Listen carefully, intrepid adventurer. In the dark midnight hour a church bell tolls, and long-legged beasties come a-creeping. Hark! A bump in the night! Is it the thud of lumbering zombie feet? A decapitated head hitting the floor? No. It's a heavy bag of pound coins landing at dead Uncle Walt's feet. The movie's out, the action figures are out, and so is the game. The Haunted Mansion is on full merchandise attack and this cash cow should rake in the pennies.

First up, a squillion Brownie points for basing the game on the Disney ride rather than the dismal film. Not a peek of Axel Foley or Daddy Day Care to be seen. This is an Eddie Murphy-free zone. Instead, the game is closely tied to the ride and benefits greatly because of the association. Secondly, it may be riding on the back of the very loosest of film tie-ins (ignoring Pirates Of The Caribbean), but it's incredible fun and not at all the disaster you'd expect.

As hapless caretaker Zeke Halloway, you must capture the 999 malevolent spirits who have forced the resident ghosts into hiding. They've turned off all the power so they can hide from you in the shadows. Armed with a magical lantern, you must travel through each room restoring the power, capturing the evil ghosts, and liberating the nice ones. Each room requires first the solving of a puzzle to restore the power, then the opportunity to get all Peter Venkman by trapping ghosts in your lantern. Although you may not think it, the 'somebody find a fuse'-style puzzles are beautifully varied, and range from herding enchanted candles to coaxing a poltergeist into flambéing the kitchen.

There's also a hearty dollop of chills, as though Dracula had been given Grabbed By The Ghoulies and farted around with it in his shed for a weekend. Tots be warned, it may be aimed at your demographic, but it is genuinely creepy.

Perhaps the main strength of The Haunted Mansion is its ability to slip straight into the third-person adventure genre as a film tie-in, and come out the other side as a title which has brought great originality and freshness with it. It's not benchmark material by any means, but it more than surpasses your expectations and takes great pleasure in putting the willies up you. Chilling, funny, and surprisingly without a sign of rot anywhere.

1. Genuine chills
2. No Eddie Murphy
3. Inventive levels

1. Can be too dark
2. Camera angles are a bit shoddy
3. Might be associated with the film

Power
Nice use of lighting, but as a cross-platformer there's little chance of breaking new ground graphically

Style
Creepy, kooky, spooky fun. There's a real sense of ghostly goings-on which really gives it oomph.

Immersion
You'll be eager to find out what lurks behind every door, so it definitely has a certain something.

Lifespan
Not the most epic of games - after all it's something for the kids. Short, sweet and scary is good.

Summary
Pretty good, with a few undead surprises up its sleeve. Will pleasantly shock those tempted to add it to their library.