Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

Scooby Doo? He's a long-time favourite of ours. Together with Shaggy and the rest of Mystery Inc., Scooby Doo was one of the TV events of the 70's/80's. But his presence in video games has also been well received, thanks to a heavy push from THQ. With the second film of the cartoon now finished, you won't be surprised to see that a video game equivalent of Scooby Doo 2, subtitled Monsters Unleashed for PC, is available.

When a pair of ghouls humiliate Scooby and his motley crew and ruin the opening ceremony for Coolsville's Coolsonian Criminology Museum, the gang is shaken. That's right - there's another masked villain at work and another mystery needs to be solved. Zoinks! Sounds like a job for Mystery Inc.

Though most of Scooby's previous virtual outings played host to gameplay with an emphasis on mystery and exploration and pointing and clicking, Monsters Unleashed manages to combine that with several other action-based playing styles, helping to make this adventure as diverse as possible. You'll be able to control the Scooby Gang in road chases and partake in an array of mini-games that will prove valuable to your progress should you complete them successfully. Encounters with mysterious beings and supposed ghosts and monsters are as frequent as expected, but it's nothing you can't handle. Just be sure not to lose your objective because of a few Scooby snacks and the occasional hotdog.

But whatever the playing style, the adventure as a whole is great fun. Environments are based on scenes and stills from the movie, animation is typical of the cartoon series, and that cheesy humour remains intact. It's all good.