Grabbed by the Ghoulies

Moby ID: 10747
Xbox Specs
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Description official descriptions

The Ghoulies have taken his girlfriend, and the only way Cooper is going to get her back is by entering the spooky Ghoulhaven Hall. Each room in the building sets a new challenge, and to move on to the next mission you must complete the task at hand (whether that be defeating the ghosts and other creatures or solving a puzzle). But there's a catch, as within each room there are certain rules that must be followed, otherwise the Grim Reaper will appear and attempt to take our hero to certain doom. Power-ups are available to aid Cooper, such as one-hit kills and invisibility, while anti-power-ups will make things harder for you, and items laying around can be used to fight the monsters.

Spellings

  • グーリーズ - Grabbed by the Ghoulies - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Xbox version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 67% (based on 27 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 17 ratings with 1 reviews)

Fun and full of humor and character

The Good
Grabbed by the Ghoulies won my heart over with a combination of good fighting action, colorful hand-drawn graphics, hilarious jokes, great voices and sound effects, and addictive silly music. While the game is "for kids" it manages to draw in adult gamers with challenging play in the later levels and some somewhat adult humor.

I really enjoyed the bizarre level challenges and power-ups presented. We all know that the traditional "beat them up" game has become old hat, and GBTG manages to make things interesting in a variety of ways. One includes occasional "terrors" that pop out and require the player enter a sequence of buttons quickly, or the hero will wander around chattering his teeth, open to enemy attack and unable to defend. Another challenge that keeps things intriguing are characters that are only damageable with certain types of attacks. Mummies, for example, can be knocked around with regular attacks but do not suffer any damage unless fire is used. A lot of the "power ups" available in the game are very nice as well. One particularly effective powerup includes a miniature version of the main character, Cooper, who fights enemies along side you, and who is called "Mini Cooper" (ba dum bum!).



The Bad
There isn't much I didn't like about Grabbed by the Ghoulies. At first, the control scheme was mystifying. Instead of pressing buttons to attack enemies, the player uses the right thumbstick. By aiming the "attack stick" in the direction of enemies, Cooper will automatically start throwing punches and kicks (and even combos) at whatever is in the path. After about 15 minutes, however this scheme becomes second nature and is a quite refreshing change versus the typical "button masher" setup for brawlers of this type.

The Bottom Line
I would highly, highly recommend this game to anyone interested. I have seen some negative reviews of the game out there, and quite simply don't think they were playing the same game I was. Sure, some of the stages may be a bit difficult or annoying, but this is a great game from head to toe. I have been playing it off and on for well over a year now and consider it one of my top 5 Xbox games I've ever played.

Xbox · by Greg Mitchell (37) · 2006

Trivia

Baron von Ghoul

Baron von Ghoul was originally conceived as a menacing, evil character, who would turn into a fiery demon at the end of the game. One of the artists working on the game thought that this was rather generic, and instead sketched the Baron in a home-made plane. It was at this point that Baron von Ghoul evolved into the World War II plane-obsessed lunatic that he is today.

Cut content

  • The Red Snake seen in the unlockable "Missing in Action" page that shows unused characters actually did make it into the game. He can be seen in the Mansion's Walled Garden as a fountain with one of the Baron's prisoners stuck in his mouth. Other characters weren't so lucky - they were going to turn up in a "Museum" room in the Mansion and complain about how they weren't in the main game when the player approached them, but this room got cut out too.
  • Dr. Krackpot (the insane genius riding the giant mechanical legs) was originally going to be a boss character for the game. When the player reached Dr. Krackpot's lab, Krackpot's latest creation, Krankenstein, would get up from the lab table it was strapped to and begin to attack the player. Once it was defeated, Dr. Krackpot would have attacked the player himself. For whatever reason, this boss battle was cut.

Development

Grabbed by the Ghoulies began life as a Nintendo GameCube title, but was converted over to the Xbox during its development cycle. References to "Dolphin interface" can still be found in the game code.

References

As per usual for Rare games there are many references to previous games: * The title sequence has images from 20 year old Spectrum games. * Games Room has lots of posters from 8-bit games when Rare were called Ultimate. * Pictures and statues and paintings of other games character abound, including Banjo and Kazooie and the skeleton witch doctor. Also paintings of Jiggies and a Hive outside the Cottage. * Bag of flour has Established 1984 written on the site. References the start of Ultimate and also a power up from Donkey Kong 64. * Fire imps appear in Conker's Bad Fur Day. * There are some very similar musical themes to those appearing in Banjo-Kazooie. One level as the bear and bird exploring a haunted house with ghost infested painting and living furniture. It could be argued that Grabbed the Ghoulies is an expansion of that very level.

Storybook

The sign seen in the storybook opening currently reads "Ghoulsville in the Gloom". Originally, it read "Neede in the Nuts", which was to be the title of the sequel if one was ever made. However, Microsoft didn't like the sign, so it had to be changed.

Title

The game began life as a name before anything else. The developers came up with the name as a title for a game, and then decided to create a game from that title. Most games are created with a concept first, then get a finalized name later in the design process. In the U.K., "goolies" means testicles.

Information also contributed by Ben K, CaptainCanuck and Rupert Breheny

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

Xbox 360 added by karttu.

Additional contributors: karttu, ~~, Patrick Bregger.

Game added October 22, 2003. Last modified March 4, 2024.