Luigi's Mansion - Speedy Spirits (Blue Ghosts) Guide

Here is a little guide I've put together in order to help you find and capture all 15 of the Speedy Spirits (A.K.A. "Blue Ghosts") hidden throughout Luigi's Mansion.

Bear in mind, it must be dark in order for Speedy Spirits to spawn, and some can only be captured during the blackout.

Spirit #1
Wardrobe Room

To find the first Speedy Spirit, simply tap on the wardrobe on the far-right of the room.

Spirit #2
Study

To find the second Speedy Spirit, tap on Neville's chair behind his desk. Before attempting to get this spirit, make sure to vacuum up the flying books.

Spirit #3
Breaker Room

To find the third Speedy Spirit, tap on the table on the far-left of the room.

Spirit #4
Storage Room

To find the fourth Speedy Spirit, tap on the chair closest to the door.

Spirit #5
Dining Room

To find the fifth Speedy Spirit, tap on the cabinet on the left side of the room.

Spirit #6
Kitchen

To find the sixth Speedy Spirit, tap on the dishwasher on the left side of the room.

Spirit #7
Gym

To find the seveneth Speedy Spirit, tap on the exercise bike closest to the front wall.

Spirit #8
Nana's Room

To find the eighth Speedy Spirit, tap on the armchair on the right side of the room.

Spirit #9
Billiards Room

To find the ninth Speedy Spirit, tap on the chair in the corner of the room. This must be done while Slim Bankshot is there.

Spirit #10
Twins' Room

To find the tenth Speedy Spirit, suck the top bunk with your vacuum.

Spirit #11
Music Room (During Blackout)

To find the eleventh Speedy Spirit, tap the pianist's chair.

Spirit #12
Hidden Room (During Blackout)

To find the twelfth Speedy Spirit, tap the chest on the far right.

Spirit #13
Nursery (During Blackout)

To find the thirteenth Speedy Spirit, tap on the crib.

Spirit #14
Cellar

To find the fourteenth Speedy Spirit, tap on the crate beside the door.

Spirit #15
Sealed Room

To find the fifteenth Speedy Spirit, tap the chest closest to the banister.

Review: Cosmic Spacehead

Cosmic Spacehead is a game released in 1993 by Codemasters for the Sega Mega Drive. It's actually a re-release of a NES game called Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade released in 1991 with shiny, new 16-bit graphics, fixed glitches and a 2-player mode. It's quite a unique concept, sections of open-ended world exploration with point-and-click adventure style puzzles with each world screen broken up by 2D side-scrolling platforming.

Set in around the year 4000, Cosmic Spacehead is a young alien boy who has just returned from visiting planet Earth, and has come back to his home planet of Linoleum only to find out that nobody believes him because he has no proof. So Cosmic sets out to re-visit Earth, this time armed with a camera so that he can take snapshots of New York city and rub them in everyone's faces.

The point-and-click puzzle sections are pretty basic, but after a while, can require backtracking half way around the planet in order to find the right items and the right places to use them. Using the C button, your puzzle approaches are limited to 5 different actions: "TALK TO," "USE," "GIVE," "PICK UP" and "LOOK AT." The vast majority of the puzzles are a bit roundabout, such as using icing sugar to freeze a stream to create a new pathway and building a tactical missile to clear away debris. But when interacting with objects, Cosmic will give you his own opinions on rude post office clerks and vending machines that sell gunpowder.

The side-scrolling platform sections are encountered the first time you leave a screen and attempt to enter the next area. These start out basic, simply avoiding walking eggs and hopping across floating platforms, but gradually get more and more complex, resulting in the player having to time their jumps to avoid being electrocuted or to adjust to changing gravity levels. During the side-scrolling levels, Cosmic can collect cosmic candy bars - 10 of which will award you with an extra life. 

One of the awkward gameplay mechanics of Cosmic Spacehead is that it uses the archaic password system. These passwords are marked by big colourful Ps found in the main city and town areas. However, if you feel that you are doing well for lives, items and money, they can be ignored and returned to at a later stage to be used when you really need them. Using a password point will record all of your cleared levels, solved puzzles and you will retain all of your items and money.

The Mega Drive's 16-bit graphics aren't exactly pushed to their limit, but all of the characters and enemies are unique, colourful and full of personality. The pre-rendered backgrounds range from the jazzy, multi-coloured patterns of the planet Linoleum to the bleak, abandoned areas of the planet Detroitica, which has been overrun by its robot workers. The overly colourful and psychadelic graphics have often been likened to 60s cartoons such as The Jetsons.

