I recently took a look at Scooby-Doo! First Frights, an action adventure game being published by Warner Bros. Like other Scooby-Doo games, this one is unlikely to be one of the great games of 2009 but will quite likely be a fun little romp.
The game is divided into four adventures that take place in typical Scooby-Doo environments like a Phantom Cruise Ship and a Haunted High School.
In the game, members of the Scooby-Doo gang travel in pairs. Players can switch from one character to another and apparently also can switch to characters and costumes unlocked during the game. Character each have their own special skills. There is a two-player co-op mode that allows friends to drop in or out of the game at will.
What I saw looked like a standard mix of fighting, exploration and light puzzle solving. There are also chase sequences in which you simply run away from big monsters. The PR flack said the difficulty scales in these challenges – if you run slow the game will slow down for you – but in spite of that, and the fact that the guy had been demoing the game all day, he still didn’t make it through the chase in two attempts. We’ll see what that indicates about the game’s level of difficulty.
Graphically the game looks quite good; I liked the character design and the environment I saw. The game also uses voice actors from the TV series.
Past Scooby-Doo games I’ve played have been pretty decent, and there’s no reason to believe this one won’t continue the tradition. Scooby-Doo! First Frights is set to hit stores some time this fall.
