Goosebumps Horrorland: The Video Game (Nintendo DS)

Background

Those who have read my One Day at Horrorland review will know that I played this game a lot, like, 8 years ago. And I loved it, though I only got up to zone 4: Mad Labs (for reasons you'll see later.) So, is it as good as I remember it? Let's find out!

The Game

So, we open with a Horror showing up at the player's door, and running away when we come to get it. What a jerk! He leaves a ticket for the grand opening of Horrorland, but we tear up the ticket. But then, it magically repairs itself through magic. As we pick it up, our best friend Nate arrives at the door, also with a ticket. So, we both go down to Horrorland, because random tickets that repair themselves by magic aren't in the least bit worrying or suspicious. The Horror at the big, Horror-face entrance-

-yeah, that- takes our tickets and tears them up. Hey, I wanted that for a souvenir! We enter, and the gameplay begins. Also, I'm writing in the 1st person because you can't name your character. Or choose their gender. Or customise them in any fashion at all.

ZONE 1 -CARNIVAL OF SCREAMS. WHERE TUTORIALS COME TO LIFE!

So, the game is basically a collection of minigames. OK, that seems reasonable enough... at first. First, you can only play minigames if you have enough tokens, which I suppose splits up the gameplay a bit. Our good friend, Bootleg Zoltar (alias Madame Doom), gives us gameplay tips. This includes looking for tokens in bins, trees, and the like. I've no idea how they got there, or if pulling tokens out of a garbage can is particularly healthy, but if it gets me 3 more goes on the Dead Ringer, then that's fine. Speaking of the attractions, let's have a look at what we've got in our first zone, the Carnival of Screams!

• Dead Ringer: A test your strength machine. Usually the first game you'll try playing. Basically, you play by keeping the stylus over the hammer icon, until it's moving fast enough. Then you swipe down as it passes the correct area, and hope for the best. It's one of the easiest minigames ever; I got a 9/10 during my first time playing it in 5 years. Regardless, it's one of my favourites.
• Horrorland Derby: Have you ever played those little 10p derbies at arcades, where you bet on one horse and watch them race? Good, because this is is nothing like that. You swipe the stylus to throw balls into certain holes to make your character move forward to beat the Horrors. It's actually pretty fun... until you get to the hedge. See, to get over the hedge, you have to role the ball into the 'JUMP' slot... but that's basically impossible. This time, I eventually just gave up by the time I was in, like, 5th place because the CPUs had all jumped over.
• Monster Mash: Throw small balls at monster statuettes by swiping the stylus up and down. Don't hit the little girls that look suspiciously like someone we'll meet in Vampire Village. Also, don't hit the clown's hands, or they'll chuck the balls back at you. This game is sort of fun, but now it feels kind of monotonous. Still enjoyable though.
• Bumper Carnage: Dodgems, basically. You have to take out the other riders and be the last man standing to win. Sounds simple enough, right? There's just one massive problem: after 8 years of playing this game, I still have no idea how it works. You have to ram into other people's cars to destroy them, but it takes forever. There's a giant hole that opens up in the final minute, but you have to push your opponents in, and that's near impossible, and you'll usually just fall in yourself! In short, not exactly one of the better attractions (though it still outstrips the dentist office from Return to Horrorland by miles.)
• Squeal of Fortune: You run up to the wheel by sliding the stylus back and forth, and jump at the wheel, where you splat onto it. Depending on where you land, you get a certain number of points. You do this 3 times. It's... passable I guess, though it can sometimes be worthwhile, what with you getting tokens from it occasionally.
•  Calamity Canyon: A rollercoaster ride that is kind of hard. The objective is basically "Don't die." You swerve around and duck to avoid various obstacles. The gameplay sounds a bit too simple, but it's actually a lot of fun. Definitely my favourite attraction in the Carnival of Screams. However, there is one problem: the Scream-o-Metre. If that thing gets to the max, it's game over. All well and good, except it's damn near impossible to make it go back down if you're getting into the danger zone, because any time you're not doing anything, it goes up. Lizzie and Luke wouldn't last 10 seconds.