For some reason, Cosmic Spacehead also has a 2-player mode. I'll admit that I was disappointed with this. What I wanted was a 2-player co-op style adventure like Sonic The Hedgehog 2. What I got was a regurgitated version of a car driving mini game from the main single player game. Each player drives a bumper car around a maze and tries to throw custard pies at each other.

If you have a Mega Drive, I really reccomend investing in a copy of Cosmic Spacehead. Being over 20 years old now, it's virtually impossible to find new, but I managed to grab a copy of it, with a box, booklet and a poster for only £3. I had it as a child and had been itching to play it again for around 12 years. Being a cartridge game, it's stood the test of time very well. From start to finish, if you know what you're doing. you can look for about 2 hours of gameplay - but if you get stuck looking for the plug for the bathtub or keep losing all of your lives in the Space Station, possibly longer.

Mog Anarchy Visits The National Media Museum's GAME LOUNGE!

So, on Sunday I took a trip down to Bradford to visit the National Media Museum. It's a massive building that is full of media-related history - including TV, cinema, the Internet and of course, the floor I  was most interested in: VIDEO GAMES.

The 6th floor is home to the GAME LOUNGE; which is a big room filled with refurbished arcade cabinets and old consoles you can actually play on. I'd like to add that they're all free to play too - except Space Invaders (which costs 10p) and Point Blanc (which costs 50p) - admission into the museum is also totally free.

The cabinets included:

Space Invaders, Point Blank, Gauntlet, Donkey Kong, Defender, Asteroids & Frogger

The console games included:
Super Mario Kart, Pong, Manic Miner, Prince Of Persia, Goldeneye 64 & Sonic The Hedgehog 2

The whole Games Lounge is nicely decorated with full wall-length murals of classic video game iconography and even features these lovely Tetris-block seats to sit at to play the table-style arcade cabinets and console set-ups.

It also features a classic staple of virtually every British museum and tourist attraction - the penny press! Basically you pay a £1 coin and a 1p coin to flatten out the 1p coin and stamp a design onto it. Here's the two I got made - a Pac-Man one and a Space Invaders one.

To round this blog off nicely, here's a compilation of the videos I filmed during my trip; my guided tour of the Games Lounge and several videos of me being way too overexcited trying out the games and arcade cabinets - even losing my ZX Spectrum virginity, playing Manic Miner for the first time!

They also sold a wide array of gaming merchandise in the gift shop - including an awesome messenger bag, Tetris stickers, books, Pixel Bricks and more!

Car Boot Sale Treasure Hunting

The Sunday before last I went to Redcar boot sale with my fiancée, my dad and my gaming nana who plays Bejeweled. I've recently been getting back into some really retro games from the 80s and early 90s to distract myself from the horror that is the Xbox One. Seriously, try it - if you ever start feeling sad or disappointed about the Xbox One, break out your old SNES or original Game Boy and play some awesome retro stuff - all your troubles melt away. :D

Anyway, in addition to mooching online I thought it would be a good idea to have a trawl around the local car boot sales - for some reason there's like 10 different ones held every Sunday around the area where I live, so after casually mentioning it to my dad - he jumped to it. :D

Most of the stalls were just crap, old kids toys and baby clothes - but there were a handful of stands dedicated purely to video games and the odd table that had a small pile of games hidden amongst the old tat - so Shelly and I were competing to see who could spot the games on the stalls first. There was one dude who actually had a SNES for sale and a stack of cartridges of all kinds and we had a long discussion about my new NES. He said he buys wholesale lots on eBay for cheap then sells the stuff for a profit at the boot sales.

At first I didn't think I was going to come out with anything at all - but on the contrary. This is my haul for the day:

 

After I got home, Shelly and I decided to see if I got some good deals - so we searched eBay and Amazon, finding items in identical condition (i.e., boxed, cart only) - and this is what we found:

 

God Of War (PS2):

I paid £1. It's sold online for £5.

 

South Park: Chef's Luv Shack (N64):

I paid £4. It's sold online for £5.

 

Toki: Going Ape Spit (Mega Drive):

I paid £2. It's sold online for £7.

 

Kirby's Pinball Land (Game Boy):

I paid £3. It's sold online for £12.

 

Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant (Xbox 360):

I paid £3. It's sold online for £18.

 

Mario & Yoshi (Game Boy):

I paid £3. It's sold online for £3.

 

Mega Games 3 (Mega Drive):

I paid £3. It's sold online for £3.50.

 

With every game, I either paid the same or better. :D

Also, I plan to finish Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant, get the 1000G and then sell it onto CeX for £22 exchange value. PROFIT!