English
Gamereactor
reviews
Haunted House

Haunted House

A lot of old classics get reinvented these days, but is Haunted House a game that should have been left well alone?

Subscribe to our newsletter here!

* Required field

Normally I find it difficult to review a game aimed for a younger audience than myself. But this time my job was made easier. The entire in-law family was visiting for a whole week, including the latest addition to the family. Perfect. A child's reaction to the game is exactly what I need.

We turn on Haunted House, a re-make of the ancient Atari 2600 game with the same title. The graphical leap is naturally a massive one. Instead of a barren, basic and flat game, everything is modelled in 3D, seen from a isometric perspective and the visuals gives us a rather cosy semi-spooky and Cartoon Network influenced vibe. It doesn't really feel haunting at all.

The environments you visit are as the title implies a number of haunted places. You play as one of two kids (it works excellently in co-op), Jacob or Silvia, as they look for their lost grandfather. Spread across the game world are torn out pages from the old man's journal. But the story doesn't take central stage, and it's neither fun nor exciting. That's obvious from the start. Me and my little wing mate quickly click on.

Haunted House can be described as a dungeon crawler for kids. A Diablo light for little ones. The objective is to find all the pieces of an old broken urn. The environments resemble lesser labyrinths where we round around to find useful things in bookshelves, cupboards, piles of bones and furniture. Among the useful items are matches, lamps and cell phones that help illuminate your dark surroundings, and keys that open locked doors. There is also the occasional lever to pull in order to progress. But that's really as far as the puzzle design goes.

Haunted House
This is an ad:

There aren't any direct attacks. To kill a malicious spirit you have to lure into the bright and warm light from a fireplace. The main focus of the gameplay is really to search through furniture in the hopes of stumbling onto something useful. It doesn't sound like much fun, and it's not.

The little one next to me grows impatient. I hear little yearning mumbles where I can make out the words "Mini Ninjas" and "Mario". I understand where he's coming from - Haunted House is incredibly monotonous. Repetitive gameplay can be very addictive, but that requires an entertaining gameplay mechanic, or rewards that make it worth the grind. Neither of which I find in Haunted House.

Haunted House

It's not really original in any way, but it still has a decent atmosphere and it feels cosy. The audiovisual department would have scored a passing grade where it not for the few sound effects that are repeated over and over again. I'm close to screaming myself when Silvia yells "O-M-G!" for the third time in thirty seconds.

This is an ad:

It is possible to design quality games for kids, games that are genuinely entertaining and that appeal to the inner child in all of us. It's hard, and only a few developers pull it off. Haunted House just isn't one of those games.

Haunted House

The main problem with this game is that you grow weary of it within 15 minutes. There is nothing wrong with the presentation, but the gameplay just isn't rewarding enough. It doesn't catch my interest, and neither does it catch the interest of my little one. And that's really evidence enough for you to go look for entertainment elsewhere.

04 Gamereactor UK
4 / 10
+
Cosy graphics, accessible.
-
Monotonous gameplay, few sound effects, boring concept.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

Related texts



Loading next content