Haunting: Starring Polterguy

“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, and nearby family members respond by leaping out of their pants or wetting them. Some objects allow you to take full control 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. They will calm themselves back down if you let them, but chase after them and spring more traps, and they’ll soon flee the house completely, which is where you eventually want them all.

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.

The 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 palette 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 forced to go in-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 as 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.

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.

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.

The Good

Great look, traps are both clever and actually rewarding.

The Bad

Slippery “ghostlike” controls make required dungeons annoying, not much to the game once you’ve seen what possession does.