It is inevitable that
some gems get buried during the holiday glut of games and The
Haunted Mansion is the perfect example. A thoughtful,
well-balanced and simply fun game that would be an instant favorite
of any adventure gamer was doomed by two misperceptions: first that
it is a children’s game and second that it based on the Eddie
Murphy movie of the same name that received scathing reviews. It
is neither and is instead actually centered around the ghostly scenarios
featured in the Disneyland/World attraction. But that is the chance
you take when you tie your product to a movie license; no matter
how good (or bad) the game, its success is too often linked to the
fortunes of its movie counterpart.

Probably the best examples to illustrate this point would be Enter
the Matrix and Finding Nemo, both of which enjoyed phenomenal sales.
Enter the Matrix, a game almost universally panned, sold incredibly
well early, but once the movie died in the theatres, so too did game
sales. Finding Nemo, an above average game based on a great movie,
continues to sell well. The Haunted Mansion, despite being the better
of the three games, was never able to scare-up the sales figures
of the other two thanks in a large part to lukewarm movie reviews
and a substantial drop-off in ticket sales in the face of competition
from other holiday releases.

If Hubert Chadot’s classic Alone
in the Dark were to be remade,
it would look a lot like The Haunted Mansion. While The Haunted
Mansion can not be classified as a children’s game, it does have a
genial, yet spooky feel about it and is easily accessible by both
novice and veteran gamers.

The basic premise is simple – enter a room and turn on the
light. Once the lights are on, you then search objects in the room
to release trapped souls. The twist here is that the goal – releasing
the trapped souls – is a breeze, but actually locating and
flipping the light switch, well, this is where the game becomes complicated
– and fun.

The setting is post Civil
War Louisiana as one Zeke Holloway appears at the mansion in response
to an advertisement for an assistant caretaker.
He soon finds himself embroiled in a mission to free the mansion
from the grasp of Atticus Thorn, an evil spirit who has imprisoned
tortured souls throughout the mansion. Armed with only a Sacred Lantern
known as the Beacon of Souls – which will seem very familiar
to Zork aficionados – you must then use the lantern to both
capture trapped souls and to shoot beams that can destroy enemies.

Each room is actually a themed puzzle. For example, the Game Room
puts a shrunken Zeke on a billiard table where he must avoid the
cue ball while at the same time placing himself at danger in front
of the pool table holes so that the numbered balls can eliminate
ghosts guarding the holes. In the Conservatory you must figure out
how to play musical instruments so that they will build a path to
the light switch and in the Trophy Room you have to light candles
by avoiding fireballs. The topper is that many of the rooms, once
successfully completed, then feature a delightful ghostly scenario
direct from the amusement park attraction.

I’m not sure if console games are considered to have special
effects, but if they are then the Maid’s Room would win an
award as you are surrounded by walls that move according to your
movement. I actually replayed this room a few times just to see if
I could figure out how my moves were affecting the constantly shifting
walls.

There may be portions
of the game that the younger gamer may find disturbing and there
is even one incident that made me jump the first
time it occurred, and then laugh afterwards, much like the dogs crashing
through the window in the original Resident Evil, but this game is
spooky in a fun way. The trapped spirits can be located anywhere
– in bookcases, tombstones, cupboards, etc. – and their location
is easily identified as the object they are hidden in will shake
crazily when you are near. The wonderfully creepy sound effects could
have been pulled from one of those cds heard during Halloween.

The ‘action’ sequences mostly consist of firing beams
from the Sacred Lantern to destroy spiders and some modest apparitions.
As your search progress, Zeke can find death certificates that, once
they are presented to the proper ghost, will increase the potency
of your lantern. An automatic lock-on targeting system makes ‘combat’ a
breeze. Though you can ‘die’ during gameplay, it is easy
enough to collect fortune cards that provide extra lives and I was
actually able to finish the entire game without ever using one of
my continues.

If there is a downside
to The Haunted Mansion it is, once again, that idiotic console
mentality that insists on end bosses. Yet, as
we have been discovering, it is not always the developers who insert
these ‘action sequences’ but rather Sony who insists
that all games must have some sort of action or arcade sequence in
them lest they be thought of as *gasp* pure adventure. In fact, the
endgame battle with Atticus is a prime example of what is usually
wrong with ‘adventure/puzzle’ games on consoles: after
using your wits to progress through most of the rooms, you must then
rely on a quick trigger finger and impeccable aim to finish off the
end boss. Blah.

It is difficult to believe
that High Voltage, the talented Haunted Mansion development team,
are now working on Leisure Suit Larry:
Magna Cum Laude – which press releases have stated will mirror
the vulgar humor of teen movies American Pie and Something
About Mary and which promises to be the complete opposite of this game
based on a famous Disney ride. But I have much higher hopes for Leisure
Suit Larry now that I’ve played The Haunted Mansion.

Final Grade: B+