Name: Monster Attack
Item: Monster Attack
Author: Retro Replay

Monster Attack

Monster Attack gets straight to the good stuff: you are one infantryman with an oversized gun, a city full of destructible buildings, and waves of giant invaders pouring in from every direction. The first few missions have a wonderfully scrappy PS2-era charm as you learn that survival is less about careful aim than picking the right tool, staying mobile, and refusing to panic when bugs start arriving by the dozen.

Its rough edges are part of the deal. Missions can turn into noisy endurance tests, and fighting alone can make the chaos feel harsher than it needs to. Still, the combination of huge enemy swarms, two-weapon loadouts, vehicle hijinks, permanent upgrades, and split-screen co-op gives it a direct, uncomplicated destruction-fest quality that later games would build on.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Monster Attack understands a simple pleasure: firing absurd weaponry into a crowd that is far too big for one soldier to handle. Each of its 30 missions drops you into an invasion with giant bugs, robots, or alien ships and asks you to survive the crush. You have infinite ammunition, so the rhythm is aggressive rather than precious; reloads are the brief moments where a bad position can become a disaster.

The two-weapon selection is where the action gains some welcome thought. Missile launchers, machine guns, flamethrowers, and stranger options are not interchangeable, and matching a loadout to the incoming threat matters. A rapid weapon can keep nearby swarms off you, while heavier firepower is a much better answer when you need to reach distant targets. That constant adjustment helps the mission structure avoid feeling completely flat.

Progression also has a strong arcade pull. Defeated enemies leave power-ups that recover health, raise your maximum health and armor, and unlock further weapons, so even a messy successful mission can leave you noticeably better prepared. Fully destructible city environments add satisfying collateral damage, while the air bike, tank, and helicopter offer welcome changes of pace. Split-screen co-op is the clearest recommendation: sharing the screen turns a lonely last stand into a lively, forgiving evening of bug-blasting.

Graphics

This is an early PlayStation 2 action game, and it looks like one: city-based battlefields, enormous insects, robots, and alien craft are shown from a third-person view built to keep the crowd in sight. The strongest visual hook is watching the environment take damage while a swarm closes around your soldier. Vehicles give the same battlefields a different silhouette, whether you are tearing through streets in a tank or taking to the air in a helicopter.

Story

The story is intentionally spare: Earth has been invaded, the Earth Defence Force sends in an infantryman, and you are the infantryman expected to solve an impossible problem. That is enough justification for the missions, but it is not a campaign driven by characters or dramatic turns. You are here for the next incoming horde.

There is a mildly amusing isolation to the setup. The game refers to other EDF forces, yet you never see them, leaving you to shoulder every crisis alone. It makes the premise feel like a B-movie fantasy distilled into gameplay: the official army may exist somewhere, but the guy with the flamethrower is apparently doing all the work.

That thinness works better when you treat it as a frame for escalating action instead of expecting a developed sci-fi narrative. The invaders supply variety from mission to mission, and the campaign’s real forward momentum comes from stronger equipment and higher survivability rather than plot revelations.

Overall Experience

Monster Attack is blunt, repetitive, and often gloriously committed to its own scale. It asks you to fight overwhelming numbers with increasingly ridiculous hardware, then rewards you with more health and more ways to fight back. When the chosen weapons suit the mission and the enemies are filling the street, it hits a satisfying action-game loop that needs little explanation.

Frustration can creep in when the same basic pressure stretches into a long mission, especially solo. The game does not surround its combat with elaborate storytelling or a visible squad to vary the battlefield dynamic. Its answer to almost every problem is more enemies, more firepower, or a vehicle, and that will either feel refreshingly honest or exhausting depending on your tolerance for repetition.

Give it a chance if you enjoy old-school shooters that value destruction, unlocks, and uncomplicated co-op over polish. The payoff is real for anyone who can enjoy the scrappy foundation of the Earth Defense Force formula: pick two guns, wreck the city by necessity, collect the drops, and somehow live through another invasion.