"More fun with hamsters and microwaves"

Maniac Mansion. It’s probably one of the most fondly remembered computer games of the 1980s, and it put LucasArts, then LucasFilm, onto the software development map. The strange and twisted tale of Dave, Sandy, Bernard, Wendy, the Edison family, a pair of disembodied talking tentacles, and a sentient meteorite, it was the stuff that B-Movies were made of, and computer gamers of the day loved it. It even made it to the NES! So, a sequel was only a matter of time, and it came with Day of the Tentacle, which truly took advantage of the abilities of the then still fairly new CD-ROM technology.

The story goes that Purple Tentacle, one of the two tentacles featured in the first game, has mutated by drinking toxic sludge pumped out of Dr. Fred Edison’s basement laboratory. This mutation means he’s grown short, stubby arms, and something of an evil-genius complex. Dr. Fred, freaked out by this occurrence, ties the tentacles (both Purple and Green) up in the lab to be destroyed. Green dispatches Ed Edison’s hamster to find Bernard Bernoulli, who thought he was rid of the crazy Edison family for good, but this drags him and his two roommates, heavy metal-head Hoagie and semi-psycho medical student Laverne, back to the Edison family mansion. Once there, everything goes wrong starting with Purple Tentacle escaping the mansion to take over the world! Dr. Fred decides to send Bernard and company to yesterday to stop the mutation, and instead, Hoagie is sent to post-Revolutionary War times, Laverne is stuck 200 years in a tentacle-controlled future, and Bernard is right back where he started.

Gameplay is standard LucasArts adventure game fare: point and click, and tell the character you control what to do by forming command sentences with a selection of verbs and inter-actable objects on the screen. And there are some pretty clever puzzles to solve in this one, ranging from escaping a pound built for humans to assisting Ben Franklin’s most famous experiment. Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne all go about this in their unique fashions, and have to deal with all manner of nutcases and ne’er-do-wells.

Graphically, the game isn’t advanced, but it’s a visual treat. The look and feel of the game is in-parts an homage to the legendary Warner Bros. animator Chuck Jones. His influence is especially noticeable in a couple scenes, and you’ll know them when you see them. The characters are all memorably designed, particularly the tentacles who are brought to life in a way that I’d never have guessed at after the first Maniac Mansion. And Bernard has if anything mutated into an even bigger geek then we last saw him in his high school days. And wait until you see what’s become of Weird Ed Edison.

The sound is one of the primary selling points of the game. Music is unobtrusive and in fact does a lot to heighten the mood of several scenes. The real star is the voice acting. Richard Sanders, better known as Les Nessman of the sitcom classic WKRP in Cincinnati, provides Bernard’s nasal tones, and the rest of the voice cast is superb. It also helps that they have a really funny script to work from, because some of the cut-scenes in the game are downright hysterical.

Tunaheads who loved the first game will find this one to be a no-brainer. Those who are new to LucasArts games will find it to be a great introductory piece. It even includes the original Maniac Mansion in the game! References to other LucasArts favorites, from Star Wars, to Sam and Max, to Monkey Island, abound. This is one of the all-time greats of the early 90s, and it still holds up to this day. Just remember… if you want to save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/23/02, Updated 09/23/02