Monster Bash

The Good
Monster Bash was published by Apogee and came out at the time when their other games were released, such as Alien Carnage, Bio Menace, Duke Nukem II, and Major Stryker. You play Johnny Dash who, on a sleepless night, wonders what happened to his pet dog Tex since he went missing for two days. Johnny is pulled under his own bed where a mysterious figure appears out of the blue and tells him that he did not run away, but was in fact kidnapped by someone called Count Chuck. Chuck's henchmen is sent into the underworld to steal a few animals, mainly dogs and cats, and bring them to him so that Chuck can transform them into monsters. By doing this, Chuck will eventually train them to do his bidding. Fortunately, Johnny is given a slingshot that will never run out as long as it remains in his pocket at all times, and this will help deal with the henchmen. And so, Johnny's rescue mission begins.

The game is split into three parts, and is labeled "Part 1", "Part 2", and "Part 3". I honestly don't know why Apogee decided not to give the three parts episode titles; they must have run out of ideas at the time. I have several ideas for the title. For instance, since Part 1 centers around graveyards, this part could be titled something like "The Graveyard Shift", Part 2 could be "Roast Johnny", while Part 3 being "Chuck's last gasp". If Apogee had released a VGA version of Monster Bash, then they would have gave episode titles to the parts. Actually, Monster Bash VGA was one of their projects which got canceled probably because the original game received poor sales. Part 1 consists of ten levels, and the remaining parts have nine levels each. In all of them, there are three bosses, including the one-eyed cyclops; Igor, Count Chuck's assistant; and Chuck himself.

So in order to pass each level, Johnny must rescue all the pets in the level while fighting off a whole range of monsters like severed hands, zombies, bouncing eyeballs, pumpkin men, were-wolves, tiger planes, and witches, to name just a few. Once you've rescued all the pets that you could find, a dialog box appears telling you that you are free to leave the level. You are able to free them by shooting the padlock of the white cages in which they are housed in. At this point, you may be wondering "How do I know that I really rescued all the pets so I'll be free to leave the level?" Simple. You see, you can access a nifty dialog box which displays a compass telling you where the nearest pet is. (If you decide to access the dialog box when you've rescued all the pets, the compass doesn't appear.) The dialog box will also display the number of Johnnies you have, as well as the score, the number of pets you've yet to save, the elapsed time, and the par time. You must remember that pets aren't always near the surface and may be on platforms located somewhere in the sky, and you must get to these platforms either by jumping onto other platforms, or getting someone to take you there, be it stone monsters, green feet, or even boots.

If Johnny is hit by any of these monsters, his health meter will flash white quickly and drop down a number of units, depending on the difficulty setting you have the game on. And when the health meter hasn't got any health units left, Johnny bounces off the screen, you lose a life, and have to play through the level again, unless you pass a flagpole that will raise a flag that has the "Skulls & Crossbones" symbol on it. The only ways in which you can find an extra life is to seek a "rotating Johnny" hanging by a string, or access the secret cheat that will not only give you one, but five extra lives. Rather than just having a slingshot to fight off the zombies, Johnny can collect power-ups, allowing his slingshot to be upgraded into a three-shot, fireball, rocks, or rocket. Every weapon has its advantages. The three-shot, for instance, has the ability to go in all directions that Johnny is facing. The rocket, on the other hand, homes in on monsters approaching from behind you, as well as in front of you. It's a shame that these weapons have a limited number of shots. Monsters are not the only things that you have to kill. You can always hit "Skull Watchers", skulls that just sit there and do nothing but flash their red eyes at you. Not only does killing all the Skull Watchers in the level results in a 50,000 point bonus, but also collecting all the loot, which can often be found by breaking into treasure chests.

All the levels are decent, with hints about them in every level. You can access the hints by pressing the F10 key. There are some difficult levels thrown into the game, but not that many. Each part has a level where Count Chuck keeps coming back to haunt Johnny by introducing his evil clone, who will stop at nothing to kill him. In my opinion, the second last level of Part 3 is excellent. This is where you get to fly around on a broom, rescuing pets that are far up into the sky, while killing off witches and tiger planes. Still speaking of levels, a statistics screen appears that tells you the percentage of loot you have collected, how long you have taken to complete the level, and par time. You'll also receive the bonus points that you have discovered in the level, and the splatter bonus. If your time is less than the par time, then you'll also receive a bonus. Monster Bash supports either the Adlib or Sound Blaster. If you have a SB, then you're in for a treat. Similar to Duke Nukem II, this game features digitized sound effects, so you can hear what lighting really sounds like, as well as the screams of monsters when they die. Furthermore, you also get to hear Johnny say "Cool!", "Awesome!", and "Excellent", whenever he manages to get a power-up, heart, or extra life.

The Bad
There is a good introduction to the game, and can be found in every part. It shows Johnny using his slingshot against a zombie. The intro doesn't show the full story, as I expected. For this, you have to choose "Story" from the main menu.

