Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s safe to say that this generation may be the most creatively bankrupt when it comes to fresh film ideas. I mean hell, when there’s a movie based on the Battleship board game, you know there’s trouble. But people seem to forget that older franchises were seeing films made as far back as the early 1990’s and beyond. And this week’s game is an example of one of the better uses of a TV-to-film adaptation, but maybe not so good when it comes to TV-to-film-to-video game. It’s time to get creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky with the Addams Family.
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1992
PUBLISHER: Ocean
GENRE: Action Platformer
The Addams Family started off as a New Yorker comic strip in the 1930’s from American cartoonist Charles Addams about a bizarre family who enjoy all things macabre and morbid, blissfully unaware of how other people perceive them as scary and weird. The success of the strips would warrant a sitcom on CBS in the 1960’s to compete with ABC’s successful show The Munsters. Despite the two season run, the show became a cult hit, and the Addams would remain prominent with specials, and animated adaptations throughout the 70’s. And with the evolution of television and the boom of syndication in the 80’s, The Addams Family became popular once more to a new audience ready to embrace it.
The success of the series would be enough to warrant a live action movie in 1991. The movie, starring the likes of Raul Julia, Angelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci, would prove a success at the box office. Of course, with that success would lead to many video game adaptations. There was an Addams Family video game for practically every console under the sun. From the Super Nintendo and Genesis, to the Turbografix-16 (where you actually play as one of the main antagonists from the film, Tully Alford), and the arcade with what is considered the most successful pinball game of all time. And of course, there would be an NES version.
the NES was no stranger to The Addams Family prior to this game. In 1988, Sunsoft would create Fester’s Quest, a rather infamous game known for its annoying difficulty, and barely working weapons. I will be talking about that one soon. There would also be another Addams family game released in 1993 known as Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt, which was a watered down port of the SNES Addams Family game. Most Addams Family games were made by Ocean, which was a company known for releasing many notoriously bad licensed games in the early to mid 90’s. Was this game one of them, or was it a diamond in the rough?
COVER STORY
Not too much to go with this one as it’s the movie poster, so it works. The familiarity of the poster, as well as having every major character from the film is a definite eye pleaser to any fan of the film.
STORY
Tully Alford, the once trusted attourney to the Addams Family, has evicted the family from their home in an attempt to raid their fortune. The family’s attempts to reason with the corrupt Alford leads to them being trapped in the house, and Morticia being held for ransom. The only Addams who is able to do something about it is patriarch Gomez, who must save his family, deal with a man who claims to be his long lost brother Fester, and put Tully Alford out of business once and for all.
GAMEPLAY
The Addams Family is a one player action platformer. You control Gomez Addams as he has to rescue his family, reclaim his home, and defeat the evil Tully Alford. You control Gomez with the D-Pad, he can duck, as well as climb ropes or pipes. The A button has him jump, while B is used to open doors. Other than those, the game really has no other special tricks with the controls to deal with.
The object of the game is to head through the Addams home, inside and out, to find items and family members, along with plenty of money. You’ll search everywhere from the dining room, the basement, the freezer, the attic, even inside the furnace looking for the members of your clan. As you progress, you will find items that can be useful to advance further in the game, or to even save a family member.
For example, to rescue Puglsey, who is trapped in the side of the house, you need to make a shrinking potion, with the use of a bone, a giant bird egg, and some fog. But you have to get most of these items with the help of other family members, or finding items in certain areas. For example, once you save Grandma, she will fix the fog machine which will give you the fog needed. However, you need to find her wrench first, which is in the lake.
But you can’t swim in the lake without the snorkel, which is in another room in the game.Similarly, you’ll find Wednesday in the freezer, and after thawing her out in the furnace, she’ll give you a key needed to continue further. So, essentially the game’s main modus operandi is fetch quests. You’ll have to search through every room in the game to ensure you don’t miss anything.
