Scooby Doo!: Classic Creep Capers

The classic cartoon series Scooby Doo, Where Are You? was – and let's be honest here – a little predictable. It was a format that pretty much stayed the same for 30 years. You know the story: the gang are 'having a break' from all that mystery solving when they are promptly told that their holiday has to be cut short, because a pesky ghost is scaring all of the tourists away. So the gang decides to split up and look for it. Fred, Daphne and Velma walk aimlessly around whilst Scooby and Shaggy manage to bump into the ghost every few seconds.

After dressing up in drag and stumbling across a few clues, our heroes meet up with the rest of the gang again. Using Shaggy as bait they create a trap that never works, and then, thanks to a fluke, they capture the ghost. Once the ghost is unmasked, it always turns out to be the character who had warned them away at the beginning. Or the only other character in the episode, which doesn't really make it that much of a mystery! To cap it all, the bad guy's motive has always got something to do with buried treasure that he wants to keep everyone away from. So there you have it. But did you know that Scooby Doo's name was invented by Frank Sinatra? Well it was. Kind of. The story of Scooby's conception goes a little like this...

Scooby Did

Way back in the mid sixties Fred Silverman, who was head of daytime planning on the American TV station CBS, wanted a comedy cartoon series that was a cross between I Love A Mystery and The Many Lovers of Dobie Gillis, which were a fifties mystery radio show and a sixties hippie comedy TV show respectively. He took his idea to Hanna-Barbera and they came up with four teenagers and a dog who solve scary crimes. This show was at first called Mysteries Five, then Who's Scared, and the dog hardly featured in the show at all. However, CBS thought the show was too scary and wanted changes. That night Silverman was listening to Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night and heard the line "Scooby Dooby Doo"..., after which he decided to make the dog the main star of the cartoon and call him – you guessed it – Scooby Doo. In the process, the series became less scary and more funny, and the show as we all know it was aired in September 1969. As for later developments – well, the less said about 1979, when they introduced Scrappy Doo (the little sod) the better!

So, there are all the ingredients, but how do they all fit onto a small, grey cart for your N64? Well, not too badly, as it happens!

Scooby Does

Scooby Doo: Classic Creep Capers is based upon actual episodes of the original TV series, and pits you in the role of the lanky, hungry one himself, Shaggy! Each level, or episode, puts you up against a very spooky spook who is haunting one of the four environments that you and the rest of the gang are visiting. Of course, Mystery Inc "ain't afraid of no ghost", so they set out to unmask whoever it is pretending to be one of the undead. Your role is to roam around the many environments collecting clues and pieces of bric-a-brac to make a trap with and insuring that your courage meter is constantly full. It wouldn't make sense for Shaggy to die, so instead he has a courage meter that shrinks every time he bumps into a creepy-crawly or a villainous ghoul. If this meter hits zero then Shaggy screams like a girl and – with Scooby by his side – does a runner! The only way to replenish your courage gauge is to pick up the Scooby Snacks that are lying around (Yuck! Eating food off of the floor, how disgusting!) or find the kitchen. There is a kitchen on every level bar the last, each of which allows you the chance to build a better nutty.

Although the game is named after the dog with the dirty laugh, the Great Dane himself does very little besides get in the way. The operation of the game is straightforward: you have direct control of Shaggy and Scooby follows not too far behind. Unfortunately the daft dog has a really nasty habit of getting under your feet at all the wrong times, causing you to slow down. This can be even more annoying when you are trying to run away from a ghost who gives pursuit if he spots you. As you try to run away Scooby often manages to get between you and your escape route, with the result that you find yourself scared witless by the abhorrent apparition when you least want to be. It's sad, but no matter how loveable you consider Scooby to be, his interference is guaranteed to make you use more than a few expletives on him during the game. As mentioned already, considering this game is called Scooby Doo: Classic Creep Capers, Mr Doo actually does very little. He follows Shaggy, sniggers, says one or two lines of dialogue and basically just gets in the way. Maybe the game should have been called Shaggy: Classic Creep Capers!

