Review: Haunted House (Wii)

If you had an Atari 2600 back in the day, you're probably familiar with their most popular titles. Games like Pac-Man. Missle Command. Pitfall! Super Breakout. Kaboom!

And Haunted House.

Haunted House was a great game. You ran around dark rooms, looking for three pieces of an urn, while trying to avoid ghosts and spiders. And like most games for the Atari 2600, the graphics left something to be desired:

Haunted House, 1981

Atari recently released a updated version of Haunted House for the Wii. If you're like me and you start to sweat, your skin itches, and you break out in hives when you hear the word remake, let me put your mind at ease: Atari did a great job with Haunted House.

How? Simple: they didn't change a thing.

Sure, there are many more levels in the new version. The rooms are actual rooms (it's 2010 -- no need for rectangles anymore) and some are quite large. But for the most part, the game's the same: you're bumbling around a haunted house. The only thing that's really changed is the graphics, as you can see in the game's trailer:



The new version is fun and has cartoonish graphics. Because the plot and gameplay is relatively simple -- you're basically moving from room to room, checking every piece of furniture for light sources, coins, and diary pages -- Haunted House is appealing to younger or more inexperienced gamers. But things do get more difficult as the game progresses, so there's something for everyone.

The only thing I didn't like about the game was the inclusion of the nunchuck. I can't stand using the nunchuck and felt Atari could've found a way around it. But other than that, I've really been enjoying the game!