E3 2003: Grabbed by the Ghoulies

By Kristan Reed Published 20 May, 2003

Didn't we use that line when Microsoft bought Rare?

When Microsoft parted with $375 million to wrench Rare from Nintendo's clutches, it sent shockwaves across the industry, or at least had done several months previously, and spelled out the lengths that Redmond is prepared to go to capture market share in the console war.

Living on past glories?

'E3 2003: Grabbed by the Ghoulies' Screenshot 1

Tom clearly wanted to write this.

But Rare's track record of the last five years has been patchy at best, with an irregular dribble of good, but hardly classic titles doing little to hold up its previously unmatched reputation. With this in mind, the price paid looked a little over the odds. Then again, what did we know? Surely Rare must have had a bundle of classic killer apps up its sleeve to justify that kind of expenditure?

First out of the blocks is the previously unannounced Grabbed by the Ghoulies, a title that debuted at E3, with not so much as a screenshot beforehand. The "humorous beat 'em up adventure" has been hastily ported from the GameCube (presumably as with all of the titles snapped up by Microsoft), and will hit the shelves sometime in October.

The E3 demo, therefore, was pretty much the finished game, albeit with some of the latter levels missing. You take charge of Cooper, a young chap who has to rescue his girlfriend from the haunted Ghoulhaven Hall mansion. On your way, you'll encounter 25 different ghoulies, bash them with over 100 types of weapons, and wander through 50 intricately designed rooms [did it used to be Luigi's Mansion 2? -Tom].

Pick up and play

'E3 2003: Grabbed by the Ghoulies' Screenshot 2

Beating them back to death.

The game has been designed to "appeal to everyone", and struck us as a refreshingly pick up and play affair, with an extremely straightforward control system. Left stick directs Cooper's movement, while the right stick controls his attacks, with A to pick up weapons or open doors. You can, if you wish, also rotate the camera left and right with the left and right triggers, and that's it.

The first level acts as more of a glorified tutorial, but is still good fun – if a little repetitive. The process of kicking the crap out of various ghouls, vampires, zombies, mummies, skeletons, and even haunted furniture is a laugh, but is rendered even more so by the fact you can keep kicking them repeatedly, even when they're dead – usually accompanied by amusing squawks and screams as they take yet more punishment. This harsh treatment is worth it, though, as it often tops up your health, rather bizarrely.

Dealing such punishment is made all the more entertaining by the amount of weapons you can use, including pool cues, chairs, burgers, a garlic-firing blunderbuss to take on vampires, and even a fire extinguisher to douse burning imps. Sadly they don't last long, but they're fun while you've got them.

Destruction plays a part too, with points earned for smashing whatever you can leave in bits, from 'Boring Old Crates' to Xbox games (well, there are plenty of duff ones we could name), and Rare has promised a host of unlockables for those who have the patience to smack everything to bits. Occasionally, something will jump out at you and scare you witless, prompting the player to quickly respond by hitting a sequence of buttons to restore calm before you faint, but generally it's a case of destroying everything by any means possible before they, erm, grab you.

Grabbed by the eye candy

'E3 2003: Grabbed by the Ghoulies' Screenshot 3

Is he serious?

The presentation is perhaps the star of the show, with a unique and stylish cartoon visual approach that distinguished it from most of the games on show. Each level is introduced via a comic book introduction, with each frame moving the story on like the old Grange Hill opening sequence that the old folks around here will fondly recall.

The ghost of the past also lurks in the early rooms of the mansion, with posters of Rare's ACG/Ultimate classics stuck on the walls. A tear of nostalgia had to be wiped away as we recalled the greatness of Atic Atac, Underwurdle, Cookie and company, and in fact, had things been slightly different, it would be quite easy to imagine Grabbed by the Ghoulies being Atic Atac, but maybe that's one for the future, eh? Rare's past also stains the decision to ditch voiceovers for the characters and instead use childish, but endearingly silly noises instead, giving it a distinctly Ninty feel.

We spent an hour or so in the game's company, and admired the quality of the project, but found the difficulty level suddenly leaped from intro level easiness to frustrating bloody mindedness far too quickly. If Rare really wants this to be a fun, accessible game to appeal to the masses, it needs to sort the learning curve out. While there are tons of different enemies, all with their own unique attack patterns to learn, it felt a bit too repetitive to hold our interest for sustained periods. If there were lots of moves to learn, and a more flexible control system there would be more chance of us being drawn into it, but we'd like to see the puzzle sections before we write it off too soon.

