Screenshots :.
Luigi's Mansion
GameCube
Matt
19-04-2007
"Well...that'd be the mansion then?"
"From smashing things with your head to roaming around dark rooms. What have you become?"
"Plumbers get great dental"
When I was a really, really young kid (so, approximately 10 minutes ago then), one of my most favourite activities that I could indulge in was running around with my mother’s vacuum cleaner inhaling all the spiders and bugs I could find in our greenhouse. Quite why I was allowed to use such a thing as a vacuum cleaner in a greenhouse of all places is beside the point; the fact that I was able to replicate the larks of the Ghostbusters was really good fun.
Alas, it hasn’t been until now that my other favourite passion of video gaming has given me an identical feeling. With the exception of the Ghostbusters game which spread itself across a number of platforms in the mid 1980s there’s been no concerted attempt at having a go at a proper vacuum ‘em up, which is where Luigi’s Mansion jumps onto the stage and gives any budding Egon Spengler a brilliant excuse to justify the price of a brand new GameCube console.
Upon receiving a telephone call to inform him that he has won a fantastic mansion, Luigi calls Mario and dashes off to claim his prize. One hapless journey later and having been lost in the woods, Luigi arrives at the doors of a forebodingly quiet and dark building. Mario is nowhere to be seen, and proceeding slowly inside Luigi eventually accidentally unleashes a huge family of ghosts upon the house. Luckily, a strange professor saves Luigi from being attacked by sucking up a ghost with his vacuum cleaner (the Poltergust 3000 no less!) and upon hearing of Luigi’s concerns for his brother he lends our favourite plumber’s brother his ghost-busting weapon.
Thus, you control Luigi as you explore the mansion looking for Mario. With five floors and a host of rooms to search through this is no work of the moment, and soon you’ll be involved in hectic battles with a range of bizarre ghosts. Upon entering a room it will be completely dark, and usually have at least one ghost inside. The trick here is to shine your flashlight at the ghost to stun it, before unleashing the power of the Poltergust at them to defeat them and earn the room’s treasure, which is usually a key. Each ghost has a set amount of health points, and the longer they remain trapped in the vacuum’s suction the more their health bar will tick down.
This might sound reasonably easy, but sadly for Luigi the ghosts aren’t so easy to catch. Some ghosts don’t respond to simply having the flashlight shone in their eyes and require you to watch their movements and mannerisms carefully to find the chink in their armour. With this done, you’ll quickly find that each ghost will want to escape Luigi’s grasp. To combat this the player has to tilt the analogue stick in the opposite direction to which the ghost is pulling, leading to some hilariously hectic moments of controller activity when a particularly busy ghost takes you on. Watching Luigi slide across the room yelping and screaming whilst being dragged by an irritated ghost attached to his vacuum is a truly amusing sight to behold.
The entire game seems to be a spoof of something or other, and it’s the light-hearted peril that is the game’s strongest point. Whilst not being anywhere near as menacing as something like Resident Evil or Silent Hill, the game keeps you plodding through with a sense of anticipation and slight hesitance, throwing some truly unique ghost battles your way. From Luigi’s tentative calls of ‘Mario?’ to the startled look on his face as he finds a ghost and the fact that the mansion map is located cutely on a screen dressed up as a Game Boy and called a ‘Game Boy Horror’, everything will have you grinning like a complete and utter Nintendo fanboy.
It looks great, too. The lighting effects that the torch provides when shone around are truly fantastic, whilst the surrounding mansion is littered with quirky menace and is vaguely reminiscent of an expanded version of Big Boo’s Mansion from Mario 64. Luigi himself is hugely expressional, yelping and screaming his way from room to room and looking amusingly terrified when surprised by a lurking ghost. Heck, even the ghosts look great, displaying a creepy transparency which Slimer himself would be proud of.
Yet, there’s one sword on which Luigi’s Mansion falls: the sword of longevity (sounds like some kind of Thundercats weaponry, that!). Even gamers of a reasonable ability who spend their time searching out every possible secret will see the ending credits well in advance of ten hours – a shame considering how enjoyable it all is. The game introduces incentives to play again through having a trickier version of the mansion open itself upon completion, but in reality this only ramps up the difficulty of the ghosts and flips the mansion around rather than feature any additional puzzles.
