Ten games for Halloween
Ghosts, monsters and haunted houses, for fun rather than fright
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Luigi's Mansion 2001
A GameCube launch game in which Luigi explores a haunted mansion to rescue Mario, stunning ghosts with a flashlight and sucking them up with the Poltergust 3000.
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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 1997
Alucard, Dracula's half human son, explores one huge connected castle, gaining powers to reach the parts he could not at first, as a bat, a wolf or mist. It is considered the pioneer of the Metroidvania.
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Grim Fandango 1998
Manny Calavera, a travel agent in the Land of the Dead, is drawn into a four act noir mystery about a conspiracy over arriving souls. There is no way to die or get stuck, and the afterlife is drawn from the Day of the Dead.
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Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 2010
Sissel is a ghost who moves between objects and changes them to alter events, over one night in which time stands still in the Ghost World. He can go back four minutes before a death and change what happens.
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Zombies Ate My Neighbors 1993
Zeke and Julie, alone or together, rescue their neighbours from the monsters of horror films that Doctor Tongue has loosed on the suburbs, in a LucasArts run and gun.
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Plants vs. Zombies 2009
A tower defense game from PopCap in which a homeowner plants defenders on a lawn of lanes, collecting sun to grow them, against waves of zombies that each have a weakness.
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Maniac Mansion 1987
Dave Miller enters the Edison mansion to rescue Sandy from a mad scientist under a sentient meteor's control, with two friends picked from six. Each friend has abilities of their own, so the puzzles change with the party.
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Ghouls 'n Ghosts 1988
The knight Arthur fights undead and demons to bring back the people Lucifer has killed, Princess Prin-Prin among them, in the second Ghosts 'n Goblins game.
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Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 1993
Jane Jensen's adventure follows Gabriel Knight, a struggling New Orleans novelist and bookstore owner, who looks into the Voodoo Murders hoping for a novel and finds his family's past as fighters of the supernatural.
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The Blackwell Deception 2011
Rosa Blackwell, a medium, and Joey Mallone, her spirit guide, help ghosts move on to the afterlife, in a case that starts with a call from a former co-worker.