We weren't grabbed

As it stands, the continual onslaught of ghouls in a comedy beat 'em up isn't the kind of gaming experience that will inspire talk of Rare's glorious return to the fold. Grabbed by the Ghoulies strikes us a more of a curiously endearing side project that will gain a cult following, rather than a mass market smash.

Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 9 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Tiitiz #1 9 years ago

    Grabbed by the Ghoulies strikes us a more of a curiously endearing side project that will gain a cult following, rather than a mass market smash.

    Exactly my thoughts after seeing the trailers

  • Blerk #2 9 years ago

    it would be quite easy to imagine Grabbed by the Ghoulies being Atic Atac

    Sigh. If only that was true! :-(

  • Pirotic #3 9 years ago

    a company is only as good as its staff, it seems to me that all the talent has buggered off over the years, Zoonami, Free Radical Design, not to mention other key players simply getting employment elsewhere, i'm not excited about any of the currently developed rareware titles.

    Conker looks terrible, and the N64 game was terribly over-rated, Banjo Kazooie was just a poor mans Mario64, Grabbed by the Ghoulies lacks any charm and Kameo looks rushed and very glitchy, having undergone 2 big redesigns and a change of platform.

    now all i need to see is a rubbish cell-shaded perfect dark and Rareware will be out of my good books

  • Cyhwuhx #4 9 years ago

    .::: Indeed, and is it me or is this game totally devoid of shiny collectable objects?

    Not that I'd mind, quite the opposite in fact.
    Keeping my eye on this one.

  • Sly9 #5 9 years ago

    Definitely a good move on Nintendo's part. The new Rare games i've seen so far (without that Ninty polish) have seemed a little lacklustre.

    Saying that all i've seen is videos and pics so what the hell do i know :)

  • ssuellid #6 9 years ago

    "Banjo Kazooie was just a poor mans Mario64"

    /sniffs pirotics drink

    Banjo Kazooie was a far better game than Mario 64, which was just a really poor follow up to the SNES version.

    Agree with you that rare seem to have lost the dev teams and the ideas tho.

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #7 9 years ago

    "Banjo Kazooie was a far better game than Mario 64"

    Be gone with you!

  • Blerk #8 9 years ago

    Given that the average American Xbox owner thinks that Nintendo-style games are 'stupid and babyish', I imagine this probably isn't going to do much to recoup Microsoft's investment. I wasn't impressed with Kameo or Conker either... Bill had better hope that Perfect Dark turns up trumps, but given that it's got to go up against Halo 2...? It's going to have to be better than just 'great'.

  • ssuellid #9 9 years ago

    You kids you missed out growing up with SNES Mario Kart. NTSC MarioKart 64 was OK but the PAL release was total and utter shite.

  • Sko #10 9 years ago

    Banjo was fun enough but there's only so many times you can remake the same game. According to Core, it's five.

  • sam_spade #11 9 years ago

    But Blerk, Rare will put swear words in which will give it instant 'maturity and a cynical edge'.

  • otto #12 9 years ago

    Each level is introduced via a comic book introduction, with each frame moving the story on like the old Grange Hill opening sequence that the old folks around here will fondly recall.

    Is there a sausage on a fork?

  • Blerk #13 9 years ago

    Is there a sausage on a fork?

    lol! :-D

  • sam_spade #14 9 years ago

    Don't forget Gonch and his crazy money-making schemes.

  • otto #15 9 years ago

    Tucker'd make a great boss villain.

  • Nemesis #16 9 years ago

    Even having a stupid bow tie can get you into Empire Strikes Back...

  • Tiitiz #17 9 years ago

    How did I know this would bring up the 'Glad Nintendo got rid of them' crap.

    Not a single one of you guys can comment on this until Rares first 1 or 2 games are actually released. Only 2 games came close to interesting me before by them are Goldeneye and Perfect Dark so that say's much for my taste in Rare games.

    So sad
    Edited by 1 at 20/05/03 @ 15:45

  • sam_spade #18 9 years ago

    And he's played this fella more times than necessary.

