to Zack.
- Clarisse: Just a demon who exists, with nothing worth noting, no special powers, no special looks, just a demon. This boggles Carrie's mind to no end.
- Kelly: A rich, once beautiful, cheerleader who's face was destroyed by a mad plastic surgeon, now devoid a mouth and lips and a chip off her shoulder. Jennifer doesn't care much.
- Expy: Mr. Huggles has no relation to a large purple dinosaur.
- Face Fault: After the characters learn from the janitor that they could have taken a shortcut, they fall over backwards with their feet sticking up in the air.
- Face–Heel Turn: Lawrence Thompson and Mr. Huggles
- Ferris Wheel of Doom: The kids topple the ferris wheel with the mechs and it goes rolling across the fairground.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: The Ghoul has one, Mr. Griswold, sewed to its back. Griswold can even stun and blind you with a camera flash.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Inverted, Andy tries to side with Larry Tools following The Reveal, but suffice to say he won't let him.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Billy, doubles with Freudian Excuse.Marked for a loser from birth, Billy was put up for adoption and was denied promptly for being totally boring, uninteresting, and a slightly scary child. Growing up, Billy had many pets... But none of them would play with him. This losing streak continued up to the current Monster Madness. Seeing an opportunity to fit in, he sided with the Monsters. Once again rejected, he now takes his frustration out on anything in his way.
- Human Resources: Monster Tokens are made of souls.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Easy is Child's Play, Medium is Thriller, Hard is Horror, and Harder Than Hard is Madness.
- Improbable Weapon User: Boy these kids sure are crafty with their mailbox maces, a banjo, swordfish swords, bamboo, Pom-Poms, a mannequin's arm, a boot on a stick, and a fishing pole, to name a couple.
- Instant Expert: The kids have no problems using UFOs the moment they spot one.
- Interrupted Declaration of Love: Needless to say Zack is never happy when he's abruptly preempted from spilling his feelings for Carrie.
- Jerkass: Wally McDoogle, has you risking your life and holding you hostage to fetch gold zombies, protect a pot 'o gold, and for his amusement. Fans will probably enjoy killing him in the final stage.
- Leprechaun The Manchild Jerkass Wally McDoogle.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Jennifer and Carrie, the two female player characters. Jennifer is a cheerleader who wears pink, and Carrie a goth girl who wears dark colors. They both dress femininely, wearing shirts that expose the tops of their shoulders and their midriffs, Carrie wearing a long skirt, and Jennifer wearing heels.
- MacGyvering: Larry.
- Mini-Mecha: Larry builds mechs for the kids which are about the size of cars.
- Monster Compendium: The Bestiary, filled with little factoids, battle tips, and the difficulty gauge of each monster using glowing skulls as markers. The highest skull level is 10.
- Monster Mash: Has it ever been in a monster movie? Evil Dolls, Evil Clowns, Evil Trees, Martians, Cats, Dracula, Swamp Creatures, Frankie, Werewolves, and a Gym Teacher.
- Motion Comic: Some cutscenes are in the style of comic pages with added motion effects and some simple animation.
- Nail 'Em: A nail gun is the equivalent of a standard pistol.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Captain Bones, use every bullet in your arsenal and he'll still get up for more. But throw just one head and he's dead.
- Night of the Living Mooks: It's like there was a zombie sale and the Zombie Warehouse and Monster Madness won the lottery. Zombie Chihuahuas, Zombie Zeppelins, Explosive Zombies, Zombie Torsos in Wagons, Zombie Actors, Zombie Tanks, Zombie Gunners, Zombie Bikers.
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Nintendo Hard: The game gets a LOT harder as it goes on. - One-Winged Angel: Larry Tools turns into a demon rock star.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Four playable ones to choose from — a nerd, a goth, a slacker, and a cheerleader.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Larry Tools' final form is powered by Monster Tokens
- Rank Inflation: From F-S Depending on how much junk you find, how many monsters you kill, how many Monster Tokens you collect, and if you ever died.
- The Reveal: Larry Tools reveals near the end of the game that he had actually been using the kids to farm monster tokens and his real name is Lawrence Thompson.
- Running Gag: Carrie being mistaken for a zombie.
- Security Cling: At one point, something startles the guys and they leap into the girls' arms.
- Shout-Out:
- "Zombies have eaten my neighbors!".
- Gremlins are small blue creatures who wear white Phrygian caps and white pants.
- The cast attends L. R. Jenkins High School.
- Twofer, Bob Zombie is a flying, dreadlocked, warlock zombie pothead with a Jamaican accent and cool hat and car. His Final Speech is various titles of Bob Marley tracks.
- Easy difficulty is called Child's Play.
- Snake's flavor text begins with "Snakes... why did it have to be snakes?"
- Billy's a chainsaw wielding ball of hatred who wears a red and green striped shirt and a hockey mask.
- Jack-O's flavor text reads as such:Every couple of years, the residents of Halloweenville are called upon to vote for a new face to represent them during Halloween. Even though a certain skeleton had won the popular vote, Jack-O had more electoral votes and won the election.
- What happens after Mr. Huggles returns to the black void of insanity? He turns into Jaba the Huggle!
- Flux capacitors are just random junk waiting to be used in a top-tier weapon.
- To the tune of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme:Larry Tools: Who lives in a van, down by the river?"
- Zack after seeing a ghost: "I see dead people!"
- Skewed Priorities: Jennifer suggests that they go to the mall. Not to get supplies as Zack initially assumes, but for fashionable clothes.
- Spider People: The gym teacher has four spider legs coming from his body that he uses to scamper around.
- Spiritual Successor: to Zombies Ate My Neighbors, as Zack references.
- Status Effects:
- Slow and Disarm: Mummies have locusts and Undead Bikers use smoke grenades, Spiders can only slow. You and your teammates can lay down sticky glue
- Stun/Freeze: Frankie shocks, Banshees scream, Fat Zombies fart, and Ice Demons freeze, Ghouls can blind and stun with a camera flash, Gremlins throw their wrench at you and take you stuff.
- Fear: Cats, Zombie Dogs, and Undead Hands latch onto and make you run around all willy-nilly;
- Lift and Drop: Ghosts and Harpies
- Possess": Ghosts can do this, decreasing movement speed for the ability to spew a green goop that's potentially [split pea soup,
- Burn: Imps and Fire Demons thrown fire balls while Zepplins, you, and your teammates throw Molotov Cocktails. In addition you and your team can use a flamethrower gun and robot arm.
- Storming the Castle: Level 15.
- Taking You with Me:
- When near death, or on fire, an Explosive Zombie will rig itself to explode and run in your general vicinity.
- The Principle tries this when defeated.
- Title Drop: When Larry is explaining tokens:Larry: … with enough of them we may just be able to stop this… this monster madness!
