Shrek Super Slam is a pretty game, but it’s overly simplistic gameplay is likely too monotonous to entertain most players.

Shrek Super Slam’s most impressive traits are its rich and detailed 3D characters and environments. We are beginning to get an idea of just where the DS can go with 3D. All of the biggest names from the series appear: Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, Puss-in-Boots, Gingy, Pinocchio, and more. They may look a little off, but for a first generation DS title, the results are pretty satisfactory. The various battle arenas showcase environments ranging from Shrek’s swamp home, to the Far, Far Away bar, and even the Fairy Godmother’s factory. Each is an altogether faithful rendition of the movie locales.

The music is a less faithful affair. While the sound effects are interesting, the music isn’t any sort of extrapolation from the movie soundtracks. So what we get are some appropriately Shrek-like tunes, but nothing that would stand up on its own.

The story of Shrek Super Slam is largely inconsequential and is merely a platform for each character's first and last fights - all the fights in-between are not explained. They merely exist. It seems that the offspring of Donkey and Dragon, the Dronkeys, are misbehaving and it is up to the Shrek team to tell them a bedtime story.

This leads to a series of one-on-one battles. Shrek Super Slam is, ultimately, a one-on-one 3D fighting game. The biggest difference is that instead of health bars, every character builds up a slam meter as they beat the snot out of their opponents. When your meter is full, you can perform a “slam” attack on your opponent. The player with the most slams when time runs out wins.

Don’t expect anything similar to Virtua Fighter or Soul Caliber however. Shrek Super Slam’s biggest weakness is that while the characters may look different and their attacks may look unique, every characters attacks are, ultimately, fairly identical. Combo “x” with one character will have the same net result as combo “x” with another. This means that every opponent will feel the same as the last, and every time you choose a new character, your experience won’t change much. While there are an assortment of secondary weapons you can pick up and use, it doesn’t change the fact that a character’s base moves are more or less identical to everyone else’s. At the end of the day, the Story mode of Shrek Super Slam is fairly boring.

This monotony in the gameplay might have been fairly tolerable if the game posed an interesting level of difficulty, but it doesn’t do this either. You can basically walk up to any character, use the same one or two combos, and win. As far as Story mode is concerned, no difficulty option is selected. The game does offer up to 4 player wi-fi multiplayer or some scalable difficulty in Mega Challenge Mode if you want a harder contest.

Shrek Super Slam features a plethora of alternate modes of play: Timed SuperSlam!, SuperSlam Race, Fairy Dust Challenge, and Tag! You’re It!. As is typical with games like this, there are an assortment of unlockable bonuses like character models, alternate costumes, and music.

Shrek Super Slam would be a very appropriate gift for a young gamer who is a huge Shrek fan. Anyone else will get bored with it quickly.