There are complete unknowns in this 1001 list, and then there is Gregory Horror Show, a PlayStation 2 game with cube-y looking rats running a creepy hotel. I read that it is based on a CGI anime series, which still gives me no clues as to what might go on in this game, though I suspect it's scary. Or maybe funny. Perhaps both.
So, with absolutely no idea what to expect, let's dive in.
Fun Times
Gregory Horror Show doesn't take long to get going, though it leaves a lot to the imagination. What were we doing in a foggy forest? Who are we, anyway? Who is Gregory?
Aha. So, Gregory is the rat who runs this place, is he? He might be a mouse, actually, but given his creepy speech and strange look, a cute little mouse doesn't quite fit in my minds' eye. Still, we have to thank him for the room at such late a time of day.
Death welcomes us during the night, and by that, I mean he appears to us in our dream, rather than comes to claim our soul or something. As it happens, he does want a load of souls, but he wants us to get them for him. I'm not sure I'm cut out for that, Death, but then I don't really know who I am yet either. Maybe I'm your right-hand man.
Oh, no, look, I'm a cube-boy!
The door to Room 102 is firmly locked shut - from the outside. Someone doesn't want something to get out. We peer through the keyhole (to the door, not the padlock) to see who and what lies beyond.
Does that look like a hotel room or a jail cell? I think this place isn't what it appears to have been from the outside, though to be fair, we never saw the outside of Gregory House. What kind of game is this? Who are the bad guys? Are we all evil?
Heading to the Lobby, which is well signposted, like much of this hotel, we talk to Gregory who, rightly, says we can't just have the key to another room. He also tells us that the cat in the room once belonged to a family who left it behind (sorry, I already forget the plot) and that it was once a lovely looking thing... until, one night, someone sewed its eyes and mouth shut. That's... messed up, shall we say.
This place is all kinds of wrong, and Gregory just casually drops that story into what must be his second conversation with a guest. What a guy.
Oh. Oooohhhh... Is that what kind of game Gregory Horror Show is? With jobs to do, Gregory conveniently leaves the keys unguarded, and once he's out of the way, they're ours. Time to free a cat.
Neko Zombie, as he is known, is a wise cat, knowing the ins and outs of this place and our predicament. It looks like we're stuck here until we help Death to reclaim some souls. Going about that isn't like Luigi's Mansion, where we can just suck them up into a vacuum cleaner. Instead, we'll have to learn about our targets' and find an opening where we can steal their souls from them, like a real basic Hitman game.
Our first tutorial is to learn that peering through keyholes will allow us to eavesdrop on our targets.
I thought I'd have to head off to the kitchen to bring this cat his dessert, but no, he just wants to chat about it for now.
And just like that, we've got hold of a soul. It's not even Neko Zombie's soul, but it's one of 12 that we need to liberate and deliver to Death. The only way we can do that is to go to sleep and dream a little dream of him.
Because that's not creepy at all...
We get a stamp, presumably for proof of delivery, and are free to wake up and go about our business of getting the rest. A note left on our pillow as we slept tells us that Neko has more information for us yet.
We have a second target: Catherine, a pink lizard nurse with a dangerously large syringe. Unfortunately for us, she knows of our plan to capture her soul, so we're going to have to get creative. What do we know then? We can peek through keyholes, but characters react to sounds. They've got their own lives to live and will stick to a routine. How can we break Catherine's routine? What is her routine?
Hmmm. A banana peel on the floor. Might want to remember that...
Catherine will roam the corridors, but if she sees us, she'll sprint in the other direction. We can't just run up to her and nick her soul. We're going to need to do this with our smarts, and if it wasn't clear that we're meant to use a banana skin, little James is running around and will gladly mention it to you.
Gregory said what? Well, we know he's weird, let's focus on the pink lizard nurse. Where's the kitchen? A press of Select reveals the map, which also points out where each of the characters currently is, though renders us as a little blue arrow instead. I'm guessing the cooking pot is the kitchen, and sure enough, the door is labelled as such.
Banana in hand, it's time to plant our trap in the corridor. I hoped nobody else would slip on it and screw up my plans, or Gregory wouldn't wander by and clean it up. That'd make for a real puzzling game, where you'd have to find the right time and place to put your plans into action.
