Retronexus - Haunted House

Move over Alone in the Dark, the survival Horror genre has a new predecessor, and it's name is Haunted House!

Released in 1981 for the Atari 2600, Haunted House is considered to be the earliest example of a game in the survival horror genre. Crude and archaic by today's standards, Haunted House was unique and possibly spooky back in the day.

 Ominous!

Haunted House takes the player into the Sprawling Mansion of Mr. Graves. You navigate the house with matches to find pieces of an urn and escape before you're attacked by Spiders, bats and the ghost of Mr. Graves himself.

The game is set inside the Haunted Mansion, you navigate through the many rooms as a pair of eyes. Each section of the house is a different color than the rest, so you know where you are. The only way to discover the pieces of the urn is to use your matches, which illuminate the room around you. Though you have an unlimited number of them, they last a limited time and are automatically blown out when an enemy enters the room. Once you collect all the urn pieces, you must make it to the first room and escape the mansion.

Trapped in the pitch-black void that is the Haunted Mansion.

Since it's an Atari 2600 game, it has multiple difficulty modes, which add a Magic Wand, used to ward off the monsters and Master keys, used to unlock doors in the house.

The visuals are pretty good for an Atari game, the eyes are neat and and point in the direction you're traveling and the enemies look like the creatures they're supposed to represent. The rooms generally look the same, but the idea of traveling through an expansive house is pretty revolutionary on a console like the 2600 and the color-coded rooms concept works pretty well. The audio is your typical Atari beeps and boops. Nothing really special. Video Games were quiet back in the day.

Your matches and your wits are your only ally in the darkness.

The game was pretty cool for it's time, though it's pointless and silly by today's standards. If you wanna have a chance to experience the title, you can find it bundled with various Atari bundles. It's also available for $3 on the Xbox Live/Windows Game Room, so give it a shot. Especially if you're into classic gaming like this.

- Kyle K.