What's your favorite version of Maniac Mansion? With so many to choose from, I bet everyone has one that's particularly close to them - let me know!

Maniac Mansion was not, by no means, developed for MS DOS first. It was developed on and released first for the C64. The PC port was released more than 5 months after the C64 release.

One of my favorite NES games of all time. The music to me made it better than the other versions.

IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, Maniac Mansion was the only game ever that you could put a hamster in the microwave or play ding dong ditch. When you are 7 or 8, it keeps you laughing. The only other games I found after Maniac Mansion that let you mess around was Base Wars for the NES where the pitcher could hit the player at bat or much later, on the PC, with The Sims 3 where you could walk up to a neighbors window at night and have the option to "look in window", where it then shows your neighbor doing things like talking, watching TV, whatever, then he/she sees you looking through the window and they run outside and get in your face and confront you. Or you could fall asleep at your neighbors house in The Sims 3, outside on the porch or the backyard, and the neighbor finds you and they pace around with a picture of you in the thought blip with the red double negative minus sign because they are so annoyed you are there. Hahahahaha! Never gets old. You just get older.

I still wish i could personally thank Ron Gilbert for this game that has been one of my absolute most favorite games EVER. I first saw it on the C64 back in 1990 when my father used a C64 that he got from a friend for a few days. THIS game was among them and fast forward a year, christmas of 1991 and my father got Maniac Mansion for the NES. And THAT was when i really got into the game and felt like home since i already knew it from the C64 but i loved how much faster it run on the NES and the soundtrack and graphics were even better. It was more or less my first open world sandbox game experience, where you could interact with the world and try all sorts of things. And i just loved the whole atmosphere of the Mansion and the different rooms. You knew every second something could happen. And when a cutscene happened or the doorbell rang, i jumped the seat. Nowdays i have it as a GOG version for PC and also Day of the Tentacle but the NES version of Maniac Mansion is still my favorite version of it.

The game wasn't designed for PC, but the Commodore 64. And that is the version you should focus a review on. There was a difference between a PC and a home computer like the C64 back than...🧐

The sequel Day of the Tentacle was great too. I loved how you could play the original on the computer in Ed's room

Maniac Mansion deserves a high quality high fan fidelity remake. It's a goofy, fun, wonderful game and holds it's fun and replayability factor very well, even today.

*This game on C64 changed my life*

The best part of the game was the replay value. Choose different characters or go for a different ending. A replay value is rather rare for an adventure game, unless you want to replay the same story, as most adventure games are pretty linear. And note that the ending does not directly depend on your character choices, as there are more character combinations (15) than there are (good) endings (4), yet the game can be beaten with every character combinations and different endings can be reached with the same character combination. Note: The NES version has an extra way to reach one of the good endings to avoid an otherwise dead end. Also there are more endings if you consider that you can still beat the game with one character dying (depending on who is dying and when the character is dying), including Dave dying, which will of course change the end sequence (not all ports allow Dave to die). And it's also fun to see the bad endings. Also there are a few Easter eggs in the game that are pointless to win the game but fun to figure out.

Don't forget Leisure Suit Larry!

I loved this game. The NES version had such good music. I remember renting this many times

Maniac Mansion were a bigger deal on Commodore 64 and Amiga, than on NES.

One of my favorite games on C64. Glad to see it getting some love and attention all these years later.

MM was a staple of my childhood. It brought my siblings together. ❤

One my favorite Christmas vacations was renting this and playing it. The moment I figured out how to ding-dong-ditch blew my mind and I was hooked. Merry Christmas, Dave!

I was 7 when this was released. This game was ahead of it's time

You say there are three endings, but I'd say there are five, with one of them being the nuclear meltdown that you showed in the video. But for winning the game, there is basically the base ending and two alternate endings, so the three you stated, but there's also a unique sequence if you meet the requirements for both alternate endings at the same time. I remember once hearing that ending referred to as the secret fourth ending. I believe there can also be some variations of the endings dependent on whether Dave is alive or dead.

Holy cow. Incredible production value.

Excellent production value. Good content. Bro, I hope this works out for you.

Pretty sure the game actually had multiple endings depending on the characters you selected to play as. Also don't forget the infamous "hamster in the microwave" wave trick that was eventually cut from later copies of the game.

