Luigi's Mansion
Review by Trent Dickerson
--- 
First appearing as a technical demo at Space World 2000, it was announced at E3
(Electronics Entertainment Expo)2001, that it was not a technical demo, but that the lime-light
stealing bastard that is Luigi would one-up his short, pudgey plumber brother and appear on his
system before he would, and also that it would be an official launch game.
The story is like this: Luigi mysteriously wins a contest that he doesn't remember
entering. The prize? A huge mansion. Mario agrees to go see the mansion with Luigi, however,
he arrives before Luigi gets there and decides to do a little exploring before Luigi arrives.
By the time Luigi arrives though, Mario is missing and nowhere to be found. Upon entering the
house, Luigi meets Professor E. Gadd, a scientist of the paranormal. E. Gadd explains that the
entire house is haunted and that King Boo has set you up in order to kidnap your older brother,
Mario. The Professor arms you with his newest invention, the PolterGust 3000. Welcome to
Luigi's Mansion.
Being as short as this game is, it might as well be a technical demo, as it sports some
of the best lighting and shadowing effects out there, on any system, not just GameCube
specifically. Nearly everything in the game is self-shadowed. And when you shine Luigi's
flashlight on the wall, you can actually see individual particles of dust float through the
light beam. Sweeet. Nintendo decided to use volumetric fog a lot too, such as in dust clouds
and motes, as well as when Luigi is breathing in a cold area. Obviously, transparency effects
are a usual in this game as well, since ghosts will constantly be appearing and fading away.
It's fairly obvious that this was originally a technical demo stretched into a full game,
however, this one game changed many third-party developer's minds about the abilities of the
GameCube. Wow, if they liked this game, they must have LOVED Rogue Leader.
Gameplay is a little odd. For one, there are some instances with clipping, such as in
the FMV sequences, but besdes that, framerate is top-notch throughout the entire game. Another
disappointment is that the texture bump-mapping looks more like something from the Nintendo 64,
not the GameCube. For the most part though, this shouldn't hurt your gaming experience and in
fact, most people never even noticed any of this.
The button sequence in the game is a little weird. Instead of moving Luigi around with
the analog control stick as one would expect, but rather the C-Stick. Actually, the analog
control stick is used to maneuver Luigi's flashlight. It takes some gettings used to, but
eventually, you be sucking up money and ghosts everywhere you go just like the pros, which
doesn't take very long to become one. One last thing I will mention about gameplay is this
thing called "Warp Mirrors", which return you to the entryway at anytime by point to it with
your Game Boy Horror. The game doesn't take very long to complete, approximately 10-15 hours at
most. Finishing the game with an A Rank is a bit of a task, as you have to collect all the gold
bars and diamonds.
In my opinion, this game has as good as sound as Rogue Squadron 2, which at the moment
still holds the highest rank in the sound effects and music department. One of the funniest
parts of this game is throughout the game while Luigi is walking through the house, he will
always be whistling the Luigi's Mansion theme, calling out to Mario, and gasping in fear when a
ghost appears in front of him. Chances are, what with the cartoony environment, there's a good
chance you'll be whistling the theme along with him. And make sure you know your fair share of
Nintendo nostalgic music, as you will be quizzed at one point in the game.
In conclusion, with the cartoony environment, a non-Nintendophile could easily pass this
game off as "kiddie", a title constantly assigned to all Nintendo games. The game, however, is
not "kiddie", but just rather an example of a family game that anyone can play and learn,
especially young children and/or the girlfriend/wife, as compared to the shooting and killing
games such as Grand Theft Auto III in which the entire point of the game is to steal, kill, and
steal some more...not that that's a bad thing.
My Score: 8.5 out of 10
Advantages: Superb lighting/shadowing effects, great musical score and sound effects, a
wholesome game for the entire family.
Disadvantages: Only about a 10-15 hour game(this is if you are a REALLY slow learner),
occasional clipping in FMV sequences, button sequence may be hard to learn, not a very
gripping storyline, could easily be passed off as "kiddie".
