One of the most interesting asides I found when looking through charts in the British Library’s collection of Computer Trade Weekly was a box in an early 2002 issue, on big-selling PlayStation games over time. It highlighted that as the PlayStation 2 arrived on British shores, the PS1 was still peaking in number of big games, at least measured by sales of over 100,000. It was a bit odd, it suggested, that developers and publishers were so focused on the rush to PS2 when far more people were still crying out for PS1 games.
To this I would say yes and no. “Even though most are […] second or third sequels” is an odd way of putting it when, as we’ve seen, sequels so frequently outsell original games. Getting established early in the new generation might not have worked out brilliantly long-term for everyone (see: Onimusha) but Grand Theft Auto III and its mega-successful sequels would certainly bear out the potential of setting out an early marker. And for a glimpse of the hazards of the alternative of doubling (/tripling/quadrupling/quintupling) down on the PS1’s player base without a view to the future, look no further than Core and Tomb Raider.
Nonetheless, the fact that people were still interested in new games on an old system is a valid and important one. This is the last UK #1 with the PS1 as the lead format, more than six years on from its release, but that there weren’t any later still is a testament to the remarkable year the PS2 had in 2002. Generational changeover is always slow, partly because of the expense of new consoles keeping them out of reach, an acute issue for many children and adults alike.
I didn’t get a PS1 until the end of 1999 when it got cheap enough, and I didn’t even contemplate buying a PS2 when it came out, but I was plenty excited for Final Fantasy IX on PS1 a month later. I grew up playing games on Commodore 64 years into the ‘90s and on Amiga well past the point Commodore went under. It wasn’t something I resented, just an economic fact of life. It’s fitting that the final PS1 number one should be a game based on a child-friendly film.
There is a decent chance that Monsters Inc.: Scare Island was some children’s first video game, or something close to it. It may even have been a magical experience on that basis. It’s difficult to imagine it having been in any other circumstances. It’s the work of a different developer to the previous Pixar games I’ve covered (Artificial Mind and Movement, who go uncredited on the cover) and compared to A Bug’s Life or Toy Story 2, it comes off as decidedly cheaper, simpler and more poorly-designed.
It does have a decidedly less obvious job to adapt the film compared to Toy Story 2 as well, shifting its main characters into a long training programme to provide its 3D open-ish platformer gameplay, but that alone isn’t sufficient to explain its issues. For each level you pick either Mike or Sulley (rather defeating the idea of them being a team), go around collecting primordial ooze (not in the movie) to charge up your scare abilities, and find Nerves (robot children, not named that in the movie) to scare.
You can only scare a Nerve once you have increased your scare meter to match whatever colour they are, at which point you can enter a mini-game where you have to press buttons in response to prompts. For those which need a higher level on the meter you have to press more different buttons, but the variety of actions and animations really isn’t enough to keep it from getting tedious fast.
That’s only a minor problem next to the platforming to get to them. It’s set in big levels, but kept highly linear by a series of less-than-obvious unlocks, frequently leaving it as a fun-sapping treasure hunt for the one exact thing the developer wants you to do but hasn’t communicated clearly. Often this can be bypassed by the way that everything, including collectibles, gets reset when you move between areas, allowing you to quickly fill up the meter by moving backwards and forwards, but that feels more like oversight than generosity. There’s not even anything particularly interesting to look at, since the design is unimaginative and the graphics look seriously bare even by PS1 standards. It leaves everything with a lack of personality that’s all too fitting for a training course. The effect is like Spyro the Dragon with every enjoyable aspect sucked out.
Worst of all, the gameplay fails to operate to simple internal logic. Some parts of levels involve jumping up to high up spots (say, climbing up crates and cranes at the docks). On others, however, spots seemingly within the range of Mike or Sulley’s jump are blocked off by invisible walls. If the straightforwardness and simplicity of the game’s actions might be put down to being aimed at children (which I think still underestimates them), that can’t excuse not even maintaining the rules for them.
Which brings us right back around to the attributes Computer Trade Weekly assigned to latter day PS1 successes: “a) second or third sequels, b) total shit”. On the second one, they certainly had a point here.
Top of the charts for week ending 9 February 2002:
UK games: Monsters, Inc.: Scare Island (Disney Interactive, PS1) 
Japan games: 侍 / Way of the Samurai (Acquire/Spike, PS2) 
UK films: Monsters, Inc. 
UK singles: Enrique Iglesias – Hero 
UK albums: Enrique Iglesias – Escape