Luigi's Mansion - Review - 30th of December 2002

System: Nintendo GameCube
Television System: PAL
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Players: 1
Genre: Adventure
Memory Card: 3 blocks
Released
Japan: 14th of September 2001
USA: 18th of November 2001
Europe: 3rd of May 2002


Luigi's Mansion was one of the first 
games for the GameCube. We see Luigi
in the role of leading Nintendo's new
machine instead of Mario. Luigi shall
use a vacuum and a flashlight to 
capture ghost in his new mansion in 
a game that's more similar to an
adventure game than a platforming
game.


Story
Simple. Luigi has won a mansion in a contest he didn't even join
and now he's gonna find out what his new house looks like.
Mario is of course invited to watch so he hurries to the 
mansion to meet Luigi there. When Luigi comes to the mansion
he notices it's a big and spooky mansion and Mario's gone.

Trembling he opens the door to the mansion only equipped 
with a flashlight. Inside he meets a strange little professor
named E. Gadd that's just about to vacuum a ghost with a
vacuum cleaner. He fails though and numerous of ghosts
comes to attack Luigi and E. Gadd. They flee together to
Gadd's little lab outside the mansion where Luigi is 
equipped with Gadd's vacuum cleaner so that he can vacuum
ghosts through out the mansion and save his brother.
The vacuum cleaner has got the name Poltergust 3000 by
the way.


Graphics 9/10
Let's say that I'm not as astonished 
as I was when I first saw Super Mario
64 for N64, but Luigi's Mansion is not
a Super Mario 64 and has never tryed
to be one. 

We see a great deal of nice effects.
All the light effects are the best I've
ever seen. The light from the flashlight
is very realistic, the shadows are mostly
great and the ghosts look terrific. But
I wouldn't mind some parts a little 
higher rendered. And some environment 
look a little antiquated. But there's
almost no slow-down, it keeps a good 
flow. Overall very good graphics.


Sound 7/10
I've heard better. But it gives the
game a little creepy atmosphere at the
same time as you feel the parody in
the game. Luigi's humming, whistling
and desperate cries for Mario also
gives the atmosphere a boost. 


Gameplay/Controls 9/10
Nintendo presents a new innovative
gameplay system which is easy to
learn, harder to master. It's also
very fun.

You control a flashlight with 
one stick and control Luigi with 
the other. It's done very smoothly
which is good. The controls are 
also very accurately which is very
important in this kind of game. You
seldom get frustrated because you
know you didn't do well enough if
you fail somewhere. That's great.

The exploring and "conquering"
rooms are great and you never 
feel like you're lost because
of the great Game Boy Horror 
feature. It works as a very
functional map, a first-person 
and it keeps track of the
items.

Except ordinary ghosts there 
are portrait ghost that you must
imprison in painting and all of
them require different strategies.
This makes Luigi's Mansion very
mush of a problem-solving game.

There are also the Boos which 
hides in the already conquered
room (lit). To catch these you
must use the Boo radar which 
which is just another game element.

Speaking of elements you must 
later use elements like fire
and water to complete different
tasks in the game.

I should have written this earlier
but you should have figured out that
Luigi uses a vacuum cleaner to get 
the ghosts.

Thumbs up for the Gameplay and controls.


Lasting appeal 6/10
Not that good, but not bad. 
Some people will only beat
this game ones and then the
fun will be over in a couple
of hours. But true Nintendo
fans will have fun with this
in weeks and discover every
single coin there's to discover.


Total 8/10
Luigi's Mansion is great, not
as great as Super Mario 64 but
still terrific.


© 2002 Christian "Twink" Wall