The Monumental Disappointment That Is Modern Scooby-Doo Games

When I was younger, I managed to get my hands on a copy of Scooby-Doo Mysteryfor the Sega Genesis.  It was a standard "point and click" style adventure game that let you play through two different settings, a hotel belonging to Daphne's...uncle, I think, and a carnival.  One was haunted by a Native American chieftain an the other by a demented clown.  You can probably figure out which was which.

The graphics were simple, and it had a very strong sense of the days of adventure games that included Sam and Max: Freelance Police, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and other great games made by Lucasarts.

It was fun, and it managed to capture the investigative nature of the series quite well.

My sister recently has started playing some of the newer Scooby-Doo games for the Wii and Gamecube, and having glanced over now and again to see what they're like, I've come to the conclusion that they are the absolute worst things to ever happen to Scooby-Doo.

And yes, I'm including that series where Shaggy inherits millions of dollars and Scooby Snacks give the dog special powers.




I liked Scooby-Doo when I was growing up, but there's one thing I knew about the series at its core: it's a group of friends who investigate things.  The monsters are never real, someone's always trying to steal something, and instead of simply buying it like all the other people who show up, Scooby and the gang uncover the truth.

Sure, it had problems, and sure it used stock footage and sure the stories didn't always make sense, but it was consistent and, as someone I follow online pointed out, it presented a great analogy for growing up, because the "meddling kids" didn't just trust the adults to explain how things were, they put in the world to find things out themselves.  It gave young people a sense of control in a world that was ready to let them know they couldn't do anything without the help of an adult.

This got somewhat wrecked when they introduced actual ghosts in a later series, but I was willing to watch it just to see a cartoon version of Vincent Price.

Where was I?  Oh, right, the games.

There are a series of games that came out for the Nintendo Gamecube and Wii that are Scooby-Doo-themed.  They're awful, because while they maintain the "solve the mystery" plot in the loosest possible sense, they're more based on action platforming games, complete with you having to fight enemies.  Yeah, you remember how that happened in the cartoon all the time, right, how Scooby and Shaggy would have to smash a whole bunch of mechanical toys trying to kill them, including toy soldiers with bazookas or robotic mummies?

No?

That's because it never happened.

Now, to be fair, I haven't seen the newest incarnation of Scooby-Doo ("Mystery Incorporated") but I've heard it's really well done.  I don't know if they gave the series a bit more of an action spin, but I'm willing to bet that at no point in the series does Shaggy run around dressed like a space man with a functioning laser pistol that he shoots armies of evil toys with.

And if it does, then I weep for the future of the franchise.

I've seen Velma battling a giant vampire-looking monster with a samurai sword, watched her and Daphne fight a giant robot in a toy factory, and watched Shaggy and Scooby try to platform-jump their way over giant pools of glowing green liquid that I can only assume is radioactive.  Oh, and Scooby tends to run around bludgeoning monsters while standing on two legs and wielding a string of sausages like a whip.  There's also a health bar for characters that drops when they get hit.

Find a single part of that paragraph above that makes even a bit of sense in the context of the original Scooby-Doo.

Maybe I am out of touch, though, and maybe this is how the Scooby "empire" is trying to market the series now, as more action-packed and with thrills instead of chills.

However, I think that with how people are reacting to the works of Telltale Games (The Walking Dead, A Wolf Amongst Us), I can't help but wonder what would happen if they managed to get their hands on the Scooby-Doo license and started putting out some episode-based mysteries, or simply made a five episode "movie" that players would have to work through and solve.  I think it'd be great, as opposed to yet another generic platform game with a terrible camera.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to track down that episode where Scooby and Shaggy met Batman.  That makes more sense than what happens in these games.