“Give me a shot of your best milk, and a cookie chaser …”

“You monster … as long as I wear this badge, no cookies get crumbled in this town!”

And so it begins, Puss ‘n Boots versus the Gingerbread Man in a rock ‘em, sock ‘em battle inside a western-style saloon with destructible environmental elements.

Hey, look! A giant ham hock. Now wouldn’t that be perfect for smacking your opponent alongside the head. The battle is part of the beginning of the story mode, if it could be called such, and the beginning of the Activision PC family title Shrek SuperSlam.

This is not an overly involved game. It has a few drawbacks and for the most part is exactly like its console counterparts. The game is geared for families, young players and old, and is not particularly deep. There is the story mode, with sequential chapters that must be unlocked by winning the levels above them (eight chapters are available in total), and there is the mega challenge mode, melee, training and trophy room. The mega challenges will enable you to unlock other game features, melee is timed matches (and realistically, the majority of the game’s fights are timed, the only real difference being what needs to be accomplished within that time span), and training is where you learn to master the control scheme.

The idea is a simple one, outperform your opponent – and this is accomplished in a variety of ways depending on the parameters selected for the combat – before the timer runs out. Build up the slam meter and then pull off devastating attacks replete with dazzling special effects. You can tell when you have enough juice to execute your slam in a couple of ways. There is the word ‘slam’ on the bottom of the screen that acts as a meter, and fills up. When it does so, your toon will be outlined in a fiery red glow. Grab Puss, and power drive him through the environment, busting up furniture, destroying the stairs and tossing him through a door.

The action is somewhat arcade-like in tempo, and as with any good arcade title, there are a variety of power-ups that add to the general mayhem. They take on a variety of styles, from the fart wand (you get Shrek’s Green Storm attack), to pot ‘o gold grenades, a gravity wand, pirate cannon, rocket sauce to speed movement, and other special items like the Viking Horned Helmet, which can turn every hit into a slam. The assorted powerups – 12 weapons, five potions and six magical items – add an element that keeps the general tone light and amusing.

While this image was taken from our PS2 screenshots page,
this is indicative of the PC graphics

The game’s sound spans from Beethoven’s Fifth to a Saturday morning cartoon style that can be upbeat and light in tempo.

Where the game begins to go awry is in the filmed cutscenes that act as filler. They were filmed at low resolution and popping the game’s action resolution does not affect them. As a result, they look rather blurry and pixilated. The cutscenes that carry the storyline are much better and while some of the humor feels a little forced, doubtless it will appeal to younger game players.

Overall the graphics are very good for the style of game. The camera is fixed, but surveys the action well. There are 20 characters in the game (most will need to be unlocked) and 16 destructible environments to cavort through. Both the characters and the environments are very well rendered – colorful and bright, and the animation is quite fun.

When it comes to the actual action of the game, the controls will take some time to become accustomed to. You can use the keyboard, or a gamepad, and more than one player can participate in the multiplayer mode. But these are not entirely intuitive but you can remap the controls to suit your style of play.

Other elements continue, though, to not get certain messages. Regardless of the number of times the choice was made to disable the autosave feature, it continually popped up after every fight to ask if autosave should be enabled. Hmm, what part of ‘No,’ did it not understand?

But even with these minor drawbacks, the title has a niche that it most certainly will appeal to. Get a group of teens together and let them battle it out and the laughter will roll. Play it solo and while there is some challenge, it feels a little empty. This is definitely a game best shared, and while not particularly deep, it does have its share of grins built in.

Gameplay: 7.0
The game is somewhat repetitious, and the default keyboard controls are confusing (thankfully the controls can be remapped). There are load times, but they are not too bad.

Graphics: 7.5
Some of the cutscenes are blurry on bigger monitors, but once you get the resolution set, this game sparkles with lush, vibrant characters and environments, and the animation is fun.

Sound: 7.0
A nice range of sounds and music, and the voice-over work sounds is almost spot on with the movies. The audio portion does an excellent job of supporting the visuals.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Nothing overly difficult here.

Concept: 6.5
Some things might have been handled differently, but for the most part this game has a nice selection of characters, solid environments, and nice arcade touches.

Multiplayer: 7.7
The single-player game is Ok, but the multiplayer player is much more enjoyable.

Overall: 7.0
There may be some fumbling with the controls until you get comfortable and the keyboard is definitely much harder to use than a gamepad. The control elements notwithstanding though, this is a game that is better in multiplayer (the AI is good, but the fun is in competition with another player) than in a single-player setting. The humor is much more appealing to younger players, but the graphics, sound and action combine for an entertaining, if not irreverent, trip into Shrek’s world. While good, this game translates better, control-wise, on the home console platforms.