Grabbed by the Ghoulies

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.