Scooby Don't

However, even without Scooby getting in the way, moving Shaggy around a haunted house or creepy cabin is a bit of a struggle anyway! Unlike many adventure games where the camera is positioned behind the action at all times (for example Mario 64 or Zelda), Classic Creep Capers has Shaggy walking in and out of various camera angles in a similar fashion to the Resident Evil series. To cope with these constantly changing viewpoints, the directions on the controller charge to accommodate each new angle. This means that if you were heading east from a scene, although you may be heading north in the next, you still find yourself going in the same direction as before. Unfortunately if you stop moving in a scene, the controls reset to match the environment. All this can be very frustrating and confusing at first, but given some time and a bit of patience, it can be easily mastered. This wouldn't be too much of a problem for a game for a more mature audience, but considering this one is primarily aimed at younger kiddiewinks, the control system does seem inappropriate.

Maybe, in order to capture the essence of the show, these angles give the game a more cinematic feel, with camera changes resembling edit points in a TV show rather than the conventions of a traditional video game? In regard to the other controls, the A button is used the most, as it allows you to select whatever item you wish to use from your inventory. So apart from the whole movement issue, the rest of the controls are fuss-free!

Scooby Can't

As an adventure game Classic Creep Capers isn't really a strong addition to the genre. Although there is plenty of fun to be had tackling the supernatural tasks, most of the puzzle solving isn't really... well, all that puzzling. The clues that you collect in order to unravel a mystery don't really piece together unless you know the episode the level is based on. Ultimately, both the clues and the trap pieces amount to nothing more than objects you must collect in order to finish the mystery. The few puzzles there are however, do need a little bit of brain power to decipher. On the episode "A Tiki Scare is No Fair" a talking parrot will only give you the information you need if you give it a cracker! Also, when one of your team mates goes AWOL and you happen to find them, often they won't budge an inch unless you have just the right object or tool in your possession to free them! Some parts of the game require you to use your head to hide and not just run away. As we all know, Shaggy and his four-legged friend are cowards of the highest order, even more so than I am, and it's not in their nature to fight back. The only way, apart from running, to get rid of the Snow Ghost or the Black Knight when they give chase is to disguise yourself. During the game there are objects for you to collect that make handy disguises... that is, if you can find the right place to use them in!

The downside to all this clue finding is that sometimes the clues can be ridiculously hard to uncover. Although most of the time the items you need to pick up are clearly sign-posted (they flash on the screen), in later levels these objects are put in the most obscure places imaginable. This makes the levels harder – not by the increase in difficulty, but simply by hiding the clues in hard-to-spot places. The only possible way to make sure you have everything you need is to try to pick up everything inside a room in an attempt to see if it is a collectable object. This pretty much eliminates the point of having to use your brain in order to complete the challenge.

Scooby Won't

But don't think that the game is all bad. No, no, no! There is plenty to enjoy. Much of the humour from the series has been captured here, even if some of it is bad. You know the type of thing: Scooby does something silly, like saying "I'm hungry" (no sorry: "Rime Rungry") and Fred responds with something daft like "Oh Scooby" and then everyone laughs. Okay, it's weak, but it's cute and ultimately that's what Scooby Doo was all about – totally unconvincing ghosts and poor, repetitive gags!

Not only does the game capture all the fun of the show (kinda) but visually it hits the bullseye too! All the gang have been faithfully brought to the screen exactly as you remember them and they have been placed in surroundings exactly like the ones Hanna-Barbera used to create. There are strong colours painted across the screen and the various environments complement the episodes from which they where based. It's all very pretty and faithful to its source.

On the audio front, things are less pleasing. The music sounds as though it has been taken from a child's music box and the effects are just as unimpressive. Where this game should have triumphed was in the speech department. There are ample opportunities to have cut-scenes with dialogue and funny phrases throughout the action in this game but unfortunately almost all of the chances are missed. In between the searching sections, text on the screen informs you as to what is being said and where the action is going, but the only pieces of speech you do get are limited and quite sparse, which is a real shame!

Scooby Why?

Despite being an innocent and inoffensive game that makes a nice change from all the carnage the N64 gets these days, Classic Creep Capers is not strong enough to compete against its contemporaries. It's certainly not unplayable, in fact it can be quite enjoyable, but once all the levels have been completed (which can be done far too quickly) there is nothing to make you want to investigate the mysteries again! What you are left with, sadly, is an undemanding scavenger hunt that doesn't live up to the classic cartoon it's based on.

It seems Scooby Doo is more popular these days than he ever was. Everywhere you turn he’s there, sniggering away, eating his own body weight in hamburgers and running away from ghosts. He’s been on TV, video, he’s set to appear on the big screen. He’s already had his N64 debut and now it’s time for his appearance on the good old Game Boy Color.

