LucasArts truly outdid themselves with this masterpiece. Amidst all of their Star Wars titles and rehashes, there is a genre of games unique from their own hands: the point and click adventure. Take a wacky albeit amazing story and characters, throw in some catchy, well-done music, and phenomenal gameplay and you have a recipe for a game that has withstood the test of time to remain the best adventure game ever created.

Story: 8/10
The story to this game is pretty hilarious, and outrageous. Taking place 20 years after an evil meteor crashes outside of a mansion, that same meteor has taken control of it's owner, Dr. Fred. The Meteor has commanded Dr. Fred to build a machine that will turn people into zombies. The unfortunate first test-victim of this project is your girlfriend, Sandy. You must assemble a team to enter the mansion and rescue Sandy from the clutches of the evil meteor.

Graphics: 9/10
Of course, by present standards, the graphics are nothing compared to the eye candy of today. However, I don't believe this game should be judged by current standards. Rather, look at what it offered at the time. Back in 1987 when MM was first released on the PC and later on the NES, this game was unique in that it offered a POV which allowed the characters to move around objects completely; not just in front of them. The detail in the objects, the rooms, and the characters are very very detailed for an NES game.

Sound: 9/10
This is one of the game's many strong points. The game offers a unique soundtrack for each and every character. It doesn't take a music aficionado (though I am one) to realize that the soundtracks were very well composed and thought out. Unfortunately, the limitations of the NES' sound system prevented the composer's music from sounding as pristine as it could have been; though the music is still catchy as ever. If in the event the player decides the music, for whatever reason, takes away from the experience, he has the option of turning it on or off for each individual character.

Gameplay: 10/10
Unquestionably, the game's strongest of it's many strong points. You assemble a team of three from a pool of seven (one must be Dave) to enter the mansion. This is truly unique in that each character (minus Dave) possesses his or her own special skill that will become vital in solving some of the puzzles inside the mansion. It should be noted, though, the game is beatable with any of the 14 possible combinations of characters which makes the character selection process a little less difficult than one might imagine. Another unique thing about MM is that is offers a sense of non-linear gameplay. This means that you are free to explore the mansion at your leisure; you are not forced to go from one specific room to the next. At first, you will have to complete certain tasks to open up different rooms in the mansion, but once again, you can explore the mansion at your own pace. There are puzzles in the mansion which will often require the use of two characters at once; one doing half the work while the other will complete the other half (I.E. hitting a switch and going through a door). One of my personal favorite things in this game is the amount of action verbs you can use to perform a task. Unlike the adventure games of today, some of which have no action verbiage at all, MM offers a vast array of things you can do with/to an object/character. This requires the player to think carefully about what he wants to do. Often, the answer to a puzzle is in the action you choose.

Difficulty/Challenge: 8/10
As one may imagine, this game required you to use brain power to solve the many puzzles in the mansion. This makes the game time consuming, engaging, and certainly difficult, but not to the point of wanting to quit. You will want to figure out how to complete a puzzle for a number of reasons; whether they be to find out what's in the next room or what happens when you feed certain objects to a man eating plant. Perhaps the only "difficult" thing about the game is that it is possible to lose, or die. There are several ways in which an individual character, all of your characters, or even the entire mansion and everything within a 5 mile radius can...well...die. This means that the player needs to take many of his choices into careful consideration.

Miscellaneous
Since the characters have various skills and different combinations of characters can be used to complete the game, MM offers multiple endings. This alone is reason to play the game again upon completion; simply to find out what happens with a different character. Also, given the game's length and the time required to complete it, the built in save-anywhere option is a fantastic feature which allows you to pick up right where you left off in your search. It would get very frustrating and annoying if this was not the case, trust me.

Overall: 9.6/10
I could speak volumes about how amazing this game is. If you've never played or even heard of this game, do yourself a huge favor, Play through it, take it all in, and enjoy the magnum opus that is Maniac Mansion

plagiarized review

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