Retro Review – Haunted House

<p>Anyone who reads my Retro Reviews or articles on the site should know pretty well what a huge fan of survival horror I am&period; I attribute the creation of <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> on the PlayStation for my hobby of gaming&semi; had that not been released at that time who knows what hobby I would have right now&period; So when I find out about very old and very different survival horror games by chance&comma; I jump at the opportunity to play them&period; I recently purchased an anthology disc for my original Xbox and was delighted to discover an old-school horror game was hidden among the other games in <em>Atari Anthology<&sol;em>&period; Now&comma; had I not been researching this anthology beforehand I&&num;8217&semi;m sure this title&comma; <em>Haunted House<&sol;em>&comma; would have been lost in the other 80 games that are featured in this collection&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m glad that I did my research so that I can tell all of you about this extremely early attempt at survival horror on the Atari 2600&period; However&comma; I did not play the game on the original console&comma; I had to play it on the OG Xbox due to the fact that I never had an Atari&comma; nor am I in the market for one now that I own 80 games on one disc from that era&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This early Atari game really doesn&&num;8217&semi;t focus on story or scares and graphics for that matter&period; You play as a pair of disembodied eyeballs that is searching for three pieces to an urn so that you can leave the mansion&period; This mansion was owned by the late Zachary Graves and will prove daunting to escape alive&period; Graves was not well liked by his fellow citizens of Spirit Bay and was usually in his twenty-four room mansion wandering about&period; When he finally died his huge mansion was boarded up and for fifty years no one dared to enter the mansion for the pieces of the urn&comma; that is until you come around&period; This sacred urn&comma; which was said to be broken into three pieces during the great earthquake was owned by the very first residents of Spirit Bay&period; That&comma; however&comma; isn&&num;8217&semi;t all that you seek in this giant house&comma; you can find an ancient scepter that will keep vampire bats&comma; tarantulas and quite possibly the ghost of Graves at bay as you search&period; There is also a master key hiding somewhere in the mansion&comma; this may be your ticket to finding the urn and your freedom&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130892" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130892" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130892" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;25001037&sol;haunted-house&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"384" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130892" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Haunted House<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Atari&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The controls of this game are very simple on the Xbox controller&comma; you press A to light a match in the room&period; This light allows you to see what is around you for a sparse amount of time&period; Thankfully you have an unlimited amount of matches to light up to search for the master key&comma; the scepter&comma; and pieces of the urn&period; Unfortunately&comma; you can only carry one item at a time&comma; that means you cannot use the key while warding off enemies with the scepter&period; You have to choose which one to carry at the right time&comma; and choose correctly if you are attacked by the enemies more the nine times&comma; it is game over for you&comma; and your place of rest will be this foreboding mansion&period; Obviously&comma; the graphics won&&num;8217&semi;t be the selling point to this title&comma; but what the developer did with the sounds is pretty amazing&comma; if you have a match lit and hear the wind blow&comma; it will blow your match&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re in a room with completely no light you will hear yourself run into walls and jiggle locked doors&period; Going up and down steps gives you a different melody each way so that you can mentally take note of where you are in the giant mansion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The developers were nice to basically put nine versions of <em>Haunted House<&sol;em> onto the cartridge&comma; 1 being the easiest and 9 being the hardest&period; I started off with 1 and slowly worked my way to the more difficult aspects of the game&period; The first level has no doors&comma; the walls can be seen and there are only three enemies trying to scare you to death&period; This is the easiest it will ever be in the mansion&comma; as you go onto higher numbers enemy counts grow&comma; enemies can follow you through locked doors&comma; the walls won&&num;8217&semi;t be lit&comma; enemies touching you not only scares you but moves objects you are holding&period; This game gets very difficult&comma; which is smart for the time seeing as you couldn&&num;8217&semi;t craft an insanely detailed RPG for the Atari 2600 at the time&period; I suggest sticking with 1 and 2 for a few playthroughs&comma; then and maybe then you will be ready to tackle the harder mansions&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130897" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130897" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;25002742&sol;new-haunted-house-main&period;bmp"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130897" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;25002742&sol;new-haunted-house-main&period;bmp" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"361" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130897" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Haunted House<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Atari&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Obviously&comma; this game doesn&&num;8217&semi;t merit me running out to find an original version and console to play it on&comma; and it shouldn&&num;8217&semi;t for you either&period; If you happen to have a copy of <em>Atari Anthology<&sol;em> I suggest giving it a nice look&comma; you won&&num;8217&semi;t be disappointed with the time you spent on it&period; This game probably gave some <em>Silent Hill<&sol;em> and <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> developers some ideas had they played it when they were younger&period; The mansion in <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em> could have been lifted from this game&comma; so could the ghosts in <em>Silent Hill&period; <&sol;em>I&&num;8217&semi;ve always loved looking back to older generations to see where the later generations got their inspiration&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m sure this very early survival horror game was one of those inspirations and this makes me excited to go out and find more like this&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;