Luigi's Mansion - Gamecube

Product Description

Luigi has a lot of work to do in his very first starring role. He needs to find his missing brother Mario in a creepy and mysterious haunted mansion. Armed only with a flashlight and a customized vacuum cleaner, he must rid the mansion of ghosts and save the day. Made in USA.

Review

When Luigi's Mansion was first announced, many assumed it would follow in the legendary footsteps of Super Mario World and Super Mario 64. The game doesn't approach the epic scale of either of those titles, but once you get used to its smaller scale, the various charms of this game do become obvious.

The game involves you, as Mario's brother Luigi, trying to exorcise a haunted mansion of ghosts by sucking them into a vacuum cleaner. It sounds easier than the previous cinematic attempts by the Ghostbusters and the Catholic Church, but it's not. The complications and cleverness of the game manifest in the use of light and shadow. Many ghosts cannot be seen unless you reveal their shadows or manipulate the objects in a room to make them appear. These imaginative--but never frustrating--puzzles add to the otherwise simplistic process of catching the smaller ghosts by freezing them with a beam of light and sucking them up with your Hoover backpack.

It's only a minor classic, but Luigi's Mansion does show off some off the GameCube's graphic effects and provides a game the whole family can enjoy. If only it were a bit longer. --David Jenkins. -- Amazon.co.uk