A game based on a ride at a theme park, whatever next???

The game has you playing the role of Zeke, a regular guy going to the mansion to apply for the job of janitor. But he soon finds out that the resident ghosts placed the advert to get someone to help them save the mansion from an evil spirit. The ghosts arm you with a lantern (yes, a lantern!), but not just any normal lantern - this is a magical one. Armed with your lantern you must go from room to room getting rid of evil ghosts then turning the lights on. Once that's done you have to search the rooms for spirits to collect, a certain number of which allow you to gain access to the next section of the house. If it all sounds simplistic and repetitive, then that's probably because it is.

   

Some rooms have puzzles in, all of which are pretty simple. The controls are very straightforward; you only have jump, shoot, lock-on and the button to suck up the spirits. The 'combat' is nice and easy too, just hold lock-on and fire away with the occasional strafing movement and you'll soon capture all those bad ghosts. You can collect pieces of the ghosts' death certificates and once they've seen them, they'll give you a jewel to upgrade your weapons. It's not hard to see that this game is aimed at the younger audience. And with no violence you can safely buy this for your children and they can have fun with it - surely a good thing in the current market.

But a game has to be judged against its peers, and Haunted Mansion isn't impressive graphically. It's all very basic and confined compared to other recent platform adventures, although the rooms look nice and musty with cobwebs hanging everywhere. The character models and ghosts are just ok, and well enough animated but really nothing special. The lighting from your lantern gives off a nice glow that partially illuminates the rooms until you find the light switch. But the special effects like the "energy balls" from your lantern look really naff - it's just a white ball zooming towards the target - oh dear.

   

The sound is quite atmospheric, with some nice ghostly noises, the friendly ghosts have good voices. But the sound of the "balls" from your lantern gets very repetitive. Difficult to recommend then, although this game is clearly a copy of the rather good Luigi's Mansion on Gamecube, and whilst the PS2 has nothing quite like that game except possibly the considerably more grown-up Ghosthunter, The Haunted Mansion doesn't really match up to either in any respect. Maybe a good one for younger gamers, but if you're over 10 you probably won't be impressed as there's so little challenge and so little variation. And a final note: Strangely this Disney game has absolutely nothing to do with the Disney movie of the same name starring Eddie Murphy, which is probably a good thing.