The Bottom Line
An excellent game from Apogee. Shame that Monster Bash VGA was canceled. ****½

The Good
Every now and then, nostalgia really gets to me. Monster Bash was one of the first games I had for my PC - and managed to be the first full version PC game I ever owned. However, after coming back to it some years later and recognizing a few flaws that maybe I didn't catch the first time, my original opinion of Monster Bash stands - it kicks ass.

The idea of Monster Bash is similar to the game Alien Carnage, where levels are completed by saving all the hostages (or in this case, caged pets) and finding the exit. Naturally, in order to do this, some serious running, jumping, and climbing trees is in order. Monster Bash has everything you remember about old school platformers - jumping puzzles, powerups, cool sound effects, and total originality.

The controls are as top notch as they come. And they need to be. Monster Bash starts off somewhat unforgiving and by the end is just downright hard. Perhaps the trickiest part of this game involves the jumping puzzles, of which there are a lot, that involve you attempting to land on a platform, and instead landing on broken glass, a zombie, or a spear. Thankfully, Monster Bash has almost no death traps, as you will need to spend a lot of time learning to manuever.

When it comes to killing enemies, Johnny, our hero, gets a slingshot. While powerups for the slingshot are available, the majority of the time you spend will be with the most basic form, which is a rapid fire mode that launches smal rocks at a superhuman speed. The catch with Monster Bash is the nature of your ammunition Since you are using rocks, you will have to bounce rocks off hard surfaces to hit cages/zombies/werewolves that are tucked away. The powerups that are available are not too rare, but are extremely finite. When you pick up a powerful, every shot you fire from that point on will be "powered up", and each shot will drain a small fuel gauge that appears next to your life bar. Most of the time, this happens very quickly.

The gameplay in Monster Bash is basically a matter of those two things - your basic slingshot, and jumping. What makes Monster Bash great is that every situation it throws you in is clever. Past the first episode, kiss the "run and gun" levels goodbye. You'll have to do some downright devious shots to get through, and as the episodes get harder, you will get better. Much better. Or you'll die. It's worth saying that Monster Bash is hard - very hard. Starting from about the fifth level of the first episode the game gets unforgiving, and while it lets up in places, Monster Bash will demand the occasional ultra steep learning curve.

The Bad
This is Monster Bash's greatest flaw. Sometimes, the game is just too frustrating. Owners of the full version can use a cheat that will restore 5 lives to our hero, but at times this "cheat" feels almost necessary. Its unsatisfying to finish a level when you know the only reason you could is a cheat. Conversely, it's ultra satisfying to finish a level because you are an elite dood.

My other gripe with Monster Bash is its save system. "Saving" your game merely starts you off on the same level with however many lives you had when you started. If you lose progress, its gone. Period. The games "save points" are fairly common, but as soon as you run out of lives, you have to start the whole episode over again. And without the quicksave functionality we've gotten pampered with, this gets aggravating.

The Bottom Line
I heard Monster Bash described once as Ghosts N Goblins with a slingshot. This isn't too far from the truth (though Ghosts N Goblins is immensely harder). Monster Bash is a classic, and thanks to new emulation technology, like DOSBOX, you can now enjoy it again in its original glory, complete with sound and music.

The Good
Well, when I was about five, I found it positively spine-tingling. Each separate area has a particular "atmosphere" or feel about it. The music is great too. Another testament to the ingenuity of the people at Apogee.

The Bad
The aliens were Waaaay too scary! They reminded me of my deepest, darkest fears.

The Bottom Line
Johnny Bash and Monster Dash is amazing. No other words can describe it. Except for a physical description, oops. It's a side-scrolling platformer where you play cutesy Johnny Bash (who seemed like a rather mature fella to me at the time) and beat up monsters (really?!?) to save dogs and cats. Play it, you won't be disappointed.

The Good
For me this is the best platform game of the DOS era, but as an EGA shareware title released in 1993 (the same year as Doom) it didn't exactly set the world on fire. I picked up a demo disk at a computer fair in the early 90s and eventually purchased the complete game by mail order. It has a wonderful Hammer Horror and Universal Monsters style theme to it, with a little bit of Splatter House gore.

The Bad
Dos Box has horrible screen tearing.

This game deserved VGA graphics considering the quality of the gameplay.

The Bottom Line
A lost gem from a forgotten era. Apogee games were played by PC owners in the late 80s to early 90s, before PC gaming went mainstream upon the release of Doom. It's challenging. One of the last games I remember having a 'PC Speaker' sound option.

The Good
This is a cool platform game by the platform masters - Apogee. Monster Bash is way cool indeed, featuring great music, good sound effects, great controls and reasonable graphics, along with some seriously time-consuming levels.

The Bad
Monster Bash features somewhat basic graphics, and the game is quite repetitive. But it's a platform game, so if you like the genre that's not a problem.

The Bottom Line
A really cool platform game. Get it, play it, love it.

The Good
I love platform games. It has nice graphics and sound.

The Bad
There are so many bad guys. I can't get past the second level.

The Bottom Line
A good game if you like platformers, if not look for something else.