Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. Video games based off television shows make a lot of sense, well usually depending on what the show in question is.
An Airwolf game? Sue, why not?
A Knight Rider game? That could be pretty good (Protip: It’s not).
A video game based off Gilligan’s Island? Well, there’s where we may have some issues…
But, as luck would have it, among the sea of NES games just happens to be a game based on Gilligan’s Island. Was it any good? Or should we simply cast this one back into the sea? Well, just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale. A tale of a piece of…
Well, let’s just get to the review.
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1990
PUBLISHER: Bandai
GENRE: Action
Gilligan’s Island was a sitcom from the mid 60’s about a group of castaways who have been shipwrecked on a mysterious tropical island thanks to being caught in a storm during what was supposed to be a three hour tour (a three hour tour). Of course there’s Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the professor, and Mary Ann here on Gilligan’s Isle. If you want to know more on the sitcom itself, I suggest checking out fellow FAN author David Broermann’s edition of “Dave the Dave’s Review Review” on Gilligan’s Island here on this very website.
The show, despite being cancelled after three seasons, still managed to find popularity in the decades that followed. The evolution of syndication and cable television gave the show a fresh audience, and for a while the show and its cast of castaways became popular once again. I guess it became popular enough for Turner Entertainment, who had the rights to the franchise at the time, to have a video game released. I don’t know why exactly they thought this was a good idea, but hey, crazier video games were made based on stranger licenses. I mean, lest we forget Chase the Chuckwagon. No matter how hard we try.
. So, the game was released for the NES in 1990 in North America only (possibly due to low popularity of the franchise outside of North America, but that’s more an out there guess than anything concrete) and would suffer from very low reviews and mediocre sales. But were these reasons justified? Let’s move on further.
COVER STORY
The cover is pretty bland to be quite honest. Definitely not one of my favorites. Just some stock shots of Gilligan and Skipper in front of some cartoony head hunters with the S.S Minnow in the background. Nothing really dynamic and certainly nothing eye catching. Unless you’re a Gilligan fan, it certainly wouldn’t interest you too much.
STORY
Gilligan’s Island is broken into four levels, which are called episodes, each connecting with one another. After building some shelter to rest, the castaways accidentally get swept by the ocean to another part of the island, where head hunters, animals, stone tablets, and other dangers await. Can Gilligan and Skipper find out the secrets of the island? And will what they find lead our heroes to a chance at finally escaping the island that’s plagued them for so long?
GAMEPLAY
Gilligan’s Island is a one player action game. You play as the Skipper, who while having Gilligan tag along with him, has to search areas of the island, find items, and deal with the many beasts within. The D-Pad moves the Skipper, A will make him jump, and B will punch or swing the club if you have it. Pressing select will open the menu, which will have your main items in the game. Your map, your food, and your rope. All three things are definitely important for survival as you go along in your adventure.
The object of each level is to find and talk to each of the four castaways (four because Ginger is not in this game. I believe mainly because Tina Louise was trying to distance herself from the franchise at the time), find the item they’re missing, and repeat. So, pretty much the entire game consists of fetch quests. For example, episode one will have you go find Mr. Howell’s ring, which is up a tree, then you’ll get caviar from him, which will make the professor give you a club, which you can use to attack the gorilla holding the radio, etc. etc. So on and so forth. That wouldn’t be too bad itself, but this game is littered with so many flaws that it keeps any of them from making this any less of a chore.
The first major issue is the enemies that lurk in the game. Most you can’t hit. Some like boars, snakes, and monkeys are too low to the ground for Skipper’s punch or club swing to connect with. Other enemies like the dive bombing birds move so fast that they’re impossible to hit, even when it seems like you hit the mark perfectly. Another issue is your health. Despite a decent size, you start with what could be considered a bare minimum. You can restore it with food you find on the ground, but you still end up with only a very low amount earned back.
Another major issue are the hazards you will have to encounter in the game. From annoying quicksand that you have to tap the A button to cross, holes that can be too easy to fall into, which will lead you into an often confusing underground cave. Also, one of the most annoying hazards, rivers and areas that will pull you to the bottom, and back into the underground. There are also boulders that are tough to jump over correctly thanks to the terrible placement.
