The Haunted Mansion – XB – Review

Despite the namesake, this is NOT a game based on
the Holiday release of Disney’s "Haunted Mansion" starring Eddie
Murphy. Yes, it is based on the Disney experience, but the movie is unrelated.
So, if you’re expecting clever one-liners and zingers to lighten the mood, you
won’t get it here.

What IS here is a decent, engaging game built
around the "legend" that is Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Though I have
never experienced it myself, that attraction is very popular and has a great
reputation. Creating a game based on it seems to be a no-brainer. So, they
did.

Haunted Mansion is a very graphical, well planned
puzzle type game. It is thick in mood and mystery. Maybe to a fault. It plays a
LOT like Luigi’s Mansion for the Nintendo GameCube. I know such comparison’s had
to be inevitable when creating the game, so they tried to differ it enough to avoid
total copying. Like Luigi, you wander around a (haunted!) mansion searching for
clues and collecting things. In this case–  spirits, and your name is
"Zeke". A la "Ghostbusters", you suck the vaporous ghoulies
into a mobile prison. As you collect more and more spirits, you are allowed more
access throughout the mansion. You start off small, and grow rapidly. To get
through a door you have to collect at LEAST a certain minimum "body
count" for that particular door. Once that is achieved, it will let you
enter. This keeps you going in and out of rooms to find doors that were
previously impassable. A challenging headache of backtracking.

The ghosts you are collecting are the evil ones.
They are sent out by the main baddie, Atticus Thorn, while the "good"
ghosts haunt the home in fear. Helping you with gifts and advice is a Medium- Madame
Leota. The good ghosts will help you and offer hints as you go. Approach
them and touch one… they will talk. Sometimes TOO much. OK, maybe if I saw one
in PERSON it would be different, but these ghosts sure are boring!

Also hindering you are various helpers such as
spiders. They come in various sizes! Bad ghosts that can NOT be collected will
also attack you. Both these ghosts and the tarantulas can be stunned and/or
eliminated by blasting them with your (The Beacon) lantern. As you
progress and collect items, you can get that little light to expel quite a
burst– which is mandatory for survival as the baddies get bigger and harder to
handle. Really, that’s all there is to it.

Typical for any adventure game, you unlock
puzzles and there are some nice surprises (like being shrunken and placed on a
pool table for a round of dodge-ball!). If you approach an item and it shakes,
there’s a secret in it. There were more than a few puzzles that were tricky to
figure out, but I managed after a while. Some of it became quite fun along with
the challenge– just as my interest would wane. The main goal is to vanquish the
evil spirits and free the friendly ghosts from Thorn. Zeke is a timid fellow,
and never asked for this assignment. Therefore, when he enters a room of
darkness, his bravery level is minimal. Once you find a light switch– he is OK.
There are various things he can collect to help with his weakness as well.

The graphics were very nice. There was a nice
mood and the darkness (at the default setting) was just right. If you want to,
you can adjust it to make it brighter, but why spoil the mood??!! The
collectable spirits look like floating tadpoles. The camera was OK, and most
annoyances could be corrected with a joystick adjustment. Problem is, sometimes
you don’t have time to turn the angle fast enough.

The music was scarce. In fact, I backed out of
one game to check to see if I had somehow turned music/sound OFF. That was OK.
There are environmental sounds to keep you company. The voice acting was decent,
but a little silly at times.

Aside from a LOT of backtracking and annoying
(rather than challenging) events, it’s a solid game and worth a look. It’s easy
to pick up and get going. The controls are simple and Zeke moves well. Saving a
game requires finding a Grandfather Clock, which is annoying. More backtracking!
There was enough fun to keep me going for a while. Some of the puzzles bent my
brain, but after a break, they were solvable. That was nice and kept me coming
back.

Gameplay: 7
Starts out with a eerie storytelling then
leads into simple, almost tutorial ease. It’s easy to master most of the moves,
though targeting objects with the Beacon is harder than it sounds. It feels
good, though the camera angles can really mess you up on certain tasks (watch
out for jumping on floating books!!). The interaction with the friendly ghosts
is nice, but I did not "need" them a lot. They are supposed to provide
help, but they mostly whine on about how unhappy they are in the house. So, the
help is minimal. Running and jumping– just like any adventure game would be.

Graphics: 7
The
look and subsequent feel is very nice. Spooky rooms and nice, vaporous ghosts
floating about. I didn’t experience any lags or intercepting objects, which
shows the labor involved in making the engine. I’ve played a lot of games like
this, that attempt multi-layers of effects, that were bogged down with defects.
Not here. It was smooth and nice-looking. If not for some rounded items looking
rather "blocky", I’d rate it higher.

Sound: 5.5
There isn’t much to rate
here. What sound there was is nice, but subtle and almost "quiet". I
seriously wondered if there was any music– at all. That can be a good thing, as
some games will drive you insane with repetitious music. You don’t have to worry
about that, here. The voice acting can be annoying. Do ALL ghosts sound tired
and afraid?? I guess I have no basis for comparison, so I have to trust that
Disney has some insight into this. Maybe Walt helped.

Difficulty: Medium
It’s
not hard to pick up, but some of the levels and puzzle solving can be tricky.
You have to keep aware of your location and how to get back to clocks for
game-saving. There are myriads of hallways and stairs to explore. Objects will
pop out even if you’re not looking for them. Then, the ones you ARE trying to
find can be rather difficult to locate. You can select between three
levels of difficulty, however.

Concept: 6.5
There’s
nothing new here. It’s really a lot like Luigi’s Mansion. That’s what comes to
mind as soon as the opening movie ends, and the game begins. Though, I found
Luigi’s Mansion to be annoying, and this was not like that.

Overall: 7
I have played better
quest-adventure games, but not many. This is a fun one because of the theme.
Think of it as a Haunted Zelda (another unintended Nintendo reference!). There
is a lot to explore, and there is enough challenge to keep you coming back. Some
things are obvious and predictable, but there is so much to work through, it did
not really get boring. I found all of the backtracking and tracing of footsteps
to be a bit much. I loathe having to scribble down maps and notes when I play–
unless it is a grand game in which such things are expected. In a HOUSE,
however, I don’t like running in circles. It’s fun and adventurous. Too bad
there’s no Eddie Murphy!