Menace Beach

You get a lot of warning signs that Menace Beach is going to be a terrible game. For starters, there's no actual beach. It's also developed by Color Dreams, a company that made unlicensed games for the Nintendo Entertainment System before changing their name in disgrace. The final straw has to be the story, in which a pre-teen kid appears to be having a romantic relationship with a fully-grown woman. Forget Menace Beach, this game should have been called To Catch A Predator Beach.

When his beach-front town gets invaded by ninjas, it's up to our skateboarding hero to roll in and save the day. But don't look now, because these pesky ninjas are just the beginning of our woes. Before long you'll have to contend with killer fire hydrants, apartment dwellers throwing dynamite, flying clowns and dragons in the sewer. And that's just in the first level.


Despite all of the kooky enemies, Menace Beach is a fairly straightforward action game. You are always riding a skateboard, so movement is quick and imprecise. It's tough to stop our hero, which had the unfortunate side effect of sending me careening into a bottomless pit. You have an attack, though you might not realize that at first. The attack animation is slight, to the point where the game has to point out every time you land a successful hit. Hammering the attack button a few seconds early is the trick to beating the ninjas in Menace Beach.

Although the game has twelve levels to complete, the stages themselves aren't all that interesting. You'll see a lot of repeated themes and ideas, not to mention bad guys and obstacles. Your girlfriend berates you between stages: "Sorry babe, it looks like our little date at the malt shop is postponed. It seems I'm all tied up at the moment. Please help me out of here, or you'll see my bad side." What a weird relationship these two have.


Seeing how well everything came together in Menace Beach, the developers decided to remake the game with one small addition -- The Holy Bible. That's right, this ninja-killing action game found God and became Sunday Funday. Suddenly the story shifted to a kid battling his way to Sunday school. He carries a Bible everywhere he goes and the tied up woman has been replaced with a fully-clothed Sunday school teacher. This just took a very dark turn.

Regardless of whether you play Menace Beach, Sunday Funday or the slightly pornographic Miss Peach World (exclusive to Asian markets), you'll be left with a sub-par action game that is devoid of any real good ideas. There's nothing original about fighting ninjas or escaping a clown. Even the save-the-girl storyline isn't very original, though the child predator angle is at least unique.