The issues over the game’s length sadly put a bit of a mocker on the £40 price tag, which is hugely unfortunate. Luigi’s Mansion not only looks great, it also offers a simple yet hugely fun portion of adventure gaming that doesn’t deserve to be overlooked. As a demonstration of what the GameCube can do it bodes very well, and if the quality is matched with quantity for future releases we all have a very healthy selection of games headed our way.
Alas, it hasn’t been until now that my other favourite passion of video gaming has given me an identical feeling. With the exception of the Ghostbusters game which spread itself across a number of platforms in the mid 1980s there’s been no concerted attempt at having a go at a proper vacuum ‘em up, which is where Luigi’s Mansion jumps onto the stage and gives any budding Egon Spengler a brilliant excuse to justify the price of a brand new GameCube console.
Upon receiving a telephone call to inform him that he has won a fantastic mansion, Luigi calls Mario and dashes off to claim his prize. One hapless journey later and having been lost in the woods, Luigi arrives at the doors of a forebodingly quiet and dark building. Mario is nowhere to be seen, and proceeding slowly inside Luigi eventually accidentally unleashes a huge family of ghosts upon the house. Luckily, a strange professor saves Luigi from being attacked by sucking up a ghost with his vacuum cleaner (the Poltergust 3000 no less!) and upon hearing of Luigi’s concerns for his brother he lends our favourite plumber’s brother his ghost-busting weapon.
Thus, you control Luigi as you explore the mansion looking for Mario. With five floors and a host of rooms to search through this is no work of the moment, and soon you’ll be involved in hectic battles with a range of bizarre ghosts. Upon entering a room it will be completely dark, and usually have at least one ghost inside. The trick here is to shine your flashlight at the ghost to stun it, before unleashing the power of the Poltergust at them to defeat them and earn the room’s treasure, which is usually a key. Each ghost has a set amount of health points, and the longer they remain trapped in the vacuum’s suction the more their health bar will tick down.
This might sound reasonably easy, but sadly for Luigi the ghosts aren’t so easy to catch. Some ghosts don’t respond to simply having the flashlight shone in their eyes and require you to watch their movements and mannerisms carefully to find the chink in their armour. With this done, you’ll quickly find that each ghost will want to escape Luigi’s grasp. To combat this the player has to tilt the analogue stick in the opposite direction to which the ghost is pulling, leading to some hilariously hectic moments of controller activity when a particularly busy ghost takes you on. Watching Luigi slide across the room yelping and screaming whilst being dragged by an irritated ghost attached to his vacuum is a truly amusing sight to behold.
The entire game seems to be a spoof of something or other, and it’s the light-hearted peril that is the game’s strongest point. Whilst not being anywhere near as menacing as something like Resident Evil or Silent Hill, the game keeps you plodding through with a sense of anticipation and slight hesitance, throwing some truly unique ghost battles your way. From Luigi’s tentative calls of ‘Mario?’ to the startled look on his face as he finds a ghost and the fact that the mansion map is located cutely on a screen dressed up as a Game Boy and called a ‘Game Boy Horror’, everything will have you grinning like a complete and utter Nintendo fanboy.
It looks great, too. The lighting effects that the torch provides when shone around are truly fantastic, whilst the surrounding mansion is littered with quirky menace and is vaguely reminiscent of an expanded version of Big Boo’s Mansion from Mario 64. Luigi himself is hugely expressional, yelping and screaming his way from room to room and looking amusingly terrified when surprised by a lurking ghost. Heck, even the ghosts look great, displaying a creepy transparency which Slimer himself would be proud of.
Yet, there’s one sword on which Luigi’s Mansion falls: the sword of longevity (sounds like some kind of Thundercats weaponry, that!). Even gamers of a reasonable ability who spend their time searching out every possible secret will see the ending credits well in advance of ten hours – a shame considering how enjoyable it all is. The game introduces incentives to play again through having a trickier version of the mansion open itself upon completion, but in reality this only ramps up the difficulty of the ghosts and flips the mansion around rather than feature any additional puzzles.
The issues over the game’s length sadly put a bit of a mocker on the £40 price tag, which is hugely unfortunate. Luigi’s Mansion not only looks great, it also offers a simple yet hugely fun portion of adventure gaming that doesn’t deserve to be overlooked. As a demonstration of what the GameCube can do it bodes very well, and if the quality is matched with quantity for future releases we all have a very healthy selection of games headed our way.
7/10
