The development team at Rare has been a long standing player in the console
industry, with its history dating back to the early 80’s at the start of the
emerging console market. With deep roots and the experience of having made over
50 games in the companies long standing history it is no wonder why they were
recently taken aboard by Microsoft Game Studios. At this years recent E3 convention
the all-star development house already had four games to announce; among those
eagerly awaited titles was a game that stood out as different, Grabbed by the
Ghoulies.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies is Rare’s debut title for the Microsoft Xbox console.
The action adventure title takes a new approach with simple controls and a unique
story presentation. Geared toward a new and ever growing demographic on the
Xbox console, Rare’s title integrates a unique story telling experience with
Cell-Shading technology in an attempt to captivate the user. Has Rare succeeded
in solidifying their name on the Xbox console with Grabbed by the Ghoulies?
Read on and hopefully Grabbed by the Ghoulies will not scare you off.

Gameplay
From the opening scenes in Grabbed by the Ghoulies; it is easy to see the title
will carry a unique approach, with the games story being told in the form of
animated frames in a story book. Grabbed by the Ghoulies begins with Cooper
and his girlfriend wandering around the woods on a stormy night, they soon approach
a creepy house, and realize they must have taken a wrong turn and have gotten
lost. Unfortunately for the pair, the owner of the house, Baron von Ghoul, has
dispatched his gargoyle minions to capture Cooper’s girlfriend and draw
him into the mansion as well. As cooper you venture forth into Ghoulhaven Hall
in an attempt to rescue your girlfriend and hopefully escape without being scared
to death.

The game play in Grabbed by the Ghoulies is very straight forward, anything
that moves, including furniture, can be an enemy. As the story goes you are
hunting through this massive mansion, and its surrounding property, looking
for your girlfriend, and so you must defend yourself and rescue her. The mansion
and surrounding property is huge and filled with various rooms on different
levels, each room containing a twist to it. As you progress through the game
from room to room, Baron von Ghoul will alter your life points with each new
room. The constant toying with your maximum energy is what introduces the challenge
to each section, while you may not have a problem defeating one or two enemies
at 20 life points, entering the room with 5 life may cause an issue. Starting
life is just the beginning to the variety of regulations you encounter in the
house, you may be tasked with defeating all enemies without taking a single
hit, or stuck in a room where only your weapon can inflict damage and not your
kick / punch combinations.

The rooms to the game can almost be seen as individual levels, the mansion
is simply an interface to guide you along the story of the game. With each room
containing its own set of rules and enemies that can only be defeated in certain
ways; the presentation of the mansion is what stops the game from seeming so
fragmented, especially when most items you pick up can’t be carried from room
to room. The exception to this rule is when the butler hands you a particular
weapon to defeat a certain type of enemy; such as the fire extinguisher for
“Fire Imps.”

The weapons in Grabbed by the Ghoulies includes anything you can pick up, with
that being at least 30% of what is in a room. I found myself picking up pool
sticks, trophies, chairs, books, candles, wood planks etc. The environments
in the game are also destructible to a massive extent; bookshelves, tables,
toys, cases, and more can be smashed into pieces or knocked on the floor. Trap
my girl in this house and it’s going to cost you tons, I found myself
ransacking the place simply because I could, that and I was interested in seeing
what I found inside other objects.

The Bonus Challenges are separate and allow you to compete in previous challenges
but with new rules added to them, usually time restrictions. Once the new challenge
is complete you are given an award medal to match your performance, silver,
gold etc. The challenges are a nice addition to the game as they expand on the
necessity for the player to not just run through the room once the objective
may be completed, yet monsters are still swarming, locating the books become
a major part of the game and forces the user to slow down for a moment to locate
it. The bonus challenges are also a nice way to allow you to replay your favorite
locations of the game but with a slight twist to them, as you may not want to
actually take your character back through rooms you have completed and take
the risk of getting lost.

Control
This is where the game shines, with its very straight forward game play, the
simple controls only add to the enjoyment of the game. Rare has done an amazing
job of simplifying the controls down to the bare minimum, making them easy to
master for the smallest of children to the ‘big kid’ in all gamers. The controller
breakdown is as follows:

  • Left Analogue: Control Movement
  • Right Analogue: Attack
  • A Button: Pick Up Item
  • B Button: Drop Item
  • Left Trigger: Rotate Camera
  • Right Trigger: Rotate Camera

Graphics

The enemies in Grabbed by the Ghoulies are not entirely original, however the
style in which they are created makes them very unique. The Cell-Shaded characters
in the game blend wonderfully with the cartoon like environment that Rare has
created. Typically characters that are Cell Shaded stand out from the environment,
as if they are not supposed to be on it almost. A good example of this effect
is Jet Set Radio Future; while the environment and the characters carry
the same design, the outline on the characters make them stand out instead of
blending fully.

Audio
The audio is an interesting part of what makes Grabbed by the Ghoulies come
together. The characters themselves do not actually talk, making reading the
short lines of text essential, instead the characters seem to mumble to one
another, while at first it was a little disappointing; I later found the approach
unique, and better suited to the game than if they would have failed with a
bad voice actor. The closest thing to words you will ever hear is Cooper yelling
“ooo yeah!”

The sound effects themselves are nicely done, from the smashing of objects
around the house, to the dastardly sounds of the swarming imps. The ambiance
is also nicely done, the rain storm raging outside can be heard from in doors,
and more so when a window has been broken by kicking an imp through it. All
in all rare did a wonderful job with the audio in the game, helping to fully
grasp the story book feel and comical elements down to Baron von Ghouls maniacal
laugh.

Replay Value
The replay value in Grabbed by the Ghoulies depends on how the particular user
played the game; if they managed to find and collect the book, wonderfully tagged
with the Rare logo, in every room then they successfully unlocked all of the
bonus challenges and can go onto defeating the game with the satisfaction of
it being 100% complete. If on the other hand you were unable to locate all the
books, then you may have tons of hours going through the house once again to
locate them all and unlock all of the challenges.

Reviewer's Additional Comments
For what it is, Grabbed by the Ghoulies is simply amazing. The game has a wealth
of rooms and varied methods for defeating them; such a variety fully removes
the repetitive feeling that plagues other titles. The simplified method of combat
further expands on the game play by allowing anyone to pick up the controller
and dive right into the game. Grabbed by the Ghoulies, for what it is, is a
masterpiece. The game is geared toward children and has allowed Microsoft to
further draw in the new demographic, while doing this it has drawn out the child
in evryone that plays. Rare has created yet another masterpiece, both in simplicity
as well as style.

Overall Score
Overall Score: 8.7/10 [Not an Average]

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