So, that was... mixed. Well, that's over, time to go to the next zone, my personal favourite, Vampire Village! Or not. Turns out I don't meet the necessary 'fright restriction.' "Well, what's one of them when they're at Horrorland?" you don't ask. Basically by achieving a certain score or whatever on each of the games, you earn a fright. there are 3 awardable frights- bronze, silver, and gold, and you can only get them once. To get into Vampire Village, you need 10 frights. So, to get enough, you have to go back through all the minigames and play them over and over and over to the 100th power until you've finally earned 10 frights. This is the game's biggest flaw, because this makes most of your experience backtracking and looking in the occasional trashcans for money.

ZONE 2-VAMPIRE VILLAGE. BEWARE OF THE PLOT POINTS.
Skipping ahead, I get all the frights and the Horror lets me into Vampire Village. When we get there, I start getting nervous for no particular reason (oh, I'm gonna do great in the other zones), and suggest that we go back to Calamity Canyon. Before we can, however, Nate starts acting all vampirish for no particular reason, and goes into a nearby coffin. For some reason. I try to open it (he can't be buried looking like that; he's not even wearing a suit!) but upon being successful, I find that Nate has vanished. Good thing I don't actually care about his survival! So, let's look at some of the rides!

• Garlic Crusher: Flick the stylus to throw cloves of garlic at vampires that are emerging from a bunch of coffins in front of you. If one gets to you, its game over. A pretty fun time waster that's basically what would be a mobile game today, though the gold fright is impossible to get.
• Coffin Cruise: Keep rowing and steer to catch powerups to keep you alive longer before the coffin you're riding in shuts on you and you lose. The powerups only add about 2 seconds, but if you crash into anything, it shaves off much more time. If the word "impossible" was a game, this would be it.
• Putt Cemetery: Mini golf, basically. I used to think this game was impossible, but this time round I managed to get all the holes in 8 total shots, and the gold fright. I guess I just used to suck or something. It's decent enough, I guess.
• Flash Fright: While Garlic Crusher was based on stopping vampires, this one is about murdering them instead. You're armed with a flashlight and have to stop a hoard of vampires from getting to you by shining a torch on them. Which causes them to shoot light out of their body and ascend into heaven or whatever. It's actually a lot of fun, except recharging your flashlight. That's... not so fun, but it does add to the tension.
• Batting Cage: You look around a cage with the stylus and whack bats away with a baseball bat. It's pretty easy and simplistic, but it's loads of fun. Also, the bats can get in your hair. Recommendation: Bring a hat.
• Roller Ghoster: The centerpiece of Vampire Village, though you have to get 20 frights to unlock it. You're on a rollercoaster, constantly moving, and shooting anything that comes at you, like Laser Raiders. It's incredibly fun.

After beating the Roller Ghoster, I'm met with a little girl called Gigi. Because that is totally a real name, and not something made up by someone saying 2 letters consecutively. ("G G.") Anyway, she's being chased down by the Monster Police. Man, Horrorland's stance on packed lunches is harsh! An MP officer demands that I hand over the kid, so we run until the MPs trip over. Truly, Horrorland's finest. Also, from now on you'll get randomly chased by Monster Police officers.

ZONE 3-FEVER SWAMP. FAN SERVICE IS OUR MIDDLE NAME!
So, I get enough frights to move on to the next zone. Fever Swamp has nothing to do with The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, but there aren't any swamp deer, so it's alright. (We'll get to that one eventually) It's a swamped themed area, because that's something people will find appealing! Enough jibber-jabber, though, let's look at the rides!   

