Reader Reviews

Grabbed by the Ghoulies (Xbox)

by jaa

Let's get the unimportant things out of the way first. Rare was loved by Nintendo fans. Then Microsoft bought the company and love turned to hate. A common occurrence in love affairs that should not interfere with your appreciation of this game. Forget it's by Rare. Forget it's from Microsoft. Or don't. But be kind enough not to drop all your anger on these poor ghoulies. They do not deserve it - and some of them are quite fragile.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies is a simple game. Cooper is a young boy who needs to save his girlfriend (first she was kidnapped, then suffered a much worse fate) from the hands of the evil Baron Von Ghoul (imagination stretches far...). To rescue her, he must go through a big haunted house smashing, amongst others, good-humoured skeletons, ill-mannered pirates and possessed objects like chairs and doors.

Each room of the house is an individual challenge, requiring different things from our hero. Kill everything that moves, kill a specific type of enemy, do not get damaged, do not damage the house, or use only weapons (e.g. chairs - the spectre-free variety, of course - or flower pots and broomsticks). And combinations of the above. Occasionally with time limits. If the rules are broken, the Grim Reaper appears and chases Cooper around the room. One touch and the boy's dead while the Reaper plays his... (short pause; the reviewer, for whom English is not the first language, checks a dictionary) scythe Mark Knopfler style. Sometimes Cooper can benefit from Death's presence because ghoulies will also succumb if touched by his hand, occasionally even aiding Cooper in the task at hand. On later levels, though, the Reaper can be a real pain in the arse. Well, maybe not real...

Scattered around the house are rare books (ignore the word; keep reading) that if collected en masse allow the player to unlock 20 mini-games of the smash-as-many-skeletons-as-you-can-in-one-minute variety. There are also power-ups (including some elusive ‘challenge completed' ones) and, well, power-downs (life energy suddenly reduced to 1 is not nice). Just take a chance and break some furniture.

Controls are as easy as they could be. Left stick to move, right stick to fight (just point it in the direction of the ghoulie you want to hit), face buttons for button combo prompts, usually after a big scare, and the trigger buttons to move the imperfect but manageable camera.

Visually, Grabbed by the Ghoulies it's magnificent. Characters are nicely designed and animated. Sadly though Cooper is probably the blandest of them all. Cut-scenes are done in comic book style, with page turns hiding short loading times. Sound is great too. Dialogue must be read but that suits the game just fine and, if you got this far, that won't be a problem. Bad points? Repetition. After, say, 70 rooms, one can get tired. And that annoying Grim Reaper...