Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase Review (PS1): Not Even for a Scooby Snack...

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Introduction

Well, looks like we've got another mystery on our hands, gang! Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase blessed our little blue planet in the year of 2001 in both a movie and video game format simultaneously, which, often in itself, screams Cash Grab. Yet we, as responsible and dedicated patrons to the cause of reviewing and analysing piss poor video games to a sub-par and underappreciative audience, have a moral duty to take Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase into our cold loathing embrace and ask the big and important questions, such as what in the name of all that is holy is wrong with Shaggy's skeletal structure? 

The look of two people who know exactly what they're doing.

But enough of all this idle chatter, let's jump in to the exciting video game release of Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase for the Playstation One!

The Cyber Chase

In what is perhaps a typical, yet deeply enjoyable, fashion, the main menu opens up to us with the old familiar tones of the Scooby Doo theme tune. A song so ancient and recognisable that it's potentially got the tablature and sheet music written on the outside of ancient Greek pottery or on the inside of cave walls. Although it may be comfortable for us to remain on the main menu for the next 25-30 minutes and avoid the game entirely, we instead decide to press start and begin our descent into delirium.

The opening cutscene presents us with our antagonist and an interesting bit of exposition in the form of his diabolical plan, which, on a certain level, manages to break the fourth wall entirely by claiming he has "spread his evil virus all over this game". Considering the bug-ridden mess we are soon to play and waste our lives on, this sentence seems all too apt!

Soon afterwards we are presented with the good old familiar gang! There's very little to talk over here, most everyone is how you remember them. Scooby is Scooby, though with a lifeless and soulless look in his eyes, Shaggy continues to have the most painful looking case of scoliosis you could imagine and Velma looks like something straight out of Pan's bloody Labyrinth!

So, after a short chat with our special chums we are thrust into the hub world of the game where we are presented with a series of levels that await us in a completely linear fashion... though, it's nice of the game to give us the illusion of free choice by presenting us with a series of locked levels. Hmmm, we can't quite put our finger on it... But this hub world seems to remind us of something...

Hmmm...

Our first level is classical Japan where we are interrupted again and again and again and again and again by our incredibly helpful chums to ensure our success against our zippy little antagonist. The actual game plays like an incredibly poor rip-off of... Something... though in a shameless and deeply embarrassing manner considering it's poor presentation, lack of depth in terms of gameplay, mechanics and challenge and finally a complete lack of character. 

Though, when we finally came up against a new foe in the form of a Karate blackbelt with a considerably inappropriate love for dogs, we consider that perhaps we were wrong in judging the game as completely characterless. After all, watching a Great Dane get hip thrusted at, from great distance, is something we both never and always hoped we'd be able to see.

A final attack on this game's presentation comes in the form of Scooby Doo's particular audio. As anything you do, touch, smell or fart on prompts our boy Scooby to perform vocal diarrhea over and over and over and over again.

Cheers, Daphne... On yer bike...

After conquering Classical Japan and assassinating a samurai warrior with cream pies we get our chance to travel to the Roman Coliseum of yor in the trusty boots of Shaggy. Yet, before we head out, we can't help but notice that Shaggy has the skeletal structure you'd imagine from a man in his mid 30's who's eaten nothing but dog food for the past decade. 

Reaching ancient Rome, we are presented with more of the same. Bland, boring, on rails platforming that pulls no inspiration from us... though, it did also present to us two distinct sequences of what can only be described as the most complicated, hard as nails 3D platforming you could imagine. Though we can chalk these inexcusable series of deaths down to poor design and not an innate challenge built in to the game to test it's players. 

Imitation & Flattery

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that certainly must have been the angle the developers were banking on when crafting this sloppy mess. With the hub world, platforming dynamics, chase scenes and even it's collectable nature completely ripped from the latest installment of the Crash Bandicoot series at the time: Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, which was developed a whole 3 years earlier in the heady year of 1998.

In short, this game is a pale imitation of other far superior games, prompting us to put our copy of Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase away from sight and mind and vow never to play it again. Not even for a Scooby Snack...

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Tom - Cash Grab