However, even if you save all of the Addams, you still won’t be able to complete the game and rescue Morticia. You have to make a million dollars. Throughout the game you’ll find different money amounts like dollar bills, diamonds, or sacks of cash. Each of these adds to your money tally at the bottom of the screen. Don’t miss any you find because every cent literally counts to victory. Once you make it to the end of the game, you’ll see a weigh station, which you’ll deposit your cash to open the final room of the game, and face off with the game’s only bosses, Fester and Tully.
You start with three lives, and have a health bar. You do get extra lives, but there are very few (in fact, I can only find two). The game has only two continues, and if you’re really bad, or if the game’s poor hit detection takes you out fast, you’ll lose easily. There are no saves or passwords either, so it’s back to the tedium of this game.
The game is littered with enemies, like ghosts, skulls, killer plants, and bats. Your main attack is a jump similar to Mario. one jump on most enemy heads will lead to the downfall of most creatures. But here’s the downside… The hit detection in this game sucks big time. More often than not, you’ll take damage even if you hit dead center, or even phase through an enemy into the hazards below. And considering how little the amount of health and lives you have are, you will surely perish quickly. The hit detection is so bad that even the edges of certain platforms can hurt you, even if you aren’t touching them directly. This doesn’t just pertain to the enemies, oh no. The items can be a nuisance to deal with. you have to be pixel perfect at times, and jump just right to grab certain money piles. If not, you won’t even touch it, meaning you have to try over and over to get it just right.
You do get some help. For example, there’s cheese you can find that restores a little bit of your health. The downside though is that there is very few to be found in the game. When you find Thing, the lovable disembodied hand, he will act as an invincibility shield with the press of the select button. But unfortunately, he can only be used three times, so know when to use him wisely.
Other annoyances control wise include the swimming portion of the game. you have to tap A constantly to move up, but sometimes you won’t even if there’s no obstruction above you. It’s as if there’s an invisible wall above you keeping you from moving. It’s a total pain, and easily some of the worst swimming controls ever. Another painful area is the freezer level, with the standard slippery controls, which are not good with a game already plagued with problems. You can get stuck in walls even if you are moving under them. If you are a pixel off under a certain area, you can’t jump, making you an easy target for damage.
The game has plenty of cheap death spots too. For example, the Toy Room area. You have to grab the snorkel at the top of the room. You have to jump on the blocks as they smile. If they frown, a Jack in the Box will pop out and drop you to the floor, where a killer teddy bear will attack you constantly as your health depletes. Enemies and items are usually placed as soon as you enter a room, so you’ll have little to no reaction time, and the most likely outcome to success will be trial and error. This one is definitely a game that takes multiple play throughs to get the hang of, which would be fun if the game’s many annoyances didn’t keep it from feeling like a burden to play. I don’t mind a challenge, but if the challenge comes from poor programming, and cheap enemy placement, then it loses any fun that could come out of it.
GRAPHICS
I can’t say much about the graphics honestly. They don’t look bad. Everything’s well designed, the sprites all look great, and they do their best to capture the likenesses of the stars of the movie as best as possible considering the 8-bit graphics. I will say the Gomez sprite looks less like Raul Julia, and more like John Astin, but that might just be me. The game does its best to capture the Addams Family feel, and does it well.
MUSIC
The game is very lacking in terms of tracks, but what little there is is still some quality works. You get the titular theme song, which is handled well once again in 8-bit (although I prefer the peppier version in Fester’s Quest), and the other songs, while nothing memorable, aren’t terrible either. So, again, not much to say on them, but the soundtrack is okay at best.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
While there are good graphics, and music, the game is still pretty bad. However, I honestly feel that beneath the bad hit detection, the annoying enemy placement, and cheap deaths, there is a decent game in there. The ability to explore the Addams home, and the many creepy tricks and traps within sounds like a great idea for a video game. It’s just too bad that the game is broken in so many ways that it keeps it from ever feeling fun. It’s a pure frustration game that I hated as a kid, and even now I still dislike. And it’s an absolute shame. This is a definite example of a “so close” title. The kind of game that almost feels perfect, if not for one or two major screw-ups keeping it from feeling like one of those quality licensed games. If you can find it, I would say give it a shot, but don’t expect something of true quality. But it’s best to let this “Thing” “Fester”.
RATING: Thumbs Down