Luigi's Mansion

For years Luigi has lived in the shadows of his older brother. Since the first Super Mario Brothers game he's always been known as the back-up character that player 2 uses. He was never as popular as his brother and people assumed he was just the lankier version of him, he hasn't even had his name in the title of a game. Well until now that is.

Luigi's Mansion probably started life as a technical demo, showing off how well the Gamcube can handle lighting effects. The way the game handles the light from Luigi's torch is pretty amazing, shadows fall exactly where they should and the beam from the torch wraps around objects perfectly. But Luigi's torch isn't just there to show off the Gameucbe's lighting capabilities, it's an important bit of kit in the game. Without it you wouldn't even get past the tutorial stages. The same goes for the modified Vacuum Cleaner that is given to you by Professor E. Gadd.

The basic aim of the game is to stun ghosts with you vacuum before vacuuming them up Ghostbusters style. In fact this game reeks of the classic 80's cartoons and films. All this is done using a control system that you'd expect to be more at home on a FPS title than a 3D adventure game starring one of the Mario brothers. But it works surprisingly well, but then what would you expect from the genius that is Shigeru Miyamoto.

The control stick makes you walk forwards and backwards and lets you strafe left and right, while the c-stick controls what direction you are facing. The L and R buttons are the controls for using the vacuum, while
A let's you open doors and examine things. The controls take a few minutes to get used to, but once you've got used to them you can't imagine the controls that accompany most Mario games ever working.

But other than the controls, this is so obviously a Mario game. Luigi looks exactly how he should and Toad even makes an appearance. You maybe asking 'where the hell is Mario?' Well it seems the plumber's interest in danger has gotten him into trouble this time, as you (Luigi) have to rescue him from the Boos. To make sure you do know this is a Mario game, there are Final Fantasy style hints at previous games; the music room is one, you walk in and check each individual instrument, which begins to play, once you've checked them all you will notice that they are actually playing the classic Mario theme tune.

This games inventiveness is typical Miyamoto-san, everything about it shows up most of the Gamecube launch titles. And if Star Wars ain 't your thing, go for this. It maybe short, but it's pure Nintendo.