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"Beetlejuice!
Beetlejuice! ...uhh Genesis!" And upon the utterance of these
fateful words, deep in Electronic Arts' software development labs,
the afterlife belched forth this game. Almost a twisted version of
The Sims, and one of the most original games made in the 16-bit era,
Haunting casts you as a dead rocker's ghost, and tasks you with scaring
all four members of a family out of four different posh houses. You
do this by possessing objects in the house, and watching the comically
frightening results.
The plot of Haunting
is never really explained in the game, except to say that you, as
dead surfer-speaking Polterguy got "dissed" by the evil
and wealthy Sardinis. You've made some deal in the afterlife to be
able to return to the earth and exact your revenge. The game has you
gliding Polterguy's specter, invisible to the family members, of course,
around four different isometric houses. In every room there are at
least ten objects that can be possessed, and it's important to note
that's not ten out of a number of other static objects - everything
in a room can be possessed. And if there's one thing The Exorcist
taught us, it's that demonic possession is an absolute riot.
Pressing
start supplies you with a map showing the location of all four
family members. When you share a room with one, small icons will
appear when you get close to objects you can control. By pressing
A, Polterguy will dive in and either take control himself, or
set the object to act like a trap and react when someone
gets close to it.
This leads to really creative scenarios as the furniture
comes to life, either scaring the family members out of their pants or causing
them to wet them. Some objects allow you to take full control
of them for a limited time, such as the chainsaw that you can
send flying into the air and chase after the family with. Every
time you spring a trap, that particular family member's fear level
will rise, and will be indicated by their actions and by a text
report rating fear at calm to very high. Once that level is at
very high they will leave and enter another room to compose themselves,
and will calm themselves back down if you let them.
Chase after them and spring more traps though, and they'll soon
flee the house, which is where you eventually want them all. |
Vito finally realizes what
he's been married to for the last eight years.
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Of course the game has to put some limit on your escapade,
which comes in the form of ectoplasm.
A green bar runs along the bottom of the screen and rates your ectoplasm
reserves. This bar is constantly depleting as ecto both powers your
traps, and is what allows you to keep form in the world of the living.
Every time you scare someone, they will drop a bit of ecto, but the
drops only appear for collection if you successfully scare them out
of the room. This means that inevitably, you're going to
run out of ectoplasm. When you do, you're dumped into a dungeon in
the realm of the dead, and must run a short maze collecting drops
of ectoplasm. While you're free from harm while haunting, you can
and will take damage in the dungeon - which cannot be healed
and adds up over the course of the entire game. So while the dungeon
allows you to keep going above ground, every time you end up in it,
you run the risk of losing all your health, and thus the game.
Wa-HA! I have turned your soup...
INTO A HEAD! How maniacal I am!
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The
game's visuals are sharp, as are the designs for the characters.
You know nothing about the Sardinis, except that you want them
gone, so it helps that their portraits capitalize off typical
stereotypes - the husband looks like a pompous ass, the wife looks
like a real bitch, the kids look like brats. I wouldn't want these
people in my house either. The houses look great for the Genesis,
making use of an extensive color palate and a lot of smart decorating
and design. No two rooms look the same. The possession effects
are the highlight of the game, and they are about as creative
as you can hope for. Knives fly from drawers, pits of fire open
up in the floor, severed arms fall from sawblades and walk around
like Thing from The Addams Family. The real joy of the
game is seeing what completely unexpected event will occur when
you take control of each specific piece of furniture, and the
actual process of frightening the family comes second. The sound
design is clever as well, with suitable themes and great effects,
including teeth chattering to express the Sardinis' fear. |
The game can get
difficult, however, and this is entirely the fault of the dungeons.
You'll end up there at least once during each level, and you are
actually forced to go between houses. You almost unavoidably will
take damage while there, as the controls have you slipping and sliding
around like a ghost supposedly would. The floaty controls cause trouble
in the houses as well, but not so much, as your life doesn't
depend on them there. You also must play all four houses in one sitting,
making the damage that accumulates in the dungeons all the more
troublesome.
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It
can also be unnecessarily complicated to herd the Sardinis out
the door. Some objects will lure them closer before springing,
which is helpful, and the family will flee from the objects
you can actively control and fly around (like the aforementioned
chainsaw). Still, it is possible to get one of them stuck cowering
in a corner, exhausting the room's traps and denying you your
ectoplasm, or to have to chase them back and forth around the
house before they're expelled. Frightening them enough simply
makes them leave the room, and does not guarantee that they
will head for the exit. The game also dials up the difficulty
as you go along, introducing dogs that can detect you and calm
the family, and rival spooks you'll have to fight as you go
about your work. Additionally, word on the street is that if
you make it to the final boss, you will have your ass creamed
without much of a chance of survival.
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If these
dungeons are true, then despite the fact that you can turn a
jump rope into a python, being a ghost still blows.
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Haunting is a very
clever game, and certainly deserves praise for trying something new.
Yet it is admittedly gimmicky, and once you're over the laughter at
seeing what furniture can do in you in your innocent little hands,
you're left with a game that doesn't have much substance to it. It's
worth checking out if you can find it easily, but it's certainly not
a classic, and doubtfully will be anyone's favorite.
-reviewed 5/14/03 - game copyright 1993 Electronic Arts
Great look, traps are both clever and actually rewarding.
Slippery "ghostlike"
controls make required dungeons annoying, not much to the game once
you've seen what possession does.
Haunting on MobyGames
Almost 9 minutes of gameplay video on YouTube
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