"One of the greatest game styles has to begin somewhere..."

Maniac Mansion. The first of LucasArts' many Adventure games. Those were the good ol' days, weren't they? Back when floppy-based PC games were all the rage... Back when you would spend hours trying to find the solution to that one darned puzzle, not stopping even once to marvel at the graphics... Back when you would die every 5 minutes... Yes, those were the days when Maniac Mansion was released. But enough of this, let's get it on with the review.

Gameplay: 6/10

If you've ever played a LucasArts Adventure game, you know exactly what this is about. You have a list of verbs taking the lower half of your screen, next to it is the inventory, and in the upper half you have the main game screen. You select verbs in conjunction with your inventory and/or items in the background. Examples of this are ''Use Hamster in Microwave'', or ''Bang Head on Keyboard''. Every verb has its really clear meaning, and you'll never find yourself wondering what a certain action does. As for the actual gameplay, you explore the Edison Family Mansion, solving puzzles to solve a greater goal. Typical Adventure-game stuff. Why did I give it a 6 then? There are a few reasons for this: First, there are too many verbs. That's right, too many. While later LucasArts games reduced them to 9 or less, Maniac Mansion has a whopping list of 15 verbs, many of which you will never use. ''Read'' is utterly and completely useless, and ''Turn On'' as well as ''Turn Off'' could have easily been replaced by ''Use'', which is already there. Next, this game was made before LucasArts adopted their ''Can't die/Can't get stuck'' policy (starting with The Secret Of Monkey Island). While this isn't nearly as bad as most Sierra games (''Oh no! You really messed up this time! Guess you'll have to start all over again!''), you do die and get completely stuck way too often. You open the envelope, like any sane person would do? Pffrnt. Stuck. You shut off the fuse box? Pffrnt. Dead. (As a side-note, let me just say that the Mansion is one of the most unstable and volatile substances the Earth has ever seen. You wouldn't believe how many ways there are to get it to explode in a huge nuclear meltdown.) Okay, another bad point is that you're not told what to do most of the time. Especially in the beginning. The game just drops you off at the beginning, outside the Mansion, and tells you that you need to rescue the girl. Okay, entering the Mansion is a no-brainer, but then you're pretty much left on your own. Most of anywhere you go, someone catches you and throws you in the dungeon. Half of what you can pick up has absolutely no purpose. The only things someone will ever say to you is ''To the dungeon, intruder!''. This is really frustrating, and makes the game nearly impossible without a walkthrough. The game is also kinda short, but it was the first Adventure game ever (besides King's Quest), so I can forgive that. Overall, it's not without flaws, but it's a pretty fun game nonetheless.

Story: 4/10

Hmm. Free your girlfriend from a mad scientist and its equally-mad family and pets (referring to the Tentacles). Okay, this may seem like a sleep-inducer, but it does get a little better. I can't really spoil anything, but there's a Meteor involved (you see it in the opening sequence, so it's not really a spoiler). Okay, so the story is still kinda snoozy, and it lacks most of the humor found in the other LucasArts games (including this game's sequel, Day Of The Tentacle), but it's not without its charm. It will make you feel like you're in a B-Series horror flick, only based on exploration instead of action. I was kinda dissapointed at the lack of humor, though. The funniest bit is something like ''Hello? Is this a prank phone call? This doesn't sound like a prank, there's no heavy breathing. Here, let me show you how to do it...''. There is basically no character interaction (even the player-controlled characters can't talk to each other, except in the intro). In fact, most of the story is revealed through scripted events that happen automatically after certain preset times. But there are only like 2-3 of those, and they're not really funny, or entertaining for that matter. The Edisons are kinda like the Addams Family, but without any sense of family love. Each one of the three members stays in its own spot throughout the game, never ever interacting with the other two, except for the events I talked about. The ending is really disappointing too, even if I wanted to spoil it there isn't much to spoil. Overall a pretty poor story.

Audio/Video: 3/10

Okay, let me just get this straight: this department sucks very bad. The graphics are extremely bland, and the only sound you'll hear is doors opening, a clock ticking, the hyper-annoying meltdown alarm and the intro music (which is actually surprisingly catchy), all made through the wonders of your PC speaker. I won't include this in my overall score, because it would just sink this game way below what it's worth. This is the late 80s we're talking about. The graphics are sub-NES level. No kidding. I'm kinda young to know what looked good and what didn't back then, so it's not really an issue. The enhanced 256-color version does look prettier, though. They updated the graphics so that they would look more like NES games from the middle of the life of the console. This makes things a little more bearable (at least now the characters' heads don't blend in with the background wall...). One thing I didn't like about the 256-color version, though, is that now the Edisons' faces are green. WHY??? Okay, maybe it's because of the overexposure to radiations and the fact that none of them have gone out of the house for 20 years, but it just seems wrong to me. At least in the sequel this is fixed...

Replayability: 6/10

You have 7 characters, and you get to choose 3 at the beginning. You're forced to take Dave, the main character, but depending on which of the other two you choose, one of the major puzzles in the game is different, depending on your characters' talents. Syd and Razor can compose music, Michael can develop film, Wendy can write without doing any typos, Bernard can repair various mechanical devices, and Jeff can't do anything special (bummer). You may want to replay the game trying new character combinations, but most of the game will be the same, besides that main puzzle I was talking about earlier. You'll eventually get bored, but the different puzzles do offer different cut-scenes, so it's worth a try. But after you've seen 'em all, you won't want to play this game again for a good while, trust me.

To buy or to rent?

I would say Buy it, since it takes quite a good while to beat it the first time, but unfortunately, this game is so old that I don't see where you could find it. The only way I know of having it (new) is ordering, through LucasArts' website, the Classic Adventures collection, which also includes Zak McKracken And The Alien Mindbenders, Loom, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade and The Secret Of Monkey Island. Be warned, though, that this way you'll have the original, 16-color, ugly-as-butt version of Maniac Mansion. And I don't know of any places that rent PC games, and even is there were, they wouldn't have this game anyway. You can still try to find it via Abandonware, ie downloading it for free over the Internet, but that is, of course, illegal. Oh, and it's included as a secret Easter Egg in Day Of The Tentacle, the sequel, which is also quite hard to find. You can order DotT from LucasArts's web site, too. To find Maniac Mansion, use the computer in Weird Ed's room five times. Note that this is also the 16-color version.

Overall (not an average): 6/10.

Final comment: It's ugly, it's hard, it's frustrating, it gets boring after a while, but every great genre has to begin somewhere!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/07/01, Updated 11/07/01