Special Review: Grabbed by the Ghoulies

Let's play the "I would rather" game! I would rather go to an Australian Bar full of men buffed up on steroids and turn my glass upside down and place it squarley on the bar than play Grabbed by the Ghoulies again. Grabbed by the Ghoulies is unlike other bad games, it, like Shining Force and Final Fantasy X is a perfectly done bad game. Everything-from the graphics to the Dual-analog combat is executed perfectly.

The graphcis look pretty cool-Well, this is the Xbox isn't it? I like the Cel-Shading (Becoming the fad isn't it?) but the bad thing about the graphics is the "Ghoulies". Sure-If they were modeling them off of the Xbox fanboys, the DBZ hippies (You know the kind, the ones who think Dragon Ball is crap and that anyone who gives DBZ games below a 10 are losers), and the Final Fantasy 7 pagans, then the enemies are perfect. But if they were modeled after monsters, then no.

If you've seen "The Haunted Mansion", then you probably already know the basics of the plot to this game-Cooper and his obnoxious girlfriend are stuck in the rain, they go into a house to get out, and then his obnoxious girlfriend is captured. Instead of jumping for joy and celebrating, that dork Cooper instead goes after her. Though the plot twists get semi-interesting including other captured kids. It's basically a brawler.

The dual-analog combat is perfectly executed, but later in the game, it gets very annoying. It's especially annoying to newbies to gaming period, but for people who have played the great Ape Escape and Ape Escape 2, then you shouldn't really have much of a problem mastering it in the first 2.5 chapters (I'm serious-I'm not using this as an excuse to say 2.5 here, at around mid-chapter 3, the game got really hard and annoying...To me anyway. Most importantly, Cooper can't jump. Geez, why can't Cooper jump? Is it possible that Cooper's as dumb as a Bottle cap and doesn't even know how to jump? My god, after that annoying dual analog combat, I wouldn't be too surprised if I can't ever play Ape Escape again without being reminded of that Dork Cooper.

I kind of like the music-Though the stupid sounds the Ghoulies make get very irritating after awhile, especially if you have to kill about 20-30 of them in order to progress to the next room. Cooper's screaming is almost as irratiting as fingers scratching the chalkboard or Styrofome peanuts rubbing against something solid (That might not bug some people, but for me...uuuugggghhh!!).

Replay value? ppph. If you ever want to beat it, then you'll probably have to disinfect your Xbox before you throw it out. I'll admit-It's not as bad as American Idol (Though the noises are basically all you hear on American Idol anyway), but you'll seriously regret playing it.

Overall, Grabbed by the Ghoulies looked pretty good, but it turned out to be a very disappointment-especially since it was created by Rare, who were known for Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie (P.S: Stay away from the GBA version). Grabbed by the Ghoulies is a little fun-I laughed at seeing ghoulies die from such weird weapons like a Birthday cake, a feather duster, a basket, an Anvil, an Anchor, and even a water gun (Yes-A water gun.). This game pretty much does a good job at having Cooper hit rare in the Ghoulies with such ridiculous stuff. 3.53/10

Game awards:
Crap-game
Perfectly executed-bad game

[ December 23, 2003, 12:43 AM: Message edited by: Douglas of the Red Atlamilla ]

[Heroine of the Dragon]

LOL... you write it so well, I'm tempted to check it out just to see how bad it really is. *gives Douglas ***********s*

Originally posted by Heroine of the Dragon:
*gives Douglas ***********s*

They censored ***********.

So they censored ***********s. Well at least we won't be saying that they're evil anymore.