Monster Garage

Those who regularly watch the Discovery Channel will undoubtedly know the name Monster Garage. It's the show where motorcycle guru Jesse James and his team transform a vehicle into a functional machine with a purpose. It's no surprise that the fun, dynamic show would make its way onto video games. Unfortunately, the PC version released earlier this year was a travesty, due to its lack of strategic gameplay, poor design, and stability issues. Ten months later, an overhauled Monster Garage has turned up on the Xbox. The Xbox version yields mixed results: It makes numerous improvements but it also takes away some of the freedom offered in the PC version.

There really isn't much to keep you playing Monster Garage. Even if you brave all the crashing, the game will take you only a few hours to complete. The challenges are all easy, except for the final one. This is unfortunate because the last challenge is actually enjoyable and is significantly harder than the others--and it requires you to make some sort of plan. Additionally, you can't fault the linear approach to building the monster. Let's face it--you do need to install parts in a given order in construction. However, you can fault the game for being so inflexible with the parts themselves. Why can't we build a roll cage with fewer cross beams in order to save money? If the in-game engine was more complex, to allow for damage modeling, you could have had this trade-off. Was saving a few bucks really worth the risk of damaging the vehicle in the trial?

It's as if Hollywood wasn't doing enough to ruin our favorite TV shows. That's the only rationale behind Activision Value's latest game, Monster Garage, the highly touted Xbox version. Now, I've been a fan of the show since it first aired two years ago. The reality-TV concept married to a high pressure automotive engineering challenge is damned exciting to me, not just because of the open-ended mechanical problem-solving but also because of the incendiary personalities. Sadly, neither quality has managed to find its way into this clunky car-"making" game. What we're left with instead is a puzzle game that inexplicably straddles the line between Byzantine complexity and generic simplicity.