Luckily for me, Gregory Horror Show is a little simpler. The controls aren't too bad, and there are alternative controls for movement. The 2D movement scheme with the camera on the right analogue stick worked well though, so I stuck with it. Triangle peeks through keyholes, square knocks on doors, and X does damn near everything else.
Once Catherine had fallen to the floor and knocked herself out, it was time to run over and hit that X button.
I'm sure Death will be most pleased, but before I can provide him with her soul, Neko Zombie calls me in for another rather important chat.
Remember when I said that other characters slipping on my banana skin would be too much for a simple game like this? I take that back. Now Catherine's behaviour has changed. She's pissed off. Instead of running away from me, she's going to be running towards me, syringe in hand, eager to drain me of my blood.
That's quite scary, and 'just run away' is only going to get me so far. What else can I do, cat?
It is here that I'm introduced to my Mental Gauge, a measure of my sanity and wellbeing, I suppose. If it drops to nothing, that's it. To keep it high, I have to get some rest and read some books - sound advice for life outside of Gregory Horror Show, that.
Hopefully, we'll not need to worry too much about that. Hopefully...
What the hell is that?! How is he gonna slip on a banana? He floats! I'm going to need to think about this one just a little more. Bring him a symbol of my problem. What's a symbol of my problem? Not knowing how to progress and steal your soul? How can I sum that up in a single item?
I start to roam the hotel and pick up whatever I find, including medicinal herbs, straight out of Resident Evil. Is this an RE spin-off? I don't know which one is scarier, you know.
The library is full of books, though their use beyond restoring my mind is unknown. They're not listed as key items, so I assume I don't need them for anything else - though time travelling and poison do raise some questions as to what I'll be getting up to in this game. As for Gregory Exposed, I don't want to think about it.
Frustrations
I bump into Gregory in the Jacuzzi, as I was about to peer through the keyhole. I still don't want to think about it. He states the obvious to me, as does James. I'm not spying on the other guests, am I? I'm not writing down their behaviours for any reason, no?
And that's sort of the problem. I'm not. I can barely make sense of the clock if I'm honest, and this hotel seems to be in constant darkness, so I'm not too sure of the time unless someone outright says it. How fast does it progress? Does a day end when I say it does, or do I just go for a nap every so often to catch up with Death?
Old mystery games and dungeon crawlers and the like would advise you to make notes and maps so that you can keep track of everything. Often it was far easier to follow your notes than any system in-game - assuming a game even had a system to help you out - but I was never really the kind of player to do that.
I was a console gamer growing up, and console games just didn't ask for that. Certainly not the games I played, anyway. I'm out of practice and need to be prompted a little more in some cases. Not seeing an obvious solution, I put Gregory Horror Show on hold and ran some errands. Life, eh? Get's in the way sometimes, doesn't it?
Final Word
Away from the controller, I remember picking up a book about syringes in the library but didn't check where it ended up in my inventory. Was it a key item? Could I use it as a symbol for Catherine running after me? Is that my problem, or do I need something to symbolise the fact that I can't leave this hotel until I do Death's job for him?
A quick skim read of a walkthrough says that I'm wrong, but, annoyingly, I stumbled upon the object I needed and thought "is that? Nah... can't be" and didn't take a screenshot, like an idiot. Oh well.
I was pleasantly surprised by Gregory Horror Show. I don't know why - this is on the 1001 list for a reason, I suppose. If we're judging games by their covers, this game doesn't look remarkable, but looks can be deceiving. They've caught me out in my gaming past, and will probably catch me out in future, too.
The controls are as simple as the premise. Get some souls. That's it. How to get them is an elaborate puzzle that relies on studying your target as they keep to their schedule. The only other games I can bring to mind that are anything close to that are, as I mentioned, the Hitman series. This isn't Hitman, though, not by a long shot. But maybe that's the attitude I need to take going into it again.
It looks like a childish adventure game, for want of a better word, but there's more to this than meets the eye. I'm interested in it, if not to play then to watch. I imagine it'd be on the short end of story length, but then the 1001 entry does point out that the puzzles can get rather tricky and obscure.
I have to recommend tracking Gregory Horror Show down and giving it a look if nothing else. It's different and weird enough that you might just stay the night...
Fun Facts
Nods to the anime series can be found in the game, though what they are is beyond me.
Gregory Horror Show, developed by Capcom Production Studio 3, first released in 2003.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2003, via emulation.