  • Blerk #19 9 years ago

    Not a single one of you guys can comment on this until Rares first 1 or 2 games are actually released.

    True. But not true that we're just Xbox-bashing. The games would have looked equally disappointing if they'd been on the Cube.

  • Nemesis #20 9 years ago

    Sausageonnafork and cast

  • FWB #21 9 years ago

    Sausageonnafork and cast

    Memories.... of the way we used to be.

    Lalalalala memories lalalala I forgotthewordsssss

  • otto #22 9 years ago

    How did I know this would bring out the "you're just cynical because you're Nintendo fanbois" crap?

    So Tiitiz, why do you feel the need to leap to the defence of something just because it's on Xbox?

    So sad ;)
    Edited by 1 at 20/05/03 @ 16:19

  • Tiitiz #23 9 years ago

    So Tiitiz, why do you feel the need to leap to the defence of something just because it's on Xbox?

    That was being pissed off with fanboys

  • cyber_nicco #24 9 years ago

    "Given that the average American Xbox owner thinks that Nintendo-style games are 'stupid and babyish'"

    Did you conduct some kind of study? Why wasn't I included?

  • Han_Solo #25 9 years ago

    arse...

  • otto #26 9 years ago

    The survey was presumably of posters to this site and I should think you were included.

  • Sly9 #27 9 years ago

    "if its not unvieled by the time space world shows up im getting my gamecube back - theres too many exclusives to miss out on!"

    I think Spaceworlds a Nintendo only show (?) and i dont think it's on this year. There's the Tokyo Game Show in Autumn but i wouldn't hold by breathe for PD, i wouldn't even be surprised if they push it for a XBOXEN2 launch title.

  • Whizzo #28 9 years ago

    I think the only comedy element to this -"comedy beat 'em up" is the ridiculously cliched character designs and "comedy" quality animations.

    The name of it is at least slightly amusing to the Briton's in the audience who can still appreciate the schoolboy humour of it. Presumably MS do know what "ghoulies" or however you spell it also means in the UK?

  • Jose #29 9 years ago

    Are we going to see any Eternal Darkness 2 some day?

  • Jose #30 9 years ago

    We already know that Microsoft and Sony are working in the new consoles (XBox2 and PS3) but what about Nintendo? something smells fishy in here and is not me!

  • #31 9 years ago

    Rest assured.. you are the one smelling funny in here.

  • Royal Fool #32 9 years ago

    'IP's don't make good games all by themselves, although they do help sales figures, just look at DK64, I don't think it would have sold 2% of what it did, without the famous monkey.'

    Which makes me wonder why Rare isn't farming out it's more known IPs like Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark and others. Probably because the current Rare games were already far into development for GameCube, and it's too costly to simply dump them for other projects. I'm certain that once Kameo and Grabbed by the Ghoulies are out, Rare will focus on their popular franchises. After all, Microsoft is expecting to make some money off this, right? Ghoulies, Kameo and Conker are not system selling material. (Of the three, Conker is the most likely purely because of the N64 fame, but still not that much... don't forget that Conker's Bad Fur Day sold badly)

  • #33 9 years ago

    They're supposed to be developing Perfect Dark too, aren't they? I mean.. it did appear on the GC release-lists for quite some time. So there's got to be something there. Even the rumours of a cel-shaded PD was out there before any pictures of anything was shown.

    Anyway.... Making new outings of Cobra Triangle, Solar Jetman, Snake Rattle'n'Roll and Battletoads.. that's what they REALLY should be doing.

  • #34 9 years ago

    Yeah. Ok. I don't care about their situation or how this will change because of that or how this should relate to this and that should look slightly but not quite like that. I just wondered if they're still developing PD. :-D

    "As for resurrecting dead and buried IP's , have you seen their add in Edge with an awfully dated looking 'ol chap called Sabreman. If that's what you get when you bring back old IP's, then you're better off just not bothering."

    But the difference is.. I don't want Sabrewulf.. I want Cobra Triangle! HELICOPTER-BOAT ANFALLL!!!! ANNNFAAAAAALL!!! hehehe

  • #35 9 years ago

    I'm not. In fact, I don't really care. Why am I even in here?