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Maniac Mansion is one of the classic 1980s computer games, featuring a point-and-click interface when the villainous Dr. Fred (well, he's not really evil, he's just mind-controlled) kidnaps Sandy, a teenager, and her boyfriend, Dave, has to rescue her. However, he can't do it alone and gets two friends along to do it. You're given control of Dave and the choice of two of Dave's friends. The friends have unique abilities that will allow them to win the game. There are hints that they'll be able to solve them, Bernard is a computer nerd, Michael is a photographer, Syd and Razor are musicians...though Jeff, the "surfer dude" isn't one of them. As a result, the path to beating the game is rather open-ended depending on who you pick.

It's clearly inspired a bit by slasher films though a horror title this isn't, it's more comedic with some mild suggestive humor (though this is mostly gone in the NES version). One such early example is a trail of red stains in the kitchen, leading back to some broken bottles of ketchup. With a sprawling map, and puzzles to solve it never manages to be too overwhelmingly large, though your next goal isn't that obvious. It's also not that relaxing, either, Nurse Edna, Dr. Ed's wife, could catch someone and put them in the dungeon (it's requires someone else to get out), while you can find Weird Ed and a living tentacle creation, Green Tentacle, wandering the premises.

Unlike later SCUMM titles, in addition to a few game over methods for the kids (or in a few cases, blowing up the house in a nuclear explosion), there are a few dead-end scenarios you can get into: if you have two kids dead and one in the dungeon, you can't get out, or if picked Jeff and the other non-Dave kid is already deceased. Among one of the "game over" methods is that two characters are able to microwave Weird Ed's hamster, and whoever gives the "exploded hamster" back to Weird Ed will meet his or her demise. Astonishingly, this wasn't one of the things censored in the North American release (but it was in Europe).

Maniac Mansion was not the first graphic adventure by LucasArts (well, Lucasfilm Games at the time), that would be Labyrinth: The Computer Game, based after the 1986 film. Instead, it featured a new engine specifically built for it, called Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, or "SCUMM". Eleven titles followed with the same engine (and its upgrades). While Maniac Mansion received a variety of computer ports, the NES version is probably the best, introducing, among other things, music. Dave's theme is great. However, there's a lack of mouse control (and extensive censorship). You can only use the retail NES version to use with ScummVM. There might be a fangame that reimplements the NES version's music but I wouldn't know where to look.

Among several other curiosities, both the computer versions and the NES version features a can of Pepsi and a Pepsi machine. Likely keeping these intact would be an issue for a full "Remastered" version that other LucasArts titles got.

The box of Maniac Mansion for NES advertises the sitcom of the same name that aired on The Family Channel from 1990 to 1993. Since both LucasArts and The Family Channel wound up under the same control of Disney at least they're under common ownership, I guess.

FINAL RATING:   

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