Loved the PC version, but I didn't know about the massive changes during the port to NES. Really interesting to see the differences. I also played a web version at some point in the last five years, but I sadly can't find it right now. It always reminded me of those Choose Your Own Adventure books, especially in terms of setting and villains. This was a great review, regardless, and nicely presented! Giving you a sub for sure.

Ya want even more fun? There's a low budget live action canadian tv show based on this game. I can hear the song in my head as I type this

This a great polished video. Well done, sir. Keep it up!

This game literally coined the term "cut scene" by cutting away to scenes

Im glad i can play this on my phone, i remember playing this in the 90s

The NES version had a glitch to help you beat quickly, the inner door if you don't fix the arcade game's power will default to 0000. You can just open the door with that bypassing that whole operate of fixing the wires with the power off. My brother found this out when he tried opening the door, and wasn't sure what to put so he hit all zeroes. Sure enough it opened. I really enjoyed the game as it's full of secrets and personality. The manual and bonus sheet that came with the game give hints but don't outright say what to do. I wish they gave Sid and Razor more unique playthroughs, as they do the same thing both being musicians despite you'd imagine their styles would give very different tastes. (They're only kids willing explode the hamster in the microwave.) Jeff is basically a worse version of Bernard. He only fixes the phone, which doesn't lead toward any path of beating the game by itself. Bernard does that and has a path to victory. This makes Jeff the worst of the selectable kids.(Dave is the worst, but he has to be taken. I call him doorstop Dave, since he was always holding the doors open for more useful kids.) Michael and Wendy both have paths to victory that are unique to them. The game has a couple endings actually. If you use the car to blast the meteror into space in the trunk of the car, you will see it fly off before the ending. The Meteor police can arrest the meteor changing how the finale wraps up, or you can just feed the meteor to the plant and it will eat it to end the game If you just save Sandy with no one dead, there's the standard ending. If you have dave die, you get a different ending. If you send the manuscript to people who publish anything with Wendy, you get a different ending. If you do this and Wendy dies, it changes the ending slightly. The final bonus is if you use Wendy and Bernard together. Bernard calls the meteor police, but they don't get into the lab. Wendy does the thing with the manuscript afterwards, then something else happens I won't spoil it. I discovered this last one much later when I was messing around and my friend asked me about playing it. I kinda of was showing off what each kid did, and was so I trigger the events up to the ending for both. I didn't expect both together to trigger a new ending, but was a awesome surpise when it happened.

Another game that I dabbled in. I never finished it. I know as a kid, I had a lot of issues trying to figure out what to do. Great review!

When we first got the NES console as a Christmas present, we also got a year's subscription to Nintendo Power. The very first Nintendo Power I read had Maniac Mansion on the cover, and I thought it was really interesting, so we got that game at some point. I never knew it was on the PC first. Loved the game.

i would always play as bernard and razor. partner with the tentacle that wants to be a rocker

I wished I had owned Maniac Mansion back in the day. Only got to play it at a friend's house on the other side of the neighborhood I lived at for a while. And we started from the beginning each time and so never got to get far as they'd want to go do something else.

It was funny finding the chainsaw in Maniac Mansion and finding the fuel for it in Zack McKracken on Mars in a closet.

I remember when I'd get thrown off the computer because that little PC Speaker was tweeting it's heart out all day long. If only I knew to turn off the music...

What comes to mind to me as the one bad thing in the game is the possibility of dead ends. It's not as bad as Zak McKracken, as sometimes if you make the game unwinnable by one character it can still be beaten by the other characters, but given what we're used to from LucasArts adventures it's still on the rough side. BTW for anyone picking it up for the first time, the combination of Bernard and Wendy gives the most possible endings.

Graphics are almost too good nowadays.. i never thought I'd say that

From the games you chose to mention that used the SCUMM Engine it sounded like you may have been using the visuals/interface as a reference to work it out, but the SCUMM engine was used over a decade. EVERY LucasArts adventure game until Grim Fandango used it (so Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Full Throttle and Curse of Monkey Island all used it) but even beyond that, somehow it wasn't LucasArts proprietary and Ron Gilbert took it with him when he founded Humongous Games. So he made the Freddie Fish and Pajama Sam games with it, but, beyond that, SCUMM was adapted for their breakout massively beloved series Backyard Sports.

