Grabbed By the Ghoulies Xbox Review

When Microsoft announced Rare as its newest first-party developer, Xbox owners were eager to hear when gaming icons like Conker, Banjo and Joanna would appear on the company's console. You can imagine their surprise, then, upon hearing that a new character named "Cooper" would play the lead role in Rare's first Xbox title, and that Grabbed by the Ghoulies would in fact be geared toward kids.

Perhaps because Rare was once associated with Nintendo, arguably the console with the youngest demographic, or perhaps because Microsoft needed to venture into a pre-teen crowd, Grabbed by the Ghoulies was a logical yet still somewhat surprising choice for Rare's Xbox debut. Rated "E" for "Everyone," the game is appropriate for the youngest of gamers in your house, with clean humor, colorful graphics and extremely basic gameplay. There's not a single obscenity to be found, and the game's most violent moments come with a gun that shoots overly fizzy soda cans.

But having an acclaimed developer's first Xbox game be an untested, kids-only franchise was a gutsy move. Ultimately, it was needed; the Xbox doesn't have enough games geared toward the kids of its more "mature" players. Still, it wasn't what people expected, so pre-release buzz was less than favorable. After playing through the game, you'll quickly realize that Microsoft wasn't trying to create another "hardcore" game, but trying to expand its portfolio. The result is a title that's easily one of the best Xbox games for players under 10, but one that's far too basic to satiate anyone else.

What's perhaps most unique about Grabbed by the Ghoulies is that the game is a genre in and of itself. It's not a button-masher, no matter how much it plays like one, because there are no attack buttons to mash. Nor is it a platformer, because there's literally no jump button. Nor is it a role-playing game or adventure, because you never increase Cooper's attributes or interact in a non-combative way with the environment. Grabbed by the Ghoulies just sort of "is."

Knowing its audience, the game tells the predictable yet comical story of Cooper, a boy searching through the haunted Ghoulhaven Hall for his girlfriend, who was abducted by the Hall's inhabitants. Cooper's search is organized into 100 incredibly linear levels that take place in 50-plus rooms, each of which is possessed by playfully harmful "ghoulies" ranging from skeletons and mummies to ninja imps and haunted televisions.

Combating these ghoulies is cartoon-like fare, with drop kicks, punches and stomps as the predominant actions. Rather than have a button for each type of attack, though, the game makes players press the right thumbstick in the direction of an enemy, which then pulls off a context-sensitive strike. Players can also use ham hocks and vases as melee weapons or water pistols and fire extinguishers for long-range attacks. Meanwhile, the left thumbstick controls movement, and the left and right triggers swing the camera in their respective direction. This scheme is immediately approachable to younger gamers, who will probably fail to notice its occasional imprecision where attacks are concerned.

One thing they won't be able to overlook is the artificial difficulty scale, which adjusts Cooper's energy level at the beginning of every room. It doesn't matter whether players leave one room with all their energy intact, because the game may randomly reduce their energy level to 5 or 10 hearts when the next room opens up. As an older gamer I felt cheated by this tactic, but younger gamers may see this as an increased and exciting challenge.

Should the challenge prove too much for them, rest assured that Cooper won't actually die. Rather, like in Haunted Mansion from TDK Mediactive, Grabbed by the Ghoulies never deals with the main character losing lives, per se, but with fainting after the ghoulies hit him too much and drain his charisma. Extra "lives" are sprinkled generously around Ghoulhaven, too, which means few gamers will face a "Game Over" message.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies makes smart use of its room-to-room structure by varying the objectives for each level without venturing too far from its basic gameplay. Never is there a real puzzle to solve, and never is there any semblance of a lever to pull. Instead, each room has a combat-centric challenge: defeat all the enemies without getting hit, defeat all the enemies without dispatching two in a row of the same type, and defeat all the enemies without damaging the room are just a few of the challenges.

Should a player fail to meet an objective, the Grim Reaper enters the room to "claim" Cooper before he can achieve the goal at hand. If the Reaper touches Cooper, it's back to the beginning of the level. Avoiding the Reaper is completely feasible, and on most occasions it's rather simple, but several of the later levels will take multiple tries, and if you're watching your child play through the game, you should prepare to help out on one or two frustratingly difficult rooms.

Where Grabbed by the Ghoulies is simplistic in gameplay, it excels in graphical panache. The game has a style torn straight from a Saturday-morning cartoon, with a cel-shaded flair that mingles seamlessly with 3D environments and next-generation effects. The lighting in Grabbed by the Ghoulies is at times moody, at times lively and at all times astounding, while the particle effects balance a comic-like feel with the opacity and depth required of a 3D game.

The character models and environmental design are also classically Saturday morning. Sure, Cooper looks like a stereotypical blonde 10-year-old, but it's that stereotypical cartoon appeal that gives Grabbed by the Ghoulies its personality. The ninja imps, zombies, medusas and ghost pirates may look like creatures you've seen before, but they've got a certain personality that distinguishes them both from one another and from like-designed characters in other games. To be perfectly honest, if Grabbed by the Ghoulies had a deeper story, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Microsoft try to license it as a cartoon series.

Casting for that cartoon could be a bit of a chore, though, because the game has almost no spoken audio. Aside from occasional grunts from non-playable characters and some infrequent "all right!" exclamations from Cooper, the only player-related sound effects are limited to the "oof" and "hiyah" type. All conversations are instead related through comic book-like panels and cutscenes, with occasional bouts of reading. The rest of the game, though, has fantastically engineered sounds, and the music is top notch, if a bit on the elementary-school-annoying side.

But again, it's that elementary-school audience that Grabbed by the Ghoulies is trying to attract. And without a doubt, the game will achieve just that. The levels and overall game are short, but so are the attention spans of many a growing child. The plot is predictable and at times meandering, but so are some of the most popular kids' shows. The gameplay is basic and the structure incredibly linear, but young gamers (and some adults) need guidance anyway.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies is a game for kids, and as such, it does a great job at pandering to its target audience. Of course Xbox owners would have liked to see something different for Rare's first game; they're predominantly older and have more grown-up tastes. But Rare was tasked to deliver a kid-friendly title, and it hit the nail on the head. If you have a young child in the house and want to see him or her playing something that doesn't involve trash-talking or excessive violence, Grabbed by the Ghoulies is one game you should seriously consider.

Overall: 7.5

Perfect for the under-10 crowd, but few others.

-- Jonas Allen

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