House of Horrors

Video Game Week continues!


You may have caught it earlier today if you follow me on Twitter, but today's post is all about the fond memories I have of stumbling on to the NES port of Maniac Mansion. 


Being born in the early 80s and raised in a small town with very patient and kind parents, I was afforded an NES at an early age, though with little to no context to the world of video games. Sure, years down the line I would delve head on into the world of Nintendo Power and kindle the flame for my present-day pseudo-journalism, but at the time all I had for guidance in the world of video games was A - my older brother B - the playground and the miscreants therein and C - whatever was on the shelf at the local game rental place. I was raised on Mario, Excitebike and Ninja Turtles. The Nintendo catalog was fairly sparse. Even at my young age, though, I displayed a predilection for B-movies and the bizarre, macabre world of 1950s throwbacks. So imagine wonderment extremely piqued curiosity when I saw this cover art on the shelf at the local game-rental shack:

Though it took me a few trips to work up the nerve to give it a spin, once I finally checked it out my sense of gaming was irrevocably altered. Adventure games became a kind of mature, more intelligent and expressive medium for enjoyment. While I love side-scrolling, beat 'em up affairs like Double Dragon and the pop-art stylings of the original Duck Tales game, Maniac Mansion shaped my fundamental understanding and mental conception of what video games could aspire to be. The game is fairly simple in terms of how's and whys: you play as three teenagers exploring a spooky house while trying to free your friend from a scientist, pointing a cursor at objects to interact with them (sound familiar? These things repeat because they work, people.) It started a trend, along with a certain RPG series I intend to write on, of favoring the text-heavy (but not solely based) headier games, particularly those with a flair for the morbid or twisted. From here I branched out in genres to find my niche - whereas a great of modern gaming is online FPS with headsets, I still prefer to sit with headphones in the dark while I explore Rapture, reveling in the solitude and personal journey that games can provide. Community has never been a quest for me, rather the individual's experience and how we internalize it and make sense of the world. That might just be a self-centered way to say I don't play a lot of multiplayer.

As much as I love this quirky point-and-click tale from Lucasfilm Games, it really bums me out to know there are so many people out there, especially younger than me (grump, harumph, grumble) that have no experience with the genius and trailblazing adventure. Created by the inspired Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, the game not only helped coin the phrase 'Cut Scene' but brought to the forefront the burgeoning genre of point and click adventure games. King's Quest, Sam & Max, Monkey Island, these games all rode in on a wave started by these two designers experiementing in a new and distinct genre of gaming. It allowed for a more immersible and cerebral playing experiences. Players used their brains to rationalize a world beyond the context of reflexes and number-crunching. In my own mind I viewed the experience as somewhere in a delta between watching a movie, reading a book and playing a game - it wasn't a traditional video game. At the time, I knew it was different from the rocknroll of Mega Man, but only now can I look back and see exactly what it was that set it apart. What with all the potential screw ups and no-win dead-ends, there was a real sense of "what can I do here?" as compared to the popular format at the time of "Run to the right, kill things, keep moving". It was a weird little world to explore.

Not only was it a strange experience in terms of game play, but additionally the attitude was remarkable for the time. Nintendo of America had a strict policy about the content of the games they published - censorship was the norm at the time. This game, with it's abundant corpses, blood, aliens, teenage protagonists and Pepsi products, seemed strangely adult and more mature. Only in the last few years have I had a chance to read up on the localization process that Gilbert and Winnick experienced in translating their groundbreaking work from home PC to NES. It's an amusing tale of arbitrary corporate policy to say the least.


Thankfully, Maniac Mansion has seen enduring popular acclaim through the last 20 (20!!!) years. There have been numerous ports and remakes over the years, ensuring that as long as there is an audience, it remains possible and enjoyable to play Maniac Mansion just one more time. Maniac Mansion Deluxe is the reigning champ, being both excellent and free, so please - if you ever played it and just want to try it again, never heard of it and missed out on the history of it or just want to see where modern gaming came from, check it out. It really does hold up as a great game in the most essential way.  I'll see you tomorrow.