Retro Review – Haunting: Starring Polterguy

<p>My birthday happened as it does every year in February&comma; and this year I finally got the one system I&&num;8217&semi;d never gotten when I was little&comma; the Sega Genesis&period; It is the weird retro remake that fits nicely into the palm of my hand&comma; is packed with about 30 older games and plays some of the cartridges that I&&num;8217&semi;ve found&period; One of those titles I&&num;8217&semi;ve wanted to play for about twenty years is <em>Haunting&colon; Starring Polterguy<&sol;em>&comma; and it fired up quite nicely&period; Originally released in 1993 for the Sega Genesis by Electronic Arts&comma; when they were still making creative games&comma; it was a little gem that I missed in my youth but get to enjoy now&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As with a majority of 16-bit era games&comma; the story is quite a flimsy one&period; You play as Polterguy&comma; a recently deceased teenager who dressed like he fell out of 1950&period; How Polterguy dies remains a mystery in the game&comma; but I&&num;8217&semi;m assuming the family he begins to haunt may have had a hand in it&period; That makes sense right&quest; He decides to haunt the Sardini Family of four from house to house&period; Obviously the houses are the &&num;8220&semi;levels&&num;8221&semi; in this game&comma; and you get a brief break from the houses when you run out of ectoplasm&period; You get sent into a purgatory when you run out of ectoplasm&period; From there&comma; you pick up your lost ectoplasm while avoiding holes and hands that are trying to take you to Hell&period; You lose your ectoplasm while scaring this family all over the neighborhood&period; Well&comma; that&&num;8217&semi;s the story&comma; Oscar worthy right&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;100986" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-100986" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-100986 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;haunting-polterguy-dungeon-ecto-drops&period;png" alt&equals;"&lpar;HAUNTING&colon; STARRING POLTERGUY - ELECTRONIC ARTS&rpar;" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"448" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-100986" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Haunting&colon; Starring Polterguy&comma; Electronic Arts&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The controls are very easy in this game&semi; there is no learning curve whatsoever here&period; The A button enters the &&num;8220&semi;fright em&&num;8221&semi; spots that help scare the family out of their room&comma; then out of their house&period; The B button allows Polterguy to kick and spin kick&comma; and finally the C button gets you to the power up menu&period; You need the B button as you get farther in game&period; After you scare a family member&comma; ectoplasm drops&comma; and there are other ghosts that want it&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re fast enough you won&&num;8217&semi;t have to use the B button&comma; but should you be confronted with a ghost trying to steal what is yours&comma; you can kick them back to hell&period; When you hit the C button you can choose a special move&comma; but for the life of me I never actually got it to work&period; A huge present appeared when I pressed C&comma; but the family member never opened it up&&num;8230&semi;so sad&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The most useful button is obviously A&semi; this one allows you to scare the crap out of the four people in the house with the &&num;8220&semi;fright em&&num;8221&semi; spots&period; There are three types of the spots&semi; blue&comma; yellow&comma; and green&comma; and they all scare the family member in a different way&period; The blue spots&comma; when triggered&comma; shake until the unsuspecting victim investigates&comma; and then they unleash hell on the victim giving them a nice scare&period; The yellow ones are activated when the family member looks in your direction while extremely frightened&semi; this allows you to scare them with eyes in a rug and so on&period; Finally&comma; the green spots&comma; those are ones the player gets to control once activated&period; You can take control of toy airplanes and dive bomb the family members and so on&period; All of this costs you ectoplasm though so remember that as you scare the family because you will have to go back to purgatory every now and then&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;101002" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-101002" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-101002" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;maxresdefault-2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;HAUNTING&colon; STARRING POLTERGUY - ELECTRONIC ARTS&rpar;" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-101002" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Haunting&colon; Starring Polterguy&comma; Electronic Arts&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Like a majority of 16-bit games&comma; this one has also aged very well&period; The characters look pretty good&comma; and their animations are great&period; Of course they do get repetitive&semi; you can only scare someone so much before their scared face gets boring&period; The music fits the game&semi; it&&num;8217&semi;s a spooky tune that travels through most of the game&period; You actually tune it out the farther you get because you get so used to it&period; The controls are tight&period; I didn&&num;8217&semi;t find myself losing lives or ectoplasm due to them&period; I did find the game insanely repetitive though&semi; this isn&&num;8217&semi;t a game I see myself playing over and over&period; It is very unique though which is a breath of fresh air&period; Games today are just mimics of other games and that gets very boring&period; I miss the humor and originality from this era&comma; and the one that followed it&period; It was a creative humor than we rarely get now and I long for those days of puns and mocks&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;