Haunted House

The Good
I just read a 2-page article in the first issue of "Atari Age", about a family who decides to live in a haunted house and its occupants are killed one by one. This article promoted Atari's new game Haunted House, but the information in it has nothing to do with what happens in gameplay. As one of the few Atari 2600 games that I have played, it contains the one thing that I like - exploration.

The objective of Haunted House is simple. The player (portrayed as a pair of eyes) is trapped inside a four-story and cannot escape until he manages to collect the three missing pieces of an urn. Lurking around the mansion are a variety of creatures (vampire bat, tarantula, and ghost) that they need to avoid. The rooms are too dark to see anything, but the player has a flashlight in which they can use to search them and get the pieces he needs.

One of the animations that I like involve the player's eyes. Just before you start the game, you can wiggle the joystick to move the eyes around. Not only that, but your eyes move around when you get hit by a creature, as if the player is under a dizzy spell. Even though they are crudely drawn, the creatures are well animated. I like how each floor is color-coded so that you can tell which one you are on. I like how the ghost is faster than the creatures when it chases you around the room.

The sound effects make the game atmospheric. If you only hear the sound of your footsteps and the thunder claps, just go you will hear more and more of them as you try out the different variations. In all of the variations, for example, footsteps are heard as you move your eyes around the rooms and hunder claps are heard occasionally. But in the second (and most harder) ones, you hear doors opening and closing as well as other things.

Being an Atari 2600 game, I managed to complete Haunted House in less than ten minutes. However, since there are nine variations of the game, I had a go at the second one, which is a lot difficult. The game is totally dark and you can't see the walls, not even the creatures that are in a different room; you never know what's going on in each room you visit. Many times I was unfortunate enough to go from one room to the next, only to have a creature take away one of my lives as I entered, but that is suspense for you.

Those that don't think that Haunted House is scary should switch the light off and play the game in total darkness, and at the second variation. There is nothing more exciting than moving between rooms only to be intercepted by a ghost. Also, I'm pretty sure that lightning will make players jump in their seats.

The Bad
I think the game should have been harder, with a few more variations added to the mix. One of these new variations could have included a time limit, meaning that you have to find the urn pieces within a certain time or you lose the game. Also on higher variations, more than one of the same creature could have been added.

The Bottom Line
In Haunted House, the player has to navigate a four-story mansion collecting the pieces of an urn while avoiding creatures that patrol the rooms. The game has some nice animations, particularly for the player's eyes. Futuremore, the sound effects provide the game with atmosphere. The game is more scarier if you play it in total darkness.