Time to do the most stereotypical review one can on Halloween – a “spooky” video game and one that, while it’s been done to death, is still a game which I enjoy the occasional play of: Haunted House for the Atari 2600.
The premise is a simple one – you are venturing into a long abandoned mansion to retrieve the pieces of a mysterious magic urn. It’s not explained in the manual exactly why this urn is so special, but still, you’re venturing in to recover it.
As you adventure through the darkness hunting for the urn you will use matches to light the area around you. Your character, seen as simply disembodied eyes, will be surrounded by a glow while using the match, and if a piece of the urn or other objects hidden in the mansion are near you you will see them in the glow. Simple.
What’s not so simple is making it through the house unscathed. There are various enemies (bats, spiders, ghosts, etc) roaming the mansion. If they enter the same room as you they will give chase and if you’re using a match a sudden stormy wind will blow it out. Of course, there’s a way to keep the enemies at bay – a magic scepter which scares away the enemies and prevents you from being “scared to death” by them. The only problem is you can’t hold the scepter and the urn pieces at the same time.
The trick to the game really then becomes simply navigating the mansion, using matches to find the3 pieces of the urn and then make your way to the exit all while avoiding the monsters. Game mode 1 is basic, where you can see the walls and navigation is pretty straightforward. Later game modes hide the walls to where you can only see them with your match or when lightning strikes, and still more difficulty options challenge you with locked doors, making navigation of the mansion even more tricky. Of course, there’s a master key you can find, but that makes for another item to keep track of, adding to the challenge!
Thankfully, the game gives you 9 lives, and unlimited matches – your score is based on how many matches and lives you use. It’s pretty forgiving in that regard, but don’t think the game is so forgiving as to be too easy and not fun – getting the best score you can is always a bit of a challenge with the random nature of the game.
Final Rating: 4.0/5
It’s honestly quite an in depth game for how simple the premise is. With the items randomly scattered and the natural arcade-style speedy gameplay that all games of this era had, it makes for a bit of an intense bit of quick pick up and play classic gaming. As mentioned above, I really enjoy it every now and then, and the difficulty increases of the later skill levels really work to the games advantage.
All in all, a fun time, and one you may want to fire up this Halloween.