Monster Inc.'s story is certainly imaginative. While I haven't seen the movie (so I can't comment if it follows it, though I'm sure it does), the Game Boy Color iteration follows the adventure of Sulley (a giant blue bear) and Mike (a one eyed green ball thing), whom are both employees of Monsters Inc. - a company that turns the fear of children into a dependable energy source. However, one day a young child finds his way into Monstropolis, and Sulley Mike must work together to get the child back to his room, as children have been outlawed in the city.

So while that isn't too bad, the game itself is terrible. A basic platformer at heart, Monsters Inc. has you basically just crossing from one end of a level to the other to enter a door. A few of them have specific goals, like collecting paperwork or scaring a sleeping kid at the end, but none of them are particularly exciting. Either the game is a silly scavenger hunt or just aimless walking to the other end of the level. This is marred further by some lackluster controls. Sulley moves, well, much like a big huge bear, and Mike is just a bit too floaty. Even worse, the game is peppered with awful hit detection, so you are going to be taking plenty of damage you probably shouldn't have.

I can't even give much praise to Monster Inc.'s the graphics. While the still art shots that move the story along look nice and colorful (minus the few instances of dark purple text on a black background), the actual game graphics are quite drab. Backgrounds aren't too bad, but it's pretty tough to detect which elements of the background you can stand on, as opposed to being absolutely non-interactive. Moreover, it's usually just as difficult to pick out any enemies against the background. To its credit, the music features a series of catchy themes, though it did raise some eyebrows during study hall when I blasted the GBA volume to its highest setting.

In all honesty, I really wanted to like Monsters Inc. I managed to find something to like when I reviewed Atlantis a while back, but this time I just found myself grasping for straws. I don't know why companies think they can get away with releasing such sub par children's titles because, as they should know, kids like good games as much as anyone else. Worse, now that possibly the best platformer ever is out on the Game Boy Advance, I really cannot recommend Monsters Inc. to anybody.

· · · piku