• Tilt-a-Web: Basically just Squeal of Fortune again, but with a spider's web, and therefore much less appealing if it was real.
• Rub-a-Dub Slug: Probably the worst attraction in the game. You have to remove worms from a gigantic slug covered in holes, and fill them with anti-worm cream. Nice. And there's also a 'stench-o-metre,' and if it goes up, it doesn't go back down. If it maxes out, game over. And I've no idea how to stop it.
• Slime Flume: Coffin Cruise, except greener. And stinkier. It's not even a flume, it's just "row or die."
• Swamp Stomp: Keep running at the same speed as a Horror or fall off a log and drown. That's it, really. It sucks.
• Anchors Away!: Basically the same game as Dead Ringer, but with a different framing device: you're instead throwing an anchor into the swamp. No, seriously, what theme park has anything like that?
• Bogtopus: Basically, you fight a giant octopus covered in Eyeholes.I know it's not like anything at a theme park, but it's too awesome to ignore. You look around and shoot the Bogtopus in the eyeholes  so that it rises up. Then you shoot its teeth out. And then shoot its tonsils. And then... I'm not sure what happens, its Eyeholes grew back and the Scream-o-Metre hit max before I could get rid of them all. Regardless, it feels like a great boss battle and definitely one of the best minigames in the game.

Also worth noting is The Great Gargantuan. Or rather, the absence of it. Horrifico, Horrorland's 3rd founder by this point (1st is Madison Storm, who we meet in the Escape from Horrorland PC game, and the second was some idiot who didn't notice that all his employees were monsters), who is a Horror cosplaying as Hugh Jackman in The Greatest Showman, explains that the Great Gargantuan is one of Horrorland's biggest attractions; a 14-foot flying beast that doesn't like cages, but does like scaring people to death. Oh, yeah, that's a sure fire attraction. Especially the cage it's been put in. Or at least, it would be Horrorland's greatest attraction if it had escaped. I know this is Horrorland and all, but even for them, I think a gigantic, murder-loving monster escaping would be a reason to postpone the grand opening until it's caught. Also, this is the first time it's mentioned, and you might not know about it if you don't talk to Horrifico in Fever Swamp. I mean, I mentioned it, so it has to be important to the story, right? Hang on... Great Gargantuan... GG... My God! I've figured it out; it's so obvious now! The Green Goblin was the Great Gargantuan the whole time!

ZONE 4-MAD LABS. THE ONLY MAD THINGS HERE ARE THE FRIGHT RESTRICTIONS!
So, after playing Rub-a-Dub Slug for a while (eurgh), I got enough frights to reach Mad Labs. Or rather, 2 rides in it. Yeah, Mad Labs, as far as I know (up to this point) is the biggest example of the problem with the fright restrictions. Luckily, while going back through the games I made it up to 40 frights, so I've unlocked most of them now.

• Brain Drain: Essentially just a reskinned Flash Fright, except you keep firing by swiping the stylus up and down. It's actually pretty tense, especially after the halfway point.
• Buzzwire: The most mediocre game of all. You know those steady hand games? Try one of those, but with the timer from Coffin Cruise. Long story short, it sucks. Next!
• Toxic Gunk Dunk: You throw balls at targets to knock a Horror into slime below. Meanwhile, he's throwing slime at you that doesn't do anything. It's easy and boring. Next!
• Dreadmill: The same thing as Swamp Stomp (I'm detecting a common theme here), except there are various obstacles one has to jump over, which is a lot more fun than the running.
• Shock 'n' Roll: More dodgems. Hoo boy. It's not as bad as Bumper Carnage, since the giant pinball things keep bouncing the other players around, making it slightly more unpredictable, but overall, it still has the same problems.
• Thundervolt: It's like the Roller Ghoster, but all the moving parts and variety of settings and obstacles make it intriguing and fun to experience. Also, the track is on the ceiling, like Air. Very cool. The saving grace of Mad Labs.

So, after I'm disappointed by those rides, I find out that the 5th piece of my ticket (yeah, you need all 6 pieces of your ticket to get home. Somehow. I just never mentioned it because it hardly ever comes up and I don't know where the others are. I'm remembering the plot because I'm reading a wiki article about it, since there's no time to play it) is in the Horrors-only lounge. No idea how it got there, but at this point I'm just glad it didn't involve robot dentists (I'll never be over that). So, I decide to put on a disguise. I go to the mask shop and buy a Horror mask. Because (on paper) that's such a good idea. However, it is actually excellent in real life, because the Horror mask turns me into a Horror. So, now with my genuinely good, inexplicable disguise, I sneak into the secret tunnels under Horrorland, and make it to the Horrors-Only lounge. I grab the ticket (though none of the donuts, for some reason), and skidaddle. However, Horrifico somehow deduces my true identity, and uses the staff he's been carrying around the whole time to turn me back to normal. Then he mocks me until, well, I'll let this picture speak for me.

