Category: Video Games

What can be said about Ghost Manor for the Atari 2600 that hasn’t been said before? If I were to tell you that Ghost Manor doesn’t take place inside a Manor, would you be surprised? Perhaps, after sitting down to play, and then realizing that the aforementioned Ghost looked nothing like a ghost, your monocle might pop off and your top hat would spin 360 degrees around, but I doubt it. You are savvy, internet reader. You eat rainbow-colored ghosts who dance in erratic patterns for breakfast. With that in mind, there is only one thing I can possibly say about Ghost Manor:

WHAT IN THE NAME OF SWEET BABY JESUS’S BALLS IS HAPPENING?!

Bonus:

Recipe for Sweet Baby Jesus’s Balls

1 cup butter
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sifted powdered sugar

Beat your butter mercilessly, preferably with a belt, though an electric mixer is also acceptable. Cover the butter in about half the flour (give or take a half). stun the sugar and add it, as well, along with the vanilla. Put a drop of vanilla behind each ear, and you’ll smell like a cookie all day. A tablespoon of water is also required, despite having not been listed in the ingredients. I’ll fix that later in a patch.

Beat until thoroughly combined, then, beat some more, this time just for fun. Stir in the pecans with vigor.

Shape the dough into Baby Jesus’s balls (about 1-inch in size…don’t ask me how I know that…), taking care not to squeeze them too tight. Caress Baby Jesus’s balls gently, and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake in a 325 degree oven for 20 minutes or until the Baby Jesus stops screaming. Cool balls on a wire rack. Gentile-ly shake cooled balls in a bag with the powdered sugar. Makes about 36 balls.

You know, I’ve never actually made it a point to sit down and watch the original Halloween. The horror of it all just seem a little too raw and real for my delicate and timid soul. Michael Myers wasn’t stuck at the bottom of lake, awaiting in your dreams, or trapped in the body of a My Best Buddy doll. Ol’ Mike lived right next door, like some modern day Boo Radley. He wouldn’t leave trinkets in the knot-hole of the oak tree in front of your house, he would make a knot-hole in your chest and make trinkets out of your intestines.

Halloween (AKA Sexta Fiera 13) for the Atari 2600 won’t leave trinkets in your knot-hole, either, but it could possibly be the most horrify horror you’ve ever experienced. The premise is simple: avoid Michael Myers and escape your house with your sibling and/or friend of indeterminate sex. You play as who I can only assume is Jamie Lee Curtis if she had blond hair and was digesting a football. All the while, the 5×5 pixel representation of Michael Myers hunts you mercilessly, continuously stabbing the air with a knife that can desintegrate a head in one blow. Now it’s well known that the most horrifically horrifying horror contained within the film is its soundtrack, and no game based on the film could possibly exist without it. It’s actually used to great effect here as the soundtrack kicks in whenever Michael comes on-screen, urging him to kill you dead.

The death sequence of Halloween, is absolutely, ludicrously, amazingly, awesomely, boss. Should your knee-high sock clad legs falter and be unable to reach your sibling in time, Michael Myers politely stabs the kid, leaving him a bloody mess on the floor, pixels everywhere. Not until Manhunt 2 arrives on the 31st will video gamers be subjected to such senseless brutality and hilarity. As we all know, once the blood lust strikes, it’s hard to stop at just one kid. Next thing you know, Michael Myers is coming for your head, and if you’re not quick enough, he’ll take the whole thing. Bereft of head, your manic torso makes a mad dash for the exit, squirting bloody pixels all the way. Oh, it is glorious, indeed.