When playing
Grabbed by the Ghoulies, it definitely feels like you are playing a Rare
game, but the magic seems to be gone. The characters, story, and humor
are all vintage Rare, but the gameplay is severely lacking. Everything
is too simple and too easy and it is hard to shake the feeling that you
are being babied through the game. To put it simply, Grabbed by the
Ghoulies is a major disappointment. At least, it is disappointing to
those of us hoping for the same type of game we have come to expect from
Rare over the last few years. Kids twelve and under should be thrilled
with it, though.
In Grabbed by the
Ghoulies, you play as a kid named Cooper. Cooper and his girlfriend
Amber get caught out in the rain and the only shelter they can find is a
nearby mansion known as Ghoulhaven Hall. As they approach the mansion,
monsters appear and kidnap Amber and it is up to Cooper to save her. The
story is told by using still pictures along with video that all appear
to be on the pages of a book. This is a clever way to tell the story and
it works exceptionally well.
Haunting
Ghoulhaven Hall is a myriad of ghouls and goblins. Skeletons, spiders,
zombies, mummies, and even haunted televisions inhabit every room, and
you have to clear them out in order to move on. The gameplay in Ghoulies
is very simple. You move with the left stick on the Xbox controller and
attack using the right stick. You can also pick up brooms and chairs and
lots of other objects and use them as weapons. This sounds pretty cool,
and it would seem you have a fair bit of freedom in how you play the
game, but the techniques and attacks you use are exactly the same in the
last room of the mansion as they were in the first room. Another problem
I have is that Cooper seems to move rather slowly, and that combined
with the simple nature of the combat makes the game feel more tedious
than fun.
To try to combat
the feeling of repetition from the combat, the game gives you different
challenges in each room later in the game. At the beginning, it is
simply a beat-em-up where you have to clear out all of the enemies.
Later rooms require you to clear the area without getting hit, do all of
your damage only using weapons, or clear the room within a strict time
limit. If you violate any of these rules, the Grim Reaper will come out
and kill Cooper, which isnt much of a problem really but Ill cover
that later. The game starts off easy and rather dull, but when the game
starts imposing stricter requirements for clearing rooms it becomes more
difficult. Well, not really difficult, annoying is a better word. You
find yourself fighting the controls and the simplistic combat and the
incredibly slow pace of the game more than the enemies.
My main problem
with the game lies in that everything is too simple and it feels like
you are being babied through the game. You are told when and where and
how to do everything in the game and there is no exploration at all
because you never have a choice as to what door you go through. If you
die in the game, either because of the monsters or the bony hand of the
Grim Reaper, you just get to restart in the room you are currently on.
You only need a couple of looks at even the most difficult (annoying)
rooms and you can beat them, so the fact that you arent penalized at
all for dying makes Grabbed by the Ghoulies even easier than it already
is.
Graphically,
Grabbed by the Ghoulies is a very pretty game. Everything has a bright,
cartoony look to it and the characters are all nicely detailed. The
rooms you explore are also very detailed and look very nice. You can
destroy a lot of the furniture and things in each room, and even though
it has little to no impact on the game itself, it is pretty fun to look
back on a room that you just completely trashed. The look of the game is
very true to the Halloween theme, and it is pretty safe to say that the
graphics and theme are the only things keeping this ship afloat. There
are also tons of references to past Rare games all over the place as
well, so that is definitely something to look for.
The sound is also
very well done. In typical Rare fashion, there isnt any voice acting in
the game and each character is instead represented by different grunts
and groans. The enemies all have unique sounds and manage to be both
menacing and incredibly comical at the same time. The music fits the
spooky theme and does a good job of tying everything together.
Overall, Grabbed
by the Ghoulies isnt exactly up to the standard we expect from Rare.
Does this mean that the magic is gone and Nintendo was smart to get rid
of them when they did? I would say no. Despite the fact that it doesnt
seem like anyone can admit it, Grabbed by the Ghoulies is obviously a
kids game. A game with combat this simple and gameplay that is
intentionally so easy (You can turn on an option in the menu to give you
double health when you die, hello!), I cant imagine that it was
intended for all of the adult reviewers that are panning it. If it
appeared on the GameCube, I think it would have been better received
just because Nintendo fanboys would force themselves to like it. On the
Xbox, though, Grabbed by the Ghoulies just seems out of place. If you
have kids or just want to see what Rare has been up to on Xbox, give it
a rent.
Eric Qualls (11/21/2003) |