Oh, by the way, on the very off chance that you were worried about Nate, he just shows up outside a closed attraction called 'Acid Bath.' Turns out there was a slide in the coffin that took him here. Oh, I understand now! (No I don't.)

ZONE 5 - TERROR TOMBS. ACCESS DENIED
Because I have neither the time nor the patience to get enough frights to unlock Terror Tombs and the rides within, I will be getting my information from a walkthrough, and making inferences based on the gameplay (the only ones I could find were for the home console versions). Let's ride!

• Mummy Run: A clever variation on Horrorland Derby, in which you're running away from a Mummy and not in a race. Also, at one point, you're running away from a big boulder. Other than that, the gameplay's basically the same.
• Snakes on a Chain: Basically Buzzwire again, but at least there's snakes on it. That at least makes it visually memorable. Also, because you're probably definitely thinking it:

• Beetle Battle: A not-so clever variation of Batting Cage (I'm detecting a pattern here). You're wielding a tennis racket and hitting flying bugs. Not much more to it than that, really. At least it's copying a fun game, so I'm expecting that it would be fun.
• Scorpion Speedway: Something new for once! About time! You ride in a scorpion-esque bumper car, and race a bunch of people round the track. It's kinda like ancient Egyptian Mariokart.
• Pharaoh's Fairways: And, we're back to the rip-offs again. Essentially, it's a reskin of Putt Cemetery. And you have to play this. Not just to get frights generally, no: you have to get gold on this if you want to proceed to the game's climax. At least it's somewhat entertaining. But it's got the highest fright restriction of any ride in the game.
• Certain Death: I can't get in yet, but, judging by the name, if Horrorland was one ride, this would be it. When I try to enter, the Horror at the door says, "Have some common sense, you moron! Do you really want to go on a ride called Certain Death?" (Don't worry, we'll be back later.)

So, after we get gold on Pharaoh's Fairways, we get the last piece of our ticket. I have no idea how that works, but we're almost done, let's just get this over with. "Congratulations!" proclaims the speaker. "You got all the pieces of your ticket, and can go..." Alright! We did it! "... to the next ride." Dammit. And that next ride is (drum roll please)...

• Certain Death (For real this time): And they do mean Certain. Horrifico shows up to rub it in our faces after we rubbed dust into his. Basically, it's a copy of Calalmity Canyon. Well, if you're gonna crib from something, it might as well be one of the bests. Also, there's the occasioal mummies that show up and go "Mlergh!" and fall off the cart after you punch them or something. At least it's a fun final level.

So, this is it. We beat Certain Death. Now what? Well, we find Gigi again, and Nate (great) too. Wait, when did he show up? Suddenly, Gigi starts to act strangely... and turns into the Great Gargantua. Then she proclaims she's gonna make the whole world her Horrorland, and flies off. Sounds great, until all your subjects are dead because of the lack of anything in the safety department. On the plus side, car insurance companies are going to be loaded.

Extra Toppings

Dotted around Horrorland are various out of order rides. There's the Acid Bath, which I've mentioned, and also the Ferris Squeal in the Carnival of Screams. Also, there's a ride called "Out of Service." (Ride if you dare)

Also, there are various shops, at least 2 of which are meat themed. (For the record, it's Gift Chop and Mystery Meat)

Finally, there are various cards one can unlock in various, creative ways. In this way, with the secret card #0, they are able to shoehorn the Slappmeister into the game.

Conclusion

This game is a bit of a mixed bag. The story and some of the rides are boring, and, of course, there's the bloody fright restrictions, but a lot more of the rides are incredibly fun, and definitely worth playing over and over and over. Overall, a nice little time waster... if you've unlocked most of the rides.

Next time: Lizzie, Luke, and Clay are back for one last adventure, and it's finally time to meet Horrorland's original creator and the original Karloff Mennis (figuratively), Madison Storm!