Luigi's Mansion (Players' Choice GameCube)

Equipped only with a hoover and a flashlight, and little in the way of bravery, Luigi ventures into his newly won mansion to rescue his portly brother from the escaped ghosts who inhabit the place. In the simplest terms, you're asked to hoover them up so that the local lunatic professor can return them to the paintings they came from. Along the way, you're advised to hoover up hearts to stay alive and money to... well. That would be telling.

This game demostrates the Gamecube pad's brilliance instantly. The control is tight and refined, and very easy to grasp after a few tries, meaning you'll be hoovering ghosts up with ease in no time. You'll also find your hoover being used in different ways will unearth bonuses and solve the wealth of puzzles in the rooms.

The structure is simple - you can access a room to begin with; defeat the ghost(s) in the room and you'll often find a key, which will let you advance to another room. Repeat. Sound boring? It's anything but. Many of the puzzles are brilliantly ingenius, making solving them immensely satisfying. Sometimes randomly vacuuming various things will obtain results, but more often than not serious thinking will go a long way. It's hard to explain, but each room is so littered with surprises that a huge grin will weld itself to your face. Trust me, it's a golden experience.

The graphics are brilliant, but you must have already known that. If you haven't seen them in action, then you'll be amazed. Luigi's animations are fluid, as are the things you can vacuum; aim your hoover at a tablecloth or bedspread and watch how realistic it looks - it's incredible. Also worth mentioning are the excellent shadow effects. Lightning strikes send the shadows of Luigi and other objects streaking up the wall - it's truly fantastic. Other spot effects enhance what is generally an immensely pleasing visual experience.

This is the sort of game you wish would carry on forever, but sadly this is far from the truth. Despite some tricky puzzles, Luigi will take the aveage gamer under 10 hours to finish. And while there is another mansion to play through at the end, most will be disappointed to find that it's just the old one reversed, with harder ghosts. And the replay value is pretty non-existent - when you know how to solve all the puzzles, the game loses some of it's appeal. Nevertheless, you'd be moronic to avoid at least TRYING this game for that reason. It's just like all the best thing - over far too soon.

I was supprised when I first fired this bad boy up I can tell you.

This game is excelent. The graphics are great, the gameplay is great, the storyline is great. The puzzles are not as hard as i would have expected but asides from that most things about this game are good.

The bad points are:

Miss-hitting the "A" button a having to listen to Luigi call out "Mario" (dont snigger, you'll find out how anoying it is)

If you have a gamecube then buy this game, you will love it!

So luigi turns up to his new mansion and bumps in to a ghost catcher who informs him on the going on's and supplys you with your wepon for catching the ghosts responsible for trapping mario in a painting, the poltergeist 3000(a hover to a normal person). After quick training on how to catch a ghost luigi is on his way to explore the mansion and clear it of ghosts.

basicly the objective of the game is to clear each room of there ghosts when you catch all the ghosts in a room a chest will appear and reward you with a key alowing you to proceide further in to the mansion.Ghost catching is quite simple, most ghosts need to be startled before you can vacume them up you do this by shining you flash light on them this revels there heart and you power up you hover, to suck the ghost in to the hover you have to hold the c-stick in the same position to where luigi is standing to the ghost.Some ghosts require different tecniqes though and these ghosts will be killed by startling them with water,fire or ice.There are also quite a few ghosts that you need to collect so you can turn them in to paintings and put them in your gallery these ghosts will take alot more thinking in order to catch them but when you do figure it out you feel great, one of these ghosts is a very fat one stuffing his face with rice in order to catch him you suck up his rice and when the ghost waiter comes to replenish his plate suck him up, by now the fat ghost is getting hungury and then he blows his lid and its time for you to suck him up.

The boss battles are also well designed and fun they start off really easy but end up quite tricky, the ghost made up of 50 boo's owned me like 10 times, damm those boo's.

the graphic's are sweet, especially for a first generation gamecube game but the cartoony look is perfect for luigi's mansion, the sound also fits in perfectly giving you a slightly creepy feeling utill you clear a area.

luigi's mansion is a great game to kick off the gamecube era it is extremly fun and will keep you playing to the end.The game can be compleated in a few days for the hardcore but you average gamer will probably take a week or two (5-9 hours gameplay.

Overall i recomend this game for anyone looking for fun because this game is fun and will give you loads of enjoyment.