xbox

When Microsoft acquired Rare for $375 Million last year, it caused quite a stir in the gaming community. Rare was well respected, and had titles like Golden Eye, Starfox Adventures, Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie out on Nintendo, and many people saw the acquisition as a nail in Nintendo’s coffin, and the end to a good string of quality titles. Others were very excited about the possibilities that Rare could offer Xbox owners. Finally, Rare’s first game for the Xbox console has arrived, and surprisingly it’s not an established franchise, but a whole new game – Grabbed by the Ghoulies, and the critics and fans can now see why Microsoft purchased the company.

In Grabbed by the Ghoulies, you are put in the role of Cooper, who is travelling with his girlfriend Amber on a dark and stormy night. Coopers map reading skills are a little hazy, and he discovers that they are lost. He sees shelter in a large mansion, but before he gets a chance to do anything, the Goulies of Ghoulhaven Hall, at the command of their twisted master, Baron Von Ghoul, abduct Amber. Cooper has to explore the mansion and find a way to save Amber. There are other captives as well, and, being the good guy he is, Cooper decided to help them too.

The first thing that grabs you is the simplicity of the controls. The left joystick moves Cooper about, and the right is used to attack. This easy to use control method is great – see a Ghoulish monster behind you, and just press back, and cooper turns to face it. There is a variety of moves Cooper performs, depending on where the enemy is, and there are, surprisingly given the simplicity of the attacks, quite a few moves to perform. Cooper can also pick up weapons such as chairs, sticks, plates and so on, and bash creatures with them. These items have limited strength, and break after a few whacks. There are also “permanent” weapons, such as torches and water pistols, and these stay in Coopers hand for certain missions, but have limited ammo. The gameplay is quite simplistic, and can become repetitive, but it is aimed at kids after all. Some puzzles, on the other hand, can be quite challenging, and hard to get through, although the game saves for you quite regularly, so there is not a lot of back tracking.

Another thing that will grab you about Grabbed by the Ghoulies are the graphics. Using wonderful, colourful cell-shaded graphics, the story of young Cooper and his girlfriend Amber is presented in a storybook format, moving frame to frame and then opening up in a larger screen when it’s time to do some ghost busting. The game is aimed squarely at the pre-teen market, and this can be seen in the very colourful backdrops, and cute, humorous animations of the monsters.

Although it’s set in a haunted mansion, the game is rarely scary, coming across as a Scooby Doo style adventure than something out of Halloween. The use of audio is also great, with spooky mansion sounds, although I was a bit disappointed that Cooper and other major characters don’t talk, but this allows your imagination to construct their voices from the audio clues you’re given – a very clever device that adds a depth to the characters without really trying.

The hype surrounding Rare’s acquisition by Microsoft makes it a little unfair on this title, as people were expecting something HUGE from them, but instead, what we have with [b]Grabbed by the Ghoulies[/b] is not the best game in the world, but rather a great game for kids, and shows off the talents of Rare at producing good, playable and fun games.