This particular case pits the gang against a ghostly jewel thief and a mad scientist who’s intent on creating the ultimate robot slave. It may sound a little bit bizarre, but when has that ever stopped our intrepid team of spook spotters?

The main difference between this game and its 64-bit brother is that you can now control any member of the team, not just Scooby and Shaggy.

This game is a little bit more challenging too! You must collect various objects in order to rescue kidnapped team-mates and also find a disguise so that Shaggy can sneak past enemies. Unlike the N64 version, this time around there seems to be more focus on puzzle-solving rather than simple treasure hunting. Whether this improves the actual game… well, you’ll just have to wait to find out – expect a full review next issue.

Some time ago, a well-meaning, stern housewife by the name of Barbara Woodhouse terrified the canine population of this country with the blood-curdling cry: "Walkies!" Her draconian methods of dog training were highly successful, but they never taught a food-obsessed Great Dane to sniff out the final clue in a spine-chilling mystery.

It's also unlikely that our Babs' teachings could have given man's best friend the ability to talk in an amusing way. While this is a shame, as it would have made her television series much more interesting, another TV pooch had both of these skills – Scooby Doo! Our furry friend hung out with a bunch of do-gooder American teenagers, including Daphne (the dizzy one), Fred (the smug one), Velma (the swotty one) and of course Shaggy (who looks a bit like Liam Gallagher, come to think of it). The happy gang were also joined by Scoob's nephew Scrappy in later episodes of the show, but thankfully the irritating little bugger's nowhere to be seen in this game. Phew!

Reheheheheh!

In this variation on the N64 title of the same name, you must guide the gang through various sideways-scrolling environments, trying to work out the identity of a 'ghost' that's been terrorising a scary old mansion. You quickly realise it's got something to do with the dodgy-looking scientist who works at the lab next door – a theory which is confirmed when the hapless Fred, vile orange cravat and all, gets abducted and imprisoned in the laboratory!

One of the first things that struck us about Classic Creep Capers is how instinctive, simple and, well, easy it is to play. You plod your chosen mystery-solver around the fairly well-drawn environments, picking up items and solving fairly one-dimensional puzzles as you go. This game succeeds on many levels, because of the 'team' element of the gameplay. Instead of only controlling Shaggy and Scooby (with Scooby being more of a hindrance than a help most of the time) as in the N64 version, here you can pick and choose which passenger of the Mystery Machine you want to use. Each of the team members has a special area of expertise, so you have to use a bit of grey matter – but not an awful lot – to crack the puzzles.

While the game is fun to play, it's fairly obvious that it's been aimed at the distinctly younger end of the GBC market. Classic Creep Capers is an RPG of sorts, but it's no Zelda, that's for sure. There's no real long-term challenge on offer here, and seeing as the game only has five levels in total, it shouldn't take any Scooby fans worth their salt very long to get to the end. Despite this, the game is well-designed and genuinely fun for a while – there just isn't enough levels, that's all.

Like, Look Out Scoob!

Being die-hard Scooby Doo fans, we were able to let this game get away with quite a lot: the linear, simplistic gameplay, the dodgy sound and the lack of levels. On the whole, Classic Creep Capers is a great title for younger gamers who like larder-emptying talking Great Danes. If you're looking for a seriously challenging RPG puzzle game, don't bother with this, but if you just can't get enough of our Scooby Snack-obsessed friend, then this could conceivably be worth getting. Try before you buy, though.

Lights! Camera! Talking Dog!

News reaches us that somewhere in America (probably) a live-action film of the Scooby Doo series is currently being made. Freddie Prinze Jr plays Fred, Matthew Lillard certainly seems to resemble Shaggy, Sarah Michelle Gellar is playing Daphne (no sign of the red leather trousers though, Buffy fans) and Linda Cardellini is filling the sensible shoes of Velma. Also worth mentioning is the fact that Blackadder legend Rowan Atkinson is also...

Scooby-Doo! Classic Creep Capers is an adventure game based on the famous cartoon about a group of teenagers who investigate strange paranormal situations. Travel together with Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy and of course Scooby-Doo in their new frightening adventure, which will end with an undoubtedly shocking discovery. What's behind four strange paranormal cases? Will the company of detectives find the answers? Help the detectives in Scooby-Doo! Classic Creep Capers.

Game Pros:

• Item search: look for clues in the chaos left behind by ghosts
• Monster Hunter-inspired adventure