Take-Two gives us the spooks
The Haunted Mansion due in the near future.
Remember Pirates of the Caribbean? Remember the film? Remember how swash-bucklingly and surprisingly excellent it turned out to be? Remember chortling at Johnny Depp's every move? Amazingly, Disney did manage to turn a slow and rather dull Disneyland attraction into one of the best pure blockbuster movies of last summer, and now they're hoping to do much the same with The Haunted Mansion, a movie based on the theme park attraction driven by the noteworthy presence of Eddie Murphy, an estate agent who finds himself stranded with his family at the mansion du jour, with a wife who could be connected somehow to the various things going "bump" in the night. And as it turns out, Take-Two will be the publisher that gives us a videogame take on the potentially money-spinning franchise when it debuts a game-of-the-film-of-the-ride on PS2, Xbox and Cube in February.
The Haunted Mansion (the game, that is) joins the ranks of plenty of rival ghost-hunting titles - like Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Ghosthunter, to name a couple of the better ones - in pitting the player against a massive (999-strong) pack of spectral nasties in something like 40 locations. This time we're handling mild mannered ghost hunter Zeke Halloway (who may or may not be a character from the film, but certainly isn't mentioned in the plot synopsis), who has to uncover the mystery behind the murders of the haunted mansion by using his ability to speak to the dead and six power settings on an ancient magical lamp.
Along the way Zeke can expect to find virtual tours of the Disneyland ride hidden away in secret rooms, and even gets the chance to play as a ghost, collect death certificates and use them to solve the game's central murder mystery. Apart from the ghosts, Zeke will also come up against skeletal sharks, armoured knights, bridesmaids and zombies, and Take-Two hopes that with that, the ride's existing notoriety and the promise of the film, which also stars Jenifer Tilly, The Haunted Mansion will prove something of a success.
