Best Halloween video games

Booooo! It’s Halloween game time. Here are video games that are treats, not tricks.

COSTUME QUEST (THQ for Xbox Live, PlayStation Network)
Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older

Costume Quest is the year’s best Halloween game. Reynold and Wren are arguing about who gets what on Halloween when, suddenly, Wren is abducted by an alien. Reynold is annoyed by this because this cuts into his Halloween night. Still, he sets out on an adventure to trick and treat his way into rescuing her.

There’s never a dull moment in this adventure with role-playing game elements. You’ll collect candy and trade it in the store for powerups. And you’ll gain experience to level up by fighting in a strange world full of ghosts and aliens. Along the way, the dialog made me laugh out loud. The graphics are cartoony, but they immerse you in the crazy town in which the big-eyed kids live. You have all kinds of wacky costumes to discover, even one that’s the Statue of Liberty with special powers from her torch. Let’s put it this way: When I started to play Costume Quest, I couldn’t stop for about five hours. It’s that cool.

BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (WBIE for Wii, DS)
Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older

Who doesn’t like to dress up like Batman or Robin? Get your fill of the dark superhero with Batman: Brave and the Bold, a stylish side-scroller. You not only have a terrific comicbook look, you have witty dialog, too. Beyond that, you’ve got well over a dozen moves to punish the baddies. Batman comes armed with his trusty Batarang, but there are many powerups to increase your strength. Surrounded by enemies? Press 1 on the Wii remote to bring in, say, the Green Arrow to help you out.

HAUNTED HOUSE (Atari for Wii, PC, Xbox Live)
Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older

Atari created the original game many years ago, but this is a brand-new update. Your world-traveling grandfather has gone missing. Find him by carefully searching the many levels of a creepy old house called Graves Mansion. (Get it? “Graves,” as in cemetery?)

Collect matches to see in the dark because if you run out of them, all you see is your character’s fearful eyes. Stay away from those floating ghosts and fast rats that try to eat away at your health. You’ll find strange but helpful entries in diary pages along the way. Eventually, they’ll lead you to pieces of an urn that is your answer to the mystery.

SCOOBY DOO AND THE SPOOKY SWAMP (WBIE for PS2, Wii, DS)
Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older

In search of grub, Scooby and Shaggy follow a long, thin wisp of fog through a dank Louisiana swamp to a witch named Lila. Lila gives them missions like defeating a huge skinny-legged spider before she gives up any food.

There’s a lot here: secrets areas, the ability to change characters, and a lot of pulling levers and gears to move forward. You can even wear the masks the bosses drop and take pictures of ghosts. The dialog could be funnier, though. And while the background graphics are lush and eerie, the characters you control aren’t well-drawn enough. Still, stick with it. The Spooky Swamp is full of things that go bump in the night.

GORMITI: THE LORDS OF NATURE (Konami for Wii, DS)
Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older

Hailing from the magical land of Gorm, four kids band together to save Earth. The quartet of adventurers has fun costumes, sure. But they also control the powers of Earth, Forest, Sea and Air. You’ll stop the evil Magmion, who’s trying to find pieces of a powerful amulet.

With the amulet, this enemy can open a portal to Earth and conquer all of us. Despite the fact that this game has the least helpful info booklet I’ve ever seen, the cooperative gameplay is unusual enough and the monsters strange enough to give you that Halloween spirit.

EYEPET (Sony for PS3, requires Eye camera and Move controller)

Think of the EyePet as your own personal Halloween gremlin. Use your PlayStation camera and he’ll appear right on your living room floor. Pet him, feed him, even toss him around. The sometimes-cranky virtual pet even has a toy with a ghost hanging on the end of it. Press the PlayStation Move button as you swing it, and the ghost goes “Boo” to scare your little creature.

You can draw your own plane, too, which becomes a 3D flier that your gremlin can pilot high into the heavens. As you play, you’ll find hundreds of costumes for the little bugger. Too bad you can’t take him out to do some trick-or-treating with you.