By Billy Teo

MONSTER Madness: Grave Danger is a perfect party trick for Halloween.

This PS3 update of an Xbox 360 title plays like a typical Hollywood B movie, with zombies, spiders, killer clowns and alien invaders in flying saucers to take on.

What is neat is that the game lets up to four players fight the monsters simultaneously - a rare feature in this genre. This makes it ideal for parties if you have extra controllers handy.

Monster Madness continues in the grand tradition of monster-slaying in apocalyptic games like Gauntlet or even Diablo. This has a silly, tongue-in-cheek flavour.

Like, hey dude, the four lead characters must have come from High School Musical to meet Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

The plot is hacked from movies like Night Of The Living Dead or 28 Days Later. You must survive an onslaught of zombies and other undead rising out of their graves by attacking them with anything at hand - from toilet plunger to nail guns to even a lawn mower.

So, expect 18 levels of frenzied button-mashing adventure.

What is more, 25 single-player mini-games - called Challenges - serve as side attractions, providing diversion from the main adventure.

These challenges range from shooting down 150 zombies as quickly you can using a nail gun to mowing down zombies with a truck.

Not all the mini-games involve killing monsters.

One such challenge involves steering an amusement park swan boat through giant rings located along a river with raging rapids.

You have to jump through hoops to complete this frustrating task.

Monster Madness may not have a ghost of a chance at winning an award but by no means is it the total horror that some game sites say it is. Reviews have panned it for being less than the adventure that it should be.

Sure, the action is something of a guilty pleasure - the gaming equivalent of, say, any mindless Michael Bay action movie.

I found it surprisingly fun to slash and shoot at the monsters for hours, teaming up with my nine-year-old son.

• Monster Madness: Grave Danger
  RATING 6/10
  » $59.90
  » Action-adventure (genre)
  » Sony PlayStation 3 (platform)

This article was first published in Digital Life, The Straits Times on Oct 29, 2008.