Maniac Mansion

by Lucasfilm Games

Product Details

• ASIN: B00066X8J8
• Media: CD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,124 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SAVE THE CHEERLEADER!, September 13, 2007

By 

Bebe La Strange "xxB" (CALI) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Maniac Mansion (CD-ROM)

Back in 1993 i discovered this game, I was 10 yrs old. I loved it so much! Me, my Dad and two Cousins would stay up late at the computer and play for hours...not sure if we ever did solve it. I told all my computer friends that they had to get it, and i let my friend Diana make a copy of it, she did solve it! So then i finally did just so i wasn't let out =)
Years later i found the old box and decided to play again...
Wow it took me back. Such a wonderful game and so advanced for it time. The humor is great...So kids and parents could play together...
Not sure if i would pay $50+...The graphics are DOS...and NO VOICES, you have to... OMG READ!!!!
Worth it!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The first adventure from LucasFilm showed that Sierra wasn't the only game in town., March 30, 2009

By 

Joe Majsterski (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Maniac Mansion (CD-ROM)

Sierra had already put out a handful of games, including King's Quests I and II, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry, by the time this game came along. The game itself was a wacky blend of B-movie horror and goof-ball comedy, with a memorable cast of characters, including the "evil" Dr. Fred, his hideous wife nurse Edna, and their large-headed commando geek son Weird Ed. Along with this bizarre family, you also got to interact with a number of non-humans, namely the Green and Purple Tentacles, and the mastermind, Purple Meteor.

You controlled Dave, whose girlfriend Sandy had been abducted by Dr. Fred, and two of six other teenagers from his high school, whom you were allowed to select based on your preferences. They all had different skills, from photography to general electronics repair, and these affected the types of things you could do to save the day. Instead of hunting for just the right word to type, as with the Sierra adventure games, you had a much more streamlined point and click interface.

Being allowed to control three people instead of one was a massive innovation, as were a number of other things besides the aforementioned interface. There were about five different ways the game could end, depending on how you dealt with the Purple Meteor. Controlling multiple characters also provided the opportunity to put you in situations where you had to use more than one character to achieve certain goals, such as having one character push a secret button of some kind to open door while another went through it, or having one character turn off the power while another worked on something electrical without being killed. Truly, Maniac Mansion expanded the possibilities for adventure gaming.

The graphics, although primitive, had a distinctive style, and the interface was the first that could be solely mouse driven, with a set up of fifteen command phrases that you could use to piece together basic sentences with any objects you found and the environment itself, rather than a text entry system.

The sound, of course, was also basic, but Maniac Mansion featured a handful of the most memorable melodies in adventure gaming, most prominently the highly entertaining theme song.

For all of these reasons, Maniac Mansion should be fondly remembered as one of the high points of early adventure gaming, a game that really started to open things up in the nascent genre of adventure games. If you can scavenge a copy somewhere, this is a must play.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the best game ever!, November 2, 2004

By 

Celia A. Escalante (Miami, Fl USA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Maniac Mansion (CD-ROM)

I had this game for NES. There's nothing like it. You have so much freedom and fun ways of gathering stuff in order to win and, better than that, realize the dreams of cool charaters. Its based on a cable show on the Family network. I wish I could see those episodes, I never had the chance. There's another game about Dr. Fred, but i don't remember the name of it.