Designed and developed in 1993, Monster manor was the first of many, many, many, many... Are we there yet? Many, many, many, First Person Shooters, to appear on the 3DO multiplayer.
Keep in mind Doom was big in '93, really big and everyone, including 3DO, wanted a slice of the demon splattered pie.
No other game really equalled Doom. Well, perhaps Halo. Some 8 years later. Anyway. Never mind. Monster Manor did not challenge Doom in anyway: not in game play, not in imagination, not in execution, not in anything.
The graphics are OK ish, but only the walls are textured. This was probably done to keep the frame rate up I guess. The overall scenery is pretty bland but it is full screen, unlike those huge borders found in such games as Iron Angel and Doom for the 3DO.
The Manor, such as it is, is pretty bare with only a few items dotted about. It appears the previous occupants of Monster Manor had little in the way of possessions. They did seem to have thousands of old record players, quite a few tailors dummies and some packing crates. There is not a fridge or TV in sight however.
In addition, these nutty home owners seem to have had a habit of leaving coins and gems scattered uniformly around the house, along with giant health repairing red crosses.
The Monsters, while few and far between, are well animated and scale nicely as they get closer. In terms of design they are certainly unique. These monsters look like they have been digitized versions of clay models. This gives them a good 'n spooky appearance. As usual of mid 90's FPS games, variety is not the spice of Monster Manor and don't expect to be all of a dither because of the different types of targets available to shoot at.
The dead fly on this ice-cream of medicocraty, is that the overall game structure. Which can be fairly safely described as uninspired. It amounts to trudging around the Manor, looking for keys and shooting the occasional monster. Then opening doors, find parts of the clichιd talisman and moving on to the next level via a portal.
...and repeat.
Gameplay, gameplay and gameplay. Someone. And EA, I'm looking at you. Seems to have been fogotten. The enemies are scant and move far to slowly. Throw into this recipe for 'crappy game', one gun and slow turning around on the part of the player and things become pretty painful.
It seems the developers desire to compensate for the lack of speed and agility of the monsters, was to make the monsters super deadly if they did manage to overwhelm you.
Sadly, the only chance they get to overwhelm you, is normally after you enter a room with your back to the them. Then because it takes so long for you to move through 180 degrees, you are usually dead by the time you finish.
This is, put mildly, annoying.
The only redeeming part of this lame duck of a game is the sound effects. Oh, before I forget the introduction is rubbish too. But the sound effects are creepy, truly disturbing and worth a listen.
Rare? Not on your scary nelly,
3DO Kid
First off; this site is amazing, and I love the depth and the good memories that it brings back. My thanks and appriciation to the administrator.
Does anyone know where I can get a hold of this game? At present, I do not have access to Ebay (or a credit card), so does anyone have any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated, as this was always my favorite game for the 3D0.
- Paul.