Haunting Starring Polterguy is a comedy-horror video game released for the Mega Drive/Genesis by Electronic Arts in 1993. Taking control of a ghost named ‘Polterguy’, the player must bring various household items to life in order to frighten a family away from their home. A port for the PlayStation Portable was released in 2006 on EA Replay.^[1]

Plot – Haunting Starring Polterguy

The protagonist, Polterguy, is a rebellious punk teenager who was killed in an accident involving defective skateboards manufactured by business mogul Vito Sardini. As a ghost, Polterguy seeks revenge by haunting Vito’s home and tormenting him and his family.

During the game, Polterguy frightens the Sardini family out of four different homes, following which the family chihuahua transforms into a grotesque blob monster known as ‘Ecto Beast’, which Polterguy must confront in battle.

Gameplay – Haunting Starring Polterguy

In the single-player game, the player controls a rebellious dead teenager, Polterguy, in a house occupied by a yuppie Italian family, the Sardinis, through an isometric, 3/4 perspective. The player’s task is to scare each family member out of the house by possessing various household objects through the use of colored indicators called “Fright ’ems”.

These are shiny indicators on objects that allows the player to know what objects in the houses are available to haunt. To activate these, Polterguy must jump into the object that has a Fright ’em glowing on it to “load” the object for a jump scare to one of the family members. There are three different types of Fright ’ems to interact with, though they can be tied to virtually any object in the game you see. The Fright ’ems found in the game are as follows:

• Blue Fright ’ems

These Fright ’ems work automatically, meaning they will activate as soon as a family member gets close enough to one after Polterguy has decided to activate, or “load” it.

• Orange Fright ’ems

These are manual, meaning that you have to press a button to activate the exact moment of haunting the object at the player’s own will.

• Green Fright ’ems

STAFF_ROLL

Sly hunter

Writhing embryo

Spiral end

Spiral end B