Windows

Scooby-Doo!: Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom

Just as parents nowadays still whip out dog-eared boxes that hide long-neglected board versions of Life and Monopoly and exclaim, "I haven't played this for years, let's have a family night!" I have no doubts that future generations will reminisce with their children about the good ol' days of playing You Don't Know Jack or Scooby-Doo: Mystery of the Fun Park Phantom on their computers (of course there will also be the usual nostalgic misgivings, such as, "We didn't need these hologram games to have fun when I was a kid, we made do with 3D). SouthPeak Interactive and Engineering Animation have teamed up to bring the young cartoon crime busters from the early 70s into the computer generation with a multimedia production that is a multimedia cross between Clue and Mouse Trap.

Aside from the initial confusion of adapting to Mystery of the Fun Park and its odd style of play, there's hardly a hair out of place with the game. The sights, sounds, and wacky culprits admirably do justice to the cartoon series. Being able to meaningfully replay the game numerous times over ensures that the game stays on hard drives long after it would have been shelved, had it been yet another standard adventure game. Newcomers and old time fans alike should find plenty of value here, and if Scooby had thumbs, it's pretty certain he'd give Mystery of the Fun Park two big thumbs up, too.

Really this one is good fun for all the family ... there are so many options. You can set difficulty levels, impose a time limit for moves so you don't have to wait all day for a slow-coach, and play can be halted and stored in a saved game so that there's no excuse for postponing meal time. You can also play against the computer, against up to three other players or even participate in an on-line hunt. Although there is a short learning curve there's also a good hint display to get you started and the game is just complex enough for you to work out devious strategies to win the day.

Scooby-Doo is een soort Cluedo alleen dan met Scooby-Doo. De opmerkingen van Shaggy zijn nog wel lollig, maar voor de rest is het allemaal een beetje mager.

If you're a parent looking for a fun game for your child and want to relive your past then this game is for you. Scooby-Doo get two thumbs up for nostalgia alone, plus another big thumbs up for the music. But after that you will find yourself tiring of the game quickly, especially with the repetitive comments from the characters. The game also has a Multiplayer option, which for the life of me I can't understand. The only people I see playing this game online are really little kids, because adults would get bored too quickly. On that note gentle reader we will give Scooby-Doo a score of 55/100, but if I had to score the game for children alone then the game gets a score of 73/100.

Scooby-Doo is a game that has about four miles of concept and an inch of ingenuity. This could have been a fun puzzler, but as it turns out, Scooby-Doo only falls flat on his face and leaves you wondering what could have been. Like so many other software companies who grab up big licenses for games, it's obvious that SouthPeak and EAI Interactive were hoping to just rake in a quick buck without providing any real substance -- and they might have gotten away with it if it wasn't for this meddling reviewer.