Oh my god, the memories. I remember sitting down for two months during school break and playing maniac mansion like a maniac myself. And I got through it. It was a lot of trial and error.

My favorite version is the NES. I replayed this game many many times

In May this year Romhacking released the "Maniac Mansion Uncensored" version 2.4 hack for the NES which reverts all the changes made to their original C64/PC splendour!

I loved this game and was getting far until my mom threw out the code sheet for the security door. That was the end of that.

I loved the nes version because of the music. Dave's theme playing when the game first start's is nostalgic for me. When I finally got to play the PC version which was included in Day of the Tentacle as an easter egg, I missed the music.

You’re speaking my language brother! Great product value btw - Subbed!

1:25 Maniac Mansion came out for the Commodore 64 first and foremost in 1987 and was a HUGE accomplishment on a 64k machine.

I've played this game before I could read. I always asked my Mom what the words say.

I only played MM on the nes for a very long time. I loved this game and, this was before I had a guide or the internet to help with. Took me forever to beat.

It’s funny you said you hate razors theme. That was my favorite one in the game. It’s actually my ringtone 😄

Kinda wish there was a fan translation of the Famicom version of Maniac Mansion since it looks so different from the NES and Computer versions

That Maniac Mansion NES box you showed is pretty beefy.

"Don’t be a tuna head." 😂

My man, thank you for explaning about how its based on old horror movies from that period XD Alot of the people getting in to it and remaking / remastering it COMPLETELY forget about this fact and delete most of its tongue in cheek nature, by adding spooky atmospheric music or jumpscares. It's ment to be over the top and silly not spooky and slightly humouress :S It's like addams family meets the blob or something lol.

I remember Maniac Mansion being the cover of Nintendo Power, I was like what is the big deal about this game?

Actually it was designed (and released) initially for C64, including the scumm engine

someow, maniac mansion aged better than monkey island 1, because the second half of monkey island 1 has significantly less polish, is more repetitive, and a more rushed story. The significantly better visuals of monkey island 1 so not age as well overall.

Wow. Your video is very high quality. Your presentation is on point. I have a feeling that your channel is gonna get bigger. 🎉

I never understood why they change the way the characters look for the Nintendo version. It seems strange…. I know Nintendo used to be very picky back in the day. It does look like maybe they ported the game from the DOS version which seems backwards to me since the c64 GPU has the same instruction set, but who knows?

Wow..great review! Thanks for sharing

personally didnt care much for the "sequel" but i believe its very possible we may get another with the rise of remakes. Great video.

This game made me a gamer for life!

2:26 what is the music?

The music in this game was great

Day Of The Tentacle shaped my childhood

Loved this game and it's sequel

This game is so awesome! Im also fond of the 2nd game day of the tentacle!

This game terrified me as a child. Looks like it's time to dust off my old MM cart and cause a nuclear meltdown!

I have this on NES complete in box 😊

more of this! Lucasarts for the win.

This game has many endings!

Uhm, you said multiple times, this was originally a PC game, wonder where you got that from :-o . That is just not true. The original platform was the C64, and was released in 1987, as well as for Apple II. PC was already a port released a year later :) !

Weird Ed is a grown man still living at home.

Man, you've got a cool voice!

HA! The Microwave Hamster game. How sadistic.

I just suscribed, greetings from México

Spoiler? Omg it's 30 years old... Spoiler warning: the titanic sank

I actually like the look of the NES version of the PC version even though it has less detail. Though, I'm someone that generally never liked the look of 80's PC games as the colors always looked weird to me.

im about to turn 20 and ive just recently fallen in love with these games

Never played Maniac Mansion, Sam & Max were my point and click starters, but I'd be remiss to not give Ron Gilbert his props for getting the ball rolling. funny thing about this is that I had a guide that came in an NES amgazine, so I read p on all the stuff that happened in the game and was intrigued... and very confused.

I’ve never beat this game

nice

Sandy was so hot

It's not and never was a big deal

Good review for a terribly overrated game, lol.

im jumping on the subs, remember me when you get into 7 figures please! also i love this game and I had it on the Commodore Amiga 600!

Legend of Kage: Different screen, same music.

The fact that there was no symmetry to the cuts for the "planks" on the walls you have in your background still bother me to this day.

One of my absolute favorites. I would love a remake.