Review: Poltergeist: A Pixelated Horror

Available On: PC, Mac, Playstation 4, and Playstation Vita

Story: You play as the ghost of Mr. Henry B. Knight. You love your mansion so much that you never want to leave it, even after you die. As new people move in you must scare them away.

Game Play: Poltergeist: A Pixelated Horror is a puzzle game where you use your powers to scare away the people who moved into your house, their pets, and any guests they have. Some of the powers you have are possessions, shaking items, tossing items, forming ghost shadows, and a few others. There are 60 levels over a few different time periods. Each level you play gives you a set number of times you use a selected set of power to get rid of everyone. Some of the guests are distracted sleeping, watching TV, or doing other things so you must get their attention before scaring them. After beating a set number of levels the boss is unlocked. In order to beat the boss you must first get rid of all of the other guests first. Once you have gotten rid of everyone else you unlock a special power to get rid of the boss.

Look: I love the pixeled look of the game and how the the characters match their era, especially the Ghostbuster in the 80's era, and the maps were never too big that it required a lot of scrolling.

Sound: The music has that haunted feeling to it and it changes with each era. The screams for the people and dogs match nicely. All the sounds effects work nicely for each character.

Replay Value: Being you only have to beat a portion of each era to proceed to the boss and next era, there is a good bit to play and figure out once you have completed the game.

Overall: I thought Poltergesit was a blast and a challenge to play. I was hoping for some more powers and levels for the price of it.

Pros: The puzzles actually make you think and some required some trial and error. A lovely twist on the puzzle genre.

Cons: I wish the game had some more powers and was longer. I know this is an Indie game but for $7.99 I would like around 100 levels and a few extra powers. Also the touching of the object on the Playstation Vita version seems a little wonky. There were times I would click on a person or object and it wouldn't work.

Score: B-