Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

I was finally able to snag a copy of Luigi's Mansion from GameFly. The timing worked out pretty well too, since I headed out on a long weekend trip shortly after I got it. I did a lot of ghost-sucking on the three hour flight, if you know what I mean.

I actually took the GameFly return envelope thing with me thinking I'd finish it up on the trip and drop it in a mailbox and have a new game waiting for me when I got home. That didn't quite work out. This time it had nothing to do with GF shipping and everything to do with the last levels being really tough and complicated. Also, it was a much longer game than I was expecting. On the last night in our hotel room, I was thinking "sweet, this is the last level." But no, there was a whole 'nother section to go. Don't you just hate it when games give you your money's worth?

The game itself was charming, occasionally clever, and rarely frustrating. I sort of wanted to record the sound of Luigi's (old school phat) Nintendo DS "ringing" when the professor called him and make it my ringtone. Also hearing him say "yellllo?" every time always made me chuckle.                                                      

I had played very little of the original Gamecube version, so I can't say how much it compares to that. But I managed to enjoy myself pretty much all the way through the 14 hours or so it took me to get through the story mode. There's also a multiplayer mode that works either in person (with download play) or over wifi. I put in a little bit of time through that, but I mainly focused on the story.

I can't say it was especially challenging since I went through 90% of the game without even knowing how to dodge or jump while sucking up ghosts (the "combat" portion of the game). But the difficulty ramps up nicely towards the end for some of the boss fights and the sheer number of ghosts that get thrown at you for one brutal (timed) level.

In summary, if you have a 3DS you probably ought to get this one. As for me I'm on to the next one, Tomb Raider on the 360 and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

(Editors note: I typed this one on my Nexus 4 with a Bluetooth keyboard, because, hey, why not?)