Next up is the terribly unfunny dialogue in the game that constant pops up. Since this game was based on a sitcom, there of course needs to be some banter between Gilligan and the Skipper. Problem is, not only is it not very funny, but it is repeated over, and over, and over again. To the point that it’s almost impossible since it takes up so much of the bottom of the screen. I get the want for some authenticity to the sitcom itself, but this was terribly unnecessary.
Next we have the timer in the game. which feels like it moves incredibly fast. You get an ample amount of time in each episode to find everything to complete it and move on. However, considering the hazards, dead ends, and sometimes simple lack of hints to what direction to go to find the item needed to continue on, that poor sucker is going to run out quick. There are hourglass items that will restore some of your time, but they can be random and very scarce. More often than not, your travels will end in confusion and a game over. Thankfully you do have unlimited continues, and a very fair size password system, but you will still have to start right back at the very beginning of the episode, meaning going right back into a lot of the issues you’re already having.
And what is above and beyond the biggest issue with this game is Gilligan himself. Remember back in my Mickey Mousecapade review and my major issues I had with Minnie? How she could easily get stuck in areas, and lead to more trouble than she was worth? Well my friends and readers, Minnie is a saint compared to our “little buddy” here. . He’ll get stuck in areas, fall in holes if you aren’t perfectly below or above them, and he’ll keep making pointless banter as I stated before. But the most damning issue is that he can get lost easily, and without him, you can’t continue forward because either you need him for a task, or the castaways will be too concerned about him being missing.
And his absence problems are as simple as if you exit one area to another, if Gilligan should be perhaps a pixel or two touching a wall, he won’t come with you, so you have to bring him back. You do get some saving grace with a rope that will bring him back, but like food and hourglasses, their appearances are rare and random. If you run out, you have two minutes to find Gilligan, or else it’s game over. Like my issues with Minnie, I again ask what the point is. This could have easily been handled better with either the ability to switch between Skipper and Gilligan on the fly with start or select, or perhaps have Gilligan controlled by player two. Having to deal with unresponsive, uncooperative , annoying AI is no fun, and never has been. And it seems like a few games didn’t understand that. But without question The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island is by far the biggest offender.
Also, if you’re looking for a satisfying story with a happy ending, look elsewhere. Since this game isn’t really worth trudging through, I’ll spoil the ending.
Throughout the episodes, Gilligan and Skipper seek out the answers to find a mysterious idol that will grant whoever finds it one wish. Of course, the castaways want to use it so they can finally escape the island. But before they can do so, Gilligan wishes for some ice cream. And well, one thing leads to another and…
How they didn’t just kill him ages ago surprises the hell out of me. But hey, this is a bunch of people who can’t think to just try and fix the Minnow already or build a raft to escape. The logic of getting rid of the detriment in the stupid white hat seems way too hard to for them to do.
GRAPHICS
The graphics are very middle of the road, nothing too amazing, but nothing too offensive either. The caricatures of the show’s cast used in the intro and cutscenes are decent at best (though some are quite rough. The Professor especially), but other than that the actual in-game sprites are faceless and bland, and enemies all very generic and stock. The areas aren’t all that interesting either. Just two major worlds, the jungles of the island, and the underground. All with a very ugly green and brown color scheme that isn’t all that appealing to the eye, and both you will get quite tired of almost immediately.
I also find that the layout itself reminds me of the first level of another NES game I despise, and that one being Platoon. But that could just be me, and letting a game as bad as that haunt my mind. For a game from 1990, when the NES was really starting to see the graphics at their fullest capacity, this is just too basic for my tastes.
MUSIC
The music is also very average and forgettable. Other than a decent 8-bit rendition of the classic theme song, none of the tunes in the game are in the least bit memorable, or earworm worthy. Nothing will leave you wanting more, so just like everything else in this game, the sound department is also a major dud.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Oh boy, This game is really bad. Bad controls, bad gameplay, enemies you can’t even touch, annoying gimmicks, bad sound and graphics, and the ultimate albatross in Gilligan. Everything just makes for what is not just one of the worst licensed games on the NES (though there are a couple I find that are much worse. Where’s Waldo anyone?), but one of the worst licensed games period. Hell, one of the worst video games period. This game deserves to be cast away into oblivion. So unless you’re a serious collector of either Nintendo or Gilligan’s Island merchandise, only then would I ever advise you to pick it up. Other than that, this game deserves to be lost at sea with all of the other bad obscure games on the NES.
RATING: Thumbs Down