By the time I finally made it over to the enclosed Surround Sound booth for Luigi's Mansion, I was very, very ready to give it a whirl. The footage we saw Wednesday was nothing short of incredible, and everyone was already saying how cool it is to play. I'd have to agree. ;-)

The demo lets you choose to watch the intro or skip it, and I decided to skip it and get to the goods. A short cinema scene still plays, showing the weird doctor guy giving you some instructions on what to do. Then you see the mansion, as the camera view flies over the grounds, through the big iron gate, and up to the stairs. Luigi then appears and cautiously enters the front door.

From there it's playable, and it feels great. There are two control schemes currently available; you can aim Luigi with the main analog stick and move him with the C-stick, or vice-versa. I tried both and found it easier to move him with the main stick, but both are very Turok-feeling and will require some getting used to. Luckily, both of the joysticks are fully analog, and your degree of control over Luigi is great in either scheme. The A button opens doors and presumably performs other basic actions. Your flashlight is out by default, but it gets put away when you press the R-trigger for the vacuum. The analog triggers are absolutely perfect for something like the vacuum, as you have utter mastery of its power. Push the trigger farther, the vacuum sucks harder. You can add even more power by moving Luigi away from the target ghost as he sucks it up. The L-trigger activates the water hose, but that feature isn't included in the E3 playable demo. Finally, you can activate a map to help you get around the mansion, and the map is actually integrated into Luigi's Game Boy Color. When you hit start, you see him reach down and pull out the GBC, then the view zooms in towards the screen and you're in map mode. It's all quite cool.

So far, the gameplay is very tight and enjoyable, although not terribly deep. Controlling Luigi takes a lot of dexterity, and you also have to apply different strategies to the different ghosts. Small rat and bat ghosts seem unaffected by your flashlight, but they're easily sucked up. Most ghosts are frozen in their tracks by light (Can the incredibly reflective mirrors be used to shine light around corners?), and then you simply suck them up. Easier said than done when you're being approached from three ghosts, all in different parts of the room and therefore impossible to stun together. Our old friend Boo and his lookalikes seem unaffected by the flashlight except at point-blank range. The coolest ghosts are what I call character ghosts...one of them is an old man sitting in a rocking chair near the fireplace. He won't try to hurt you, but you have to suck him up to complete the room (and turn the lights back on, get the key and many coins, etc.). These fellas are really hard to catch too -- as soon as you look at them, they disappear! The NOA rep at the demo showed me how to do it though. Just turn your back to them and they'll appear. Then wait for the animation to change; for instance, the old man falls asleep briefly. At that exact moment, spin around really fast and he'll be caught in your beam. Then just suck him up. Aha, but that's not easy either! Each ghost has a number that basically represents hit points, and it ticks down as you suck them up. Most ghosts have a number less than ten, but this old man is a fifty. If you just stood there sucking, your vacuum would blow before you finished him off, and then he'd probably be quite pissed. The trick is to back away as you vacuum, and he'll be Hoover chow in no time.

And that's the extent of what Nintendo has playable. I found two character ghosts, about a dozen rooms (each of which must be totally cleared of ghosts), and a few locked doors which are opened Resident Evil-style via keys that you get from clearing rooms. It's great fun and technically stunning, but I have to agree with Andres: it doesn't feel like this whole game is going to involve ghostbusting. What we're seeing is elaborate and fun as hell, but it has neither the depth nor variety that we all expect in a Mario launch game.