One of the signs that gaming is overtaking movies as the entertainment option of choice for many people is when you have a franchise such as Shrek that ends up with more games coming out based on it than there are movies! There might be only 2 Shrek movies (with a third currently being made) but at last count there are at least 9 different games based on the loveable big green ogre and no doubt there are plenty more to come.

The Shrek 2 adventure game offered some great 4 player action and despite a few negative reviews I found it to be pretty enjoyable and my kids loved it as well. There aren't many games that let adults and kids join in together at the same time and Shrek 2 is still fairly unique in this area on the Xbox. Shrek Super Slam is a completely different game in that instead of being a traditional 3d adventure game, what I originally thought was going to be a party game in the Mario Party vein is instead a pretty enjoyable fighting game featuring all the characters from the Shrek movies. Donkey, Shrek, Princess Fiona (in both human and Ogre form), Puss in Boots, Pinocchio and Ginger Bread man as well as many others (with a few new ones created for the game) are all available to duke it out against each other through the games single player story and multiplayer (offline only) modes.

The single player side of Shrek Super Slam tells the tale of some little mutant babies that Dragon and Donkey had refusing to head off to sleep for the night. Shrek puts forward the idea of reading them a story but one of the little critters sets the book on fire, it's then up to Shrek and co. to make up their own stories which form the basis of the single player battles that you take part in. You don't get to choose which characters you play which provides some variety as you never know who never know which characters are going to be the focus of the next level. The single player is pretty light on however and can easily be sped through in under half an hour and my 5 year old son actually completed it on his own in about 1 hour but after each level is unlocked it can be replayed at any time.

The story mode might be short but contains quite a few laughs and quirky characters that, if you're a fan of the movies, you will find pretty funny. The highlight for me was the Humpty Dumpty Dojo master kicking Donkey over a cliff as he screams 'I want my karate lesson money baaaaaack'. It's all typically Shrek featuring some pretty solid voice acting that sounds remarkably close to Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz, not all of the time, but they do an ok job.

While the story side of the game is pretty short there is also a Challenge Mode that sees you moving Shrek around a game board and taking part in fights as well as various mini games that help break up the fighting. The mini games on offer resemble the Party mood of the game that I was expecting and offer up more replay value than the main fighting part of the game does. There's 45 challenge clusters each containing multiple events and they're all fairly unique and enjoyable. In one you might have to throw half a dozen ginger bread men into an oven before the time runs out or perform more Super Slams than your opponent. As you progress and complete the 'event clusters' more fighting levels and characters become available to use in the multiplayer mode.

The 16 levels in the game feature some locations from the movies, look great and contain loads of destructible areas. I was surprised at the level of destructibility in many of them as you can sometimes even pick up the wreckage and throw it around. Watching your opponent reel back from a gigantic Shrek fart (of course one of his weapons has to be a fart) to slam into a wall knocking bricks everywhere looks pretty cool and displays some attention to detail missing in some other recent fighting games. All the characters have their own moves, combos and unique Slam move that can be unleashed once the Slam meter fills up. The whole purpose of the combat is to Super Slam your opponent more than he slams you because surprisingly there is no health bar for each character. Instead, the rounds end after a fixed time limit and the winner is the person that slammed their opponent the most. The trick to filling the Slam Meter is learning each characters combo moves as punching and throwing will fill it, but slower than when using combos.

The combos aren't too tricky to learn and require just a couple of button presses to use. You can even do evade moves, air attacks, charge attacks and even deflect objects thrown at you if you time it just right. If you're up against someone that just likes to block constantly, which the A.I does do on occasion, there is even a block breaker move to turn the tables on them. Even wall attacks are available and the game has quite a few moves to learn and some funny animations from the characters to back them up. It may appear very simplistic but there are plenty of moves available to each character and the combo system contains much more depth than most young kids will ever work out. While they'll be able to pick it up and start button mashing in minutes, it's only older gamers that will master the intricacies of the fighting system and the game has a good balance of simplicity and also advanced gameplay for those that go looking for it.