There is a lot to live up to when a game tries to be like Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. games. The depth, quality, enjoyment, and overall immensity of the game has everything it needs to be the game of choice at parties, competitions, and even when just played alone. Here we have Shrek Superslam, Activision’s answer to Super Smash Bros. Is it any good? Depends on what you enjoy, how satisfied you are with using a single attack button, and how many friends you have who are willing to buy the game to play against you. Basically, a lot must be done and forgiven, and expectations drastically lowered, in order to appreciate the game. Its numerous faults prevent it from being a greater game.

Let us start with the graphics. Yes, they are 3D, and yes, they are smooth and somewhat detailed. But, aside from the initial impressive appearance, the graphics are actually very blocky and ugly, even. I know what you are saying, “But Shrek is an Ogre!” Well, let me tell you something, Shrek may be an ogre but he does not look as horrendous as he does in this game. His eyes are over-sized and his face is oblong and out of proportion. Even the beloved Donkey looks like a wet, anorexic stray cat and bears minimal resemblance to the actual character. This applies to all of the characters, which is a shame.

Many of the levels you fight in are nicely detailed and even contain destructible items. The drawback to this is that many of them are extremely small and the space allotted for movement is too limited, lessening the beauty of each stage. Some of the multi-player levels, however, do have unique and interesting graphical details. Gingy’s House in black and white, for instance, uses the western movie look to create a great visual appearance. Muffin Bakery also utilized lightning effects and rain to make the level visually appealing. This, coupled with the level’s upward direction, as opposed to the open environment of the other levels, make it one level that is definitely memorable and enjoyable to battle in. Some levels also utilize particle effects such as snow and fireflies to truly enliven the atmosphere of each of the respective levels.

That is not to say that all levels are this way, because as many as there are that are impressive, there is also an equal and even greater amount that are dull and uninteresting. Now, the cut-scenes and story in Shrek Superslam are another quibble I have with the game. Like I mentioned earlier, the characters in the story sequences look nothing like the actual characters from the movie, and each screen looks as horrible as Shrek’s stinky behind, if not even more gruesome.

The story that accompanies each character is something that will embarrass even the most incompetent of writers. The cheesy, laughable, and plain idiotic stories of why each of the characters had to fight his friends made me wish to vomit on my DS, but thankfully the developers were smart enough to incorporate the use of the Start button to skip all of the verbal jargon; and I pressed it. Every. Single. Time.

Moving on to the audio presentation, there is plenty of audio tracks and a nice variety of samples. Some of the sound effects sound decent and are passable, yet there are some minor issues in this department. First off, they are repetitive. Way too repetitive. It is as if the sound clips are permanently looping, and it is not enjoyable hearing Fiona nor any other character exclaiming “Agh!” over and over again. I guess this happens because all you need to do to achieve a victory is to never stop pressing the “Y” button, but there should have been more variety to the exclamations of each character. This is made worse by the childish and too fairy-like soundtrack that exists throughout the game, and even in the cut-scenes. Sure this is a fairytale, but I do not remember hearing such annoyingly painful music in either of the movies. Other sound effects such as Shrek’s farts do add humor to the title, but even these get too repetitive and mundane. Overall, the audio department detracted from a better experience instead of enhancing it.

Not everything about Shrek Superslam is bad. The single-player mode Mega Challenge, for example, adds a nice variety to the gameplay and distracts from the battle aspect of the game, if only for a few of the challenges. Some of these challenges require the use of the touch screen, which is the only use of it in the entire game (besides main menu navigation). Even the text in the story sequences cannot be advanced by pressing the touch screen, which makes them more of an annoyance. Other challenges require you to fight against three other computer-controlled characters, which is where some problems arise.

Slowdown. There is slowdown in Shrek Superslam and, unfortunately, it occurs when four characters are on-screen at the same time. But we are not talking about sudden slowdown, and then a return to regular frame-rate. The entire battle runs at a lower frame-rate at all times, so your punches take three seconds to hit your opponent, you take a minute to walk a couple of feet, and it is just painful to watch. Not all challenges are this way; it just seems to happen when all of your adversaries are different characters each.

I really enjoyed watching both Shrek movies when they came out, and I still enjoy watching them today. The crude humor, the ingenious story-telling, and the memorable characters make it a true classic animated film. It is a shame, then, that none of these great traits from the movies transition into any aspect of the game, and it makes it hard to enjoy playing it.

Closing Comments
Shrek Superslam simply translates into a repetitive beat-em-up game whose replay value is greatly decreased by the lack of single card download play, and by the tedium behind the bonus features. Some of them are worth unlocking but most just seem too enforced and unnecessary. There is a great little practice mode where you can train with each character to learn all of their moves. But when victory is achieved simply with the constant pressing of one button, this mode is truly worthless. Besides, skill is not even favored over the single button pressing as the computer controlled characters are insanely difficult, and doing anything other than never letting go of the “Y” button is murder.

When you have great characters like those from Shrek, it is a shame that you cannot make something more than what Shrek Superslam offers. If you are looking for a few minutes of fun, followed by more minutes of frustration, then this game is for you. For everyone else, just sit back and enjoy better games on the DS, most of which just released this past week and some which are coming in the following days, and wait instead for the true multiplayer fighting king, Super Smash Bros., to arrive on the DS.