Grabbed by the Ghoulies comes to XBL
Rare's first Xbox game added to Originals.
Rare had added its first piece of work for Microsoft, the generally overlooked Grabbed by the Ghoulies, to the Xbox Originals catalogue on Xbox Live.
The download will set you back 1200 Microsoft Points, equivalent to GBP 10.20 / EUR 14.40. Yes, TEN POUNDS.
Grabbed by the Ghoulies is, as you can probably judge from the title, a smirking, silly haunted-house beat-'em-up in which a teenage boy must rescue his girlfriend from some disgusting fiends. With its spooky theme, cartoon graphics and twin-stick controls, it was strongly reminiscent of Nintendo's Luigi's Mansion, only with more jokes about genitalia and vomit.
We loved it back in the day but many others didn't, and Rare's inaugural Xbox effort didn't exactly set cash-registers alight. It was a telling start to the Twycross developer's odd-bedfellows relationship with Microsoft - as Ghoulies team lead Greg Mayles sort of admitted on Rare's site.
"For all those discerning games connoisseurs who somehow managed to miss out on playing Ghoulies the first time (and I'm sure there must be a few million of you somewhere), I highly recommend you spend a few lazy evenings (or a lot if you're rubbish at games) inside the Baron's delightful Ghoulhaven Hall," Mayles said.
"Imagine a game you really like and then visualise Ghoulies as a stylish haunted house version of that. So, if you like Halo, pretend that the main character is Master Chief and the hilarious DJ Mummy is a terrifying Covenant alien. It works for me."