A Mario Party game with a halloween theme, that’s about it.
Other than that line alone, there is nothing in Ghost Mansion Party that sets itself apart from the large amount of party games that are already available for the Wii console. Sure the games are fun, and the setting fits the halloween theme perfectly, but this game just gives me a sort of been there, done that type of feeling when I am playing it, as it offers nothing unique to this genre whatsoever.
Developer/Publisher: Gameloft
Genre: Party/Board Game
Price: 1,000 Wii Points ($10)
# of players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Here is the setup, Fazzy the ghost has been locked out of his mansion by some evil spooks, and he’s willing to give his treasure to anyone who can chase them out, that’s it. You can take control of either a butler, a kid, a scientist, or a girl, and make your way through the mansion as you find clues to a riddle that will help you win Fazzy’s treasure. There are no cutscenes to speak of, and honestly for a party game, I can live with that.
There is no real dialogue to speak of either, only certain sounds that each of the characters make when its their turn is about all you will ever hear out of them throughout the duration of the game, which is fine. I don’t need to go into detail as to why everyone is here, I just want to play the game. For what it is trying to do, Ghost Mansion Party works, it gives you one goal, and asks you to reach it.
The visual presentation here is adequate, if a bit dated. The mansion gives off that old school halloween vibe from the moment you start the game. You will make your way through a museum, a graveyard, a library, and so on. They all look good, and represent the halloween theme quite well. The key point here is that the amount of animation that is occuring in the background is what gives this game a certain sense of personality. Pictures will shake, people will run away from ghosts, levitate objects, play a creepy song on a piano, and so on. The characters themselves look ok, but are not really all that different from each other as far as having something unique about them that seperates themselves from the group.
The audio presentation here is good, but it is what you have come to expect from any game with a halloween theme attached to it. There is alot of that old school royalty type of music mixed in with some eerie “whooooooooooo” noises in the background, which works out fine, but is nothing new when it comes to halloween games. Other than that, the only other real sounds you will hear will be things like objects falling in the background in certain areas, and the sound effects in each of the minigames you play (lighting candles, shooting guns, etc.), all of which sound like they should, creepy and spooky enough to scare a six year old, and nothing more.
Ghost Mansion Party’s controls are simple and easy to understand. Every minigame will show a quick explanation of what you need to do in order to play it the right way. Most of the games will boil down to either moving the wii remote over an object, and then pressing the a button to perform that action, or moving the wii remote in a certain motion to perform a specific type of action. The controls work out fine, and are completely responsive, but are not creative at all whatsoever. This is a classic case of waggling around like an idiot, so your friends will laugh at you, and all of you are suppossed to have fun with it despite how stupid you look. Unique controls are one thing, but I would have preferred a bunch of point and click games to a bunch of waggle games.
With all of the negativity that I seem to have towards this game, I still had alot of fun playing it. It plays out like a board game, where you move from piece to piece, and perform the specific action that is associated with that piece, earn coins, and move on. I liked the whole idea of working together, while trying to win the game by yourself at the same time. All of the coins you earn throughout each minigame can be used to buy scrolls, that will give you a clue as to what the final riddle is. Even though you use these coins to find the clues together, it is really all about who can figure out the clue in the shortest amount of time to unlock the treasure. I liked the whole idea of the game being co-operative and competitive at the same, and for that reason alone, Ghost Mansion Party is unique.
The minigames themselves were alot of fun to play, I liked the shooter , the drawing, and the find hidden items games the most because they didn’t require much in the way of waggling. The more waggle heavy games, such as in inflating a balloon, and rotating a record were also fun, but for some reason I just suck at playing them. My least favorite game of the bunch was the one were you had to get out of the car, and shoot at ghosts who are trying to destroy it. The pointing mechanic in these games worked just fine, it was moving your characters around with the d-pad that made these games almost impossible to play, and that is because movement felt just a little bit rigid. Using the Joystick on the nunchuck would have made much more sense here, as it gives you a full 360 range of movement at all times.
Once you have played through Ghost Mansion Party one time, you will see about all that it has to offer. You can unlock the minigames to play seperately as you complete the adventure. After a couple of playthroughs though, you will have already played through all of the minigames, leaving you no reason to play any of them again. There are three different difficulty levels to play through also, but nothing seems to change all that much as you move on through the easy, normal, and hard modes. To sum it all up, once you have played it once, there is no reason to play it again.
Ghost Mansion Party is a fun game despite all of its flaws. The halloween theme is preserved well, the controls work out just fine, and the games are fun. If you have a group of friends that want to play a quick party game, go for it, otherwise, look elsewhere. (B-)
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