War of the Monsters Hits PSN Tomorrow, Development Retrospective

82 12
War of the Monsters Hits PSN Tomorrow, Development Retrospective

About a billion years ago, I worked on a PS2 game called War of the Monsters. In fact, it was my first game as a producer — I had the luxury of working with a great team and together we made a really awesome and unique fighting game. War of the Monsters was built on the theme of vintage monster B-movies, with mega-crap-loads of building destruction and tons of hot monster-on-monster action! But totally work-appropriate hot monster action. Get your minds out of the gutter!

We didn’t just have a ton of fun making the War of the Monsters — we were very happy with how the finished product turned out. The game was ridiculously fun to play, and players around the world loved it! So when Jeff pinged me the other day to tell me that War of the Monsters is going to be released as a PS2 Classic on the PS3 I was crazy-excited. Of course, I wanted to write a quick post!

War of the Monsters for PS3 (PSN) - Monster Group Shot

The first thing I did was dig through some of my old archives and find some really cool old artwork from back when we were developing War of the Monsters. The image below is something I put together during the game’s production to summarize the core combat mechanics in the game. We used it internally to make sure everyone on the team understood the basics of game’s combat. What’s really cool is that now, almost a decade later, you can look at this combat sheet and still get a quick overview of the game before you download it from the PlayStation Store tomorrow.

War of the Monsters for PS3 (PSN) - Core Controls

Here’s another cool image I found. It’s an early color comp I created to show the team how we were going to reference old movie posters to develop our color and lighting palette, and how we’d adapt it for our game environments. Man, I’m having fun digging through all my old files. Thanks, Jeff!

War of the Monsters for PS3 (PSN) - Color Schemes

These were internal docs, so cut me some slack on their style. When you’re preparing materials for internal studio communication it’s often not as flashy or super-produced like you might see from a full-up marketing team. And hey, this stuff is almost a decade old!

Oh snap, check these out! These are the level-loading screens for each of the battles when you play through single player battle mode! These were all painted by a super-talented artist by the name of Owen Richardson, who also worked with Dave Jaffe and Scott Campbell on the new Twisted Metal for PS3.

Level_PostWar of the Monsters for PS3 (PSN) - level posters

Here’s another bit of trivia: Bet you didn’t know that I also did some 3D modeling on War of the Monsters too — back in those days everyone had to do a bit of everything! This is Preytor; I had a great time modeling and texturing him. He’s a massive praying mantis with a nimble fighting style, and one of only two monsters in the game with the ability to fly.

War of the Monsters for PS3 (PSN) - Preytor

It’s crazy to look back on War of the Monsters and see those low-poly, low-res PS2 graphics — a reminder of how far we’ve come with the PS3. One thing remains the same though: great gameplay is timeless. Luckily, War of the Monsters is super-fun to play and holds up nicely. I hope you all download this PS2 Classic from your PS3 on Tuesday when the Store Update goes live!

Starhawk for PS3: Cypress - Origin MapStarhawk for PS3: Cypress - Collider Map

And in case you were wondering, we are still totally hard at work on Starhawk! We have a ton of stuff ready for release very soon — including our 1.3 Update, which has a bunch of new features and fixes, as well as the awesome (and free) Cypress Map Pack! Here’s a sneak-peek at a couple screen shots of Cypress, but check back here on the blog real soon for a complete breakdown of the Starhawk 1.3 Update, as well as more in-depth info on the new free map pack!

Stay tuned and, as always, rock on!

Comments are closed.

82 Comments

12 Author Replies

  • Not too long ago I was going from GameStop to GameStop searching for War of the Monsters for my 8 year old son to experience. I had finally found the game and was so excited for him to play it, for it was one of my all time favorite games ever to play. So my son and I played it with huge smiles on our face, but not to long after my original PS3 with backwards compatibility died and I ended up buying a slim model to replace it, and unable to play my PS2 games ( I know I could get my hands on an old PS2, but that’s not important) That said, the news that it’s coming out tomorrow has me excited all,over again and will be enjoying this game once again. By the way, having a feeling many of us here feel the same way and I hope someone out there sees that this could still be an Amzing franchise if it were to be developed.

  • I am very excited to pick this up tomorrow. It truly was one of the underrated gems on the PS2. Would love to see War Of The Monsters avatars!

  • Hey Dylan, I just wanted to let you know that although I already had a PSone, Loved to game and had full intention of getting a ps2 (it was all up to my mom back then.), after I played the War Of The Monsters Demo on one of the old Demo cd’s from back in the day, I HAD to have a ps2.
    First game I got for it- War of The Monsters.
    Amazing game!
    Now it’ll just be a matter of convincing Mary to let me get this one ;)

  • Awesome! This used to be my favorite game on PS2. Glad to see its coming back for PS3. Though I wonder if it’s possible for a PS Vita version to be released. Seeing how the Vita is plenty powerful enough to run PS2, and if I remember correctly, the L2 and R2 buttons aren’t used in the orginal game, it shouldnt be too much of a stretch. Any idea if this is a possibility?

  • interesting…

    now please bring PS2 games that people asking for, FFX-2, FFXII, Dark Cloud 1 & 2, Wild Arms 5, etc.

  • Will be picking this up. Oh and as for some of the other comments, I agree a sequel would rock. A PSN exclusive title would fit it well and LOTS more Monsters!

