Scooby Doo! Who's Watching Who? Review

Scooby Doo! Who's Watching Who?

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Publisher: THQ

Developer: Savage Entertainment

Category: Adventure

Release Dates

N Amer - 10/11/2006

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Scooby Doo! Who's Watching Who? Review

Glink It

It's time for a showdown! After Mystery Inc. is invited on to a reality show about ghost hunting, the rival ghost hunting team GSI (Ghost Scene Investigators) that the show features begins challenging Scooby and the gangs lack of scientific equipment and throws down the challenge to which team can bust the most ghosts. Sure it's a rating gimmick that was thought up by the show's producer after seeing Mystery Inc.'s popularity increase after solving several high profile cases. But what happens when there are other factors introduced that weren't explained in the challenge?

The PSP is slowly gaining some popularity by providing action titles that are 3rd person perspective driven. The first person shooter on the PSP is simply not an option when it comes to the controls, so developers are thinking backwards and that means action titles that only require one thumbstick. Scooby Doo is a pretty good example of this thinking, with the exploration factor and driving scenarios, the action comes at a surprisingly fast pace, even if the game becomes somewhat formulaic.

As the game goes, you start each mission like an episode of the TV show. Scooby runs around the level sniffing out clues and eating Scooby snacks to keep his bravery up and once all the clues are found Scoob gives them to Velma who begins analyzing said clues (this is more for gimmick value). Then Scooby gets to ride with Fred in the Mystery Machine as you chase around an escaping villain, finally ending with Shaggy and Scooby being chased by the ghost.

Now I can tell you that the gameplay is pretty spot-on, running around the first part of the episode, Scooby must walk up to characters and speak with them all while avoiding lesser ghouls and ghosts and dodging the kitschy traps that are featured in the TV show. Yes I know this does seem to get repetitive, but the levels do vary and there are things to find (especially those short cuts while driving the van). Lastly the chase sequence should provide some smiles as each episode (level) features one of the ghosts from the TV show.

The graphics in Scooby Doo, are actually really good, there is almost a cell shaded quality that gives the game a strong cartoon feel (as it should), lines are clearly distinguished on the characters and while snippets of blocky graphics can occasionally be seen, the characters all look like their television counterparts. Levels can seem a bit plain at times and I know they had to use more then one bad guy per level to give you a reason to keep running around, but sometimes I felt it wasn't all that necessary.

Even better - there are some of the original voice actors from the TV show featured on the game. Most notably missing though, is Casey Kasem as the voice of Shaggy, and for some reason Frank Welker, the voice actor who does Fred and Scooby on the TV show, only does Fred's and another original voice, Scooby is voiced by Scott Innes who coincidently does Shaggy's voice. Regardless, the voice acting is pretty good and it was nice to see that they managed decent Scooby-ish dialogue as well. Jinkies! Yoinks!

My hat is off to THQ for coming up with a decent game for this license, other Scooby titles have been met with much less fanfare and stories/gameplay that weren't worth the price of admission.

Review Scoring Details Scooby Doo! Who's Watching Who?

Gameplay: 7.4

Each level has you doing three separate types of gameplay, exploration/driving/chase and while it can start to seem repetitive, the wrap around mystery (oops, did I say that) will keep you going.

Graphics: 8.0

It's really a nice treat when you get a license as popular as the Scooby franchise, and the developers take the time to make it look good. Each level has lesser monsters then the main one, it all works well from a visual standpoint. I would have liked to have seen more of Daphne.

Sound: 8.0

Voice actors from the show like Mr. Welker mentioned above and Mindy Cohn make for an enjoyable and authentic Scooby experience.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium

It takes a short time to figure out what to do and when to do it, but each episode plays out the same way, enjoyable, but easy.

Concept: 7.0

Finally a Scooby game that is developed correctly so the user feels more like a part of Mystery Inc.

Overall: 7.4

I like this game, my wife likes this game and my kids like watching us play this game. Is it perfect? No. But it does a good job of capturing the magic of one of Saturday morning cartoons most beloved characters.