I will readily admit that when it comes to my rating for Ghosts that a big part of it is the nostalgia of the era of gaming it came from, but I will say Ghosts does it have its genuine cheesy charms.
Ghosts is in the style of interactive museum edutainment games of the 90’s CD-ROM era. The game has you explore Hobbs Manor, a haunted house that acts as sort of a museum for hauntings and ghost stories across the United Kingdom. The house is brought to life in that first person Myst-like style which I’m also a sucker for. Your host for the night is none other than Christopher Lee, who also narrates the ghost stories you come across in the mansion. Like many of the edutainment games of the time there’s a whole collection of FMV clips to uncover, in this case dealing with interviews with ghost hunters and skeptical researchers for example. The game tries to play them off as both being on equal footing, though the game’s slack-jawed bias that ghosts are totally real guys and clearly the dude essentially LARPing Peter Venkman with stuff out of his garage has more credibility than this scientist lady with years of professional experience is apparent which probably isn’t the best tack to take when the game has that edutainment veneer. Regardless the trove of British ghost stories the game give you is fun to uncover. The main stories you activate by clicking on objects in the house which leads to the stories illustrated by still images narrated by Lee who obviously carries the material quite well. There’s also the requisite in-game encyclopedia that multimedia games of the era loved where you can go through perusing all the articles on British hauntings. There’s even some dedicated multimedia deep dives on supposed hauntings like this one in London during like the 70’s, where the game has a bunch of videos and text pertaining to it. The game treats this so completely bald-faced serious which is amusing when it’s got stuff like a voice clip of a girl getting “possessed” but it’s clearly her just doing a silly voice. There’s no real ending to the game persay, you just get your fill of the manor’s multimedia tour and leave, though there might be a little more to it…
Ultimately I enjoyed Ghosts because it is a just a genuinely fun, goofy interactive museum tour in a British haunted house narrated by one of horror cinema's greatest stars. It’s definitely a Halloween season recommend even if you have no nostalgia for the gaming period it came out of like I do.
Ghosts is in the style of interactive museum edutainment games of the 90’s CD-ROM era. The game has you explore Hobbs Manor, a haunted house that acts as sort of a museum for hauntings and ghost stories across the United Kingdom. The house is brought to life in that first person Myst-like style which I’m also a sucker for. Your host for the night is none other than Christopher Lee, who also narrates the ghost stories you come across in the mansion. Like many of the edutainment games of the time there’s a whole collection of FMV clips to uncover, in this case dealing with interviews with ghost hunters and skeptical researchers for example. The game tries to play them off as both being on equal footing, though the game’s slack-jawed bias that ghosts are totally real guys and clearly the dude essentially LARPing Peter Venkman with stuff out of his garage has more credibility than this scientist lady with years of professional experience is apparent which probably isn’t the best tack to take when the game has that edutainment veneer. Regardless the trove of British ghost stories the game give you is fun to uncover. The main stories you activate by clicking on objects in the house which leads to the stories illustrated by still images narrated by Lee who obviously carries the material quite well. There’s also the requisite in-game encyclopedia that multimedia games of the era loved where you can go through perusing all the articles on British hauntings. There’s even some dedicated multimedia deep dives on supposed hauntings like this one in London during like the 70’s, where the game has a bunch of videos and text pertaining to it. The game treats this so completely bald-faced serious which is amusing when it’s got stuff like a voice clip of a girl getting “possessed” but it’s clearly her just doing a silly voice. There’s no real ending to the game persay, you just get your fill of the manor’s multimedia tour and leave, though there might be a little more to it…
Ultimately I enjoyed Ghosts because it is a just a genuinely fun, goofy interactive museum tour in a British haunted house narrated by one of horror cinema's greatest stars. It’s definitely a Halloween season recommend even if you have no nostalgia for the gaming period it came out of like I do.