  • Sony you really should adding trophies for PS1 games and PS2 games classic
    that will be AWESOME.
    please think about it

  • @Dylan Jobe

    Yeah, kinda miss those games since my ps2 broke :(

  • man I love!!! this game, man I played this game soo!! much when I was a kid, I loved it so much!
    what a nostalgia moment. ;D

  • GiantDwarf01 i agree, a game like this for PSVita.. AWESOME.

    And PSVita need more games.. =/

  • War of the Monsters IS a GREAT addition to the PSN network. I remember this game so fondly since it has the Twisted Metal feel while paying homage to the old Godzilla and Ultraman shows.

    Will we able to play this on the VITA as well one day?!? A game like this would be perfect for VITA as well!

    Thank you for the update!

  • This is my absolute favorite PS2 game. Whenever someone brings up the subject of HD remakes around me this is the first game I mention. I think the multiplayer would be a big hit on PSN if this game got a remake. Oh well I guess picking up this PS2 classic and playing it again will have to do for now. But I’m not giving up hope on a remake!

  • I would love to see this on Vita as well. Please make it happen!

    And @GiantDwarf01 If I remember correctly R2 was to block, but I’m pretty sure they could have that assigned to a different button or even the rear touch pad

  • I’m wearing my War of the Monsters t-shirt today! It has electric eyeball dude on the back. Pic on Twitter.

  • Holy Crap! I still own my PS2 disc of this game! I have a BC PS3, so I don’t know if I’ll buy this, but I might put it on my second PS3, which is a slim.

    Man, this brings me back to some awesome memories me and my buddies had with this game. I remember we played the demo for four hours straight, and when the game finally released, we rushed out and picked it up day one.

    Great, great game! Glad it’s finally on PS2 Classics.

  • this is seriously one of my top 10 for ps2, i loved it, its sad tho its not a HD Remake with trophies or i would be buying it today- i still have my ps2 copy so i dont need this one :(

  • I love love love love LOVE this game. Extremely precious memories as a kid playing this with my little brother and my friends. Closest thing I’ve been able to get to it was “Eat Them!” but even that didn’t capture my fond sentiments of War of the Monsters.

    I reeeally want to pick this up, but upon looking at it on the PSN I noticed that it mentions all multiplayer features (versus, co-op, etc.) are stripped from the PSN version due to being unable to “support PS2 peripherals”. Do you know why multiplayer was scrapped completely? It’s 50% of the reason I was looking forward to making this purchase to add to my library again.

  • lol, I wrote about this game and my love for it in July 2011 at ps3blog.net. It was a classic that I had hoped would make its way to the PS3. Now that it finally has, I don’t have the money for it :(. I’ll have to get it eventually, though. Here’s hoping we get a proper sequel some time in the future!

  • Played ps1 to ps2 but never heard of this game but its kinda fun game.I dont have psn and I want to ask this question is there a Biohazard game on psn?

  • I have bought this game twice on disc and now i will buy the download. This is one of the best PS2 games. I just played it last year to unlock all the fun modes. I can’t wait to use my save and play tonight.

  • does the PS3 upscale PS2 games and use MSAA like the open source emulators do?

    game looks cool, and this was a great post. that being said, I’m not paying $10 for a game that I can play on the original disc in a *better* emulator for ~$2.

    would have really liked to see a proper HD version (with better audio assets encodes), but if the emulator actually upscales decently like the 360’s backward compatibility and the open source emulators, I’ll buy it.

  • Still have my ps2 copy! The ps2 did not have many “party” games, but my friends and I loved playing this back in the day. I remember the awesome alien final boss where when you killed him it was a little alien hiding inside the final boss the whole time. ahhhh… memories

  • I can’t even describe how much fun I had playing this game on the PS2 back in the day. After playing it for the first time at my cousins house, I knew I needed to own it. Went home and bought it as soon as I could and spent the whole day playing through the game and unlocking everything I could.

    Skeleton dragon was the best! I loved being able to fly around and perch on top of buildings.

    Would highly recommend this game to anyone!

  • @SilverSentinel I bought the PSN version and the multiplayer works just fine. I was just playing with my brother a few hours ago

  • are you kidding me. Me and 100000000 fans have BEEN BEGGING for more ps2 games. Since your jap psn has over 1500. Then you put crap like this out. Come on please there are so many GREAT ps2 games. Who chooses these games. This is horrible.

  • After I read this, my first thought was: destroy all humans 2 can’t be far behind.
    I don’t know why, but its like there’s a connection…

  • mooserocka,

    Btw, get your facts right. I just looked. theres 8 ps2 classics on the japan one. And there 16 on ours. Lol.

  • AWWW this game is probably one, if not the ONLY good monster fighting game there is!!! I Loved being conger and knocking down my couzins into the abyss when you do the Earth quake!!! Id defeniltly pick War Of The Monsters 2 up if the decide to make one!!

  • i loved this game!!!
    but im wondering if you are going to be able to play split screen as the ps2 version?

  • @SilverSentinel same here i was very excited when i heard it was on the psn but i read that the versus mode and all that was taken off…is that true???!0.0

  • This game comes to PS3 now?
    I just went out and bought a ps2 and war of the monsters yesterday, typical

    Great game tho :D

Please enter your date of birth.

Date of birth fields