In Maniac Mansion, Dave's girlfriend has been abducted by Dr. Ed Edison, who is under mind-control of some kind of Comet from outer space. He lives in a big mansion with his wife Edna, his son Ed Jr, a hamster, Bob the Plant, and a couple "tentacles". Dave picks from his group of about six friends including Bernard the nerd, Wendy the Writer, Rarzor the Punk Chick, a Surfer Dude, a rocker dude, and some others. You are tasked with using up to three of these characters unique talents to help Dave to save his girlfriend (and the world from the Comet). So say, you'd want to pick one character more talented in scientific endeavors such as Bernard, and another more talented in something like writing or Music for other tasks, such as Razor or Wendy.

I never actually got to PLAY Maniac Mansion though, until I was about 18-19 or so, and in Lithium (rock band) at the time. The rhythm guitarist's fiancee had a Toshiba laptop and we put NESticle on it, and installed this game on it and I think all three of us played it for awhile, and it had a pretty neato soundtrack. However, the experience was far different from that of which you'd have with the PC original. See, the NES version was a augmented version intended to appease Nintendo of America's strict quality and family friendly guidelines. So multople versions of that were made that included one that removed the ability to nuke the Hamster (animal abuse), a pre-release version got a Nude Statuette (from the PC version) removed, insults were changed from "shithead" to "tuna head". And I remember reading somewhere that Ron Gilbert had to really fight with Nintendo to give credit to the Script Creation Utility they used for the original being advertised in the NES version (Nintendo did not like the idea of having a "SCUMM System" in their game).

But the PC version is the true, unadulterated, un-cut version of the game. But it plays way different. For starters, the atmosphere inside Maniac Mansion on PC is far darker in tone, and feels more like an 80's slasher flick as a computer game, rather than a comedic cartoon funny that the NES version feels like. For starters, there's no music, just a ticking clock, and no startling warbly soundtrack when you're caught either. It's kind of like comparing Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 to each other. Same premise, same plot, same general story, but the execution is way different. The first one is an attempt at somethign serious, the second is augmented as a comedy.