Haunting starring Polterguy for Genesis

Image: MobyGames

Haunting starring Polterguy

Casper the unfriendly ghost

Genre: strategy - rts

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Year: 1993

System: Genesis

Gameplay Score: 1

Gameplay Notes:

The objective of the game is to scare a snooty family out of the house you're haunting. You do this by triggering scary events that get the one of the four members of the families fear up to a high level which makes them run out of the room that you're in. You have to chase them from room to room and scare them out of each one of them until they run outside of the house. Triggering the events is done by simply getting near an inanimate object until it shows a flash on it and then pressing the A button twice. It's just that simple. Unfortunately, there's no way to affect which way the family member runs so often they'll run further into the house instead of closer to the outside of the house. Ultimately the gameplay is so shallow that you lose interest. You just trigger the exact same events over and over and over and over and over again.

Level Design Score: 2

Level Design Notes:

I really like what they were going with here. I'm guessing that there are different house layouts to play with, but I only played the one and I don't feel like they're going to make it that much different on other layouts.

Theme Score: 2

Theme Notes:

Basically the premise of this game is the movie Casper. You're the three obnoxious Uncle Ghosts who don't want pesky humans living in their house. It also makes me think of Eternal Darkness and its insanity effects but this game is obviously nowhere near the narrative that ED had.

Art Style Score: 4

Art Style Notes:

The sprites and animation are very good and the environment you're in also looks great. How much to complain about with the graphics?

Audio Score: 1

Audio Notes:

The sound is extremely simple and extremely boring. There's a spooky, very slow and boring song that plays. It's just somebody pressing a key on an organ every second or two. The sound effects are there. The coincide with the animations at play, but it's mostly just various screams and teeth chattering and other things to indicate how fearful the family member is.

Overall Score: 32

Review ID: 966