Disney's The Haunted Mansion [PS2]

Eddie Murphy. TDK. A movie-based license. The combination of these three elements is as inspiring as a soggy taco. While each ingredient by itself doesn't necessarily spell disaster, put together in this age-old formula for failure, it almost certainly does spell doom. Will TDK beat the movie-to-game rap? Can this game ascend above the box-shaped movie-based game, which is actually based on a Disneyland ride? It's a tall order, but you never can tell.

Based on the movie The Haunted Mansion, which in turn is based on the Disneyland ride, The Haunted Mansion, the motion picture stars Eddie Murphy as a workaholic real estate agent. He's got an idea. He drags his family to a new home, the Gracey mansion, with the aim of redeveloping it into a spanking new condo complex. You probably have already guessed that the house isn't empty. Yep, it's packed like sardines in a tin with 999 ghosts, all of whom are pissed off about this so-called renovation. Which makes renovation kinda tough.

In development with High Voltage, whose resume includes dozens of games (including Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626 and the upcoming Hunter: The Reckoning Wayward), Haunted Mansion looks to hang its genre hat in the action-platform arena. Players take on the role of of a slightly different character for the game and explore the Mansion, unveiling clues to the mystery of the house, secret passageways, and freeing the souls of 999 ghosts. Your goal is to free all 999 before you become one yourself.

TDK's game is based on the movie of the ride, so players are sure to see those treasures they first experienced as a kid (or as a parent of a kid), from the evil descending elevator with the transforming pictures to the ghost-filled dining room to the spooky cemetery and more. At the very least, TDK's game is certainly going to be interesting, and at most it may indeed beat the movie-license rap with a clever, inspired game.

We'll let you know as soon as our inner demons allow us.

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