Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. Last week, I reviewed Home Alone, an infamously bad licensed movie game that I surprisingly liked (albeit a little). So, does that same surprising optimism pass over to the sequel? Well… you’ll just have to see for yourself with this week’s review of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1992
PUBLISHER: THQ
GENRE: Action Platformer
As mentioned last week, Home Alone was a massive hit in the box office in 1990. So, naturally there would be a sequel. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was released in the holiday season of 1992, and was another box office success, raking in over 350 million worldwide. Similar to its predecessor, the film has become a holiday classic. Naturally, the success of the film would lead to video game adaptations, similar to the first game.
And once again at the helm was THQ, who still had the rights to produce games for various 20th Century Fox products at the time. This time, instead of somewhat different games per console, every port of Home Alone 2 was the same on every console, with the exception of the Genesis port, which was released later on and would be an entirely different game. It would be released for the NES in October of 1992.
But most game reviewers at the time were supremely unforgiving to the game. Electronic Gaming Monthly would give the game the dubious honor of being called the worst sequel of 1992, and would give the game another “honor” in 1996 as the worst “Movie-To-Game”. Wow, even outshining games that were released by then like Batman Forever. That’s gotta hurt. But one has to ask, are these awful accolades deserving? Let’s dive into the mean streets of New York to find out.
COVER STORY
The only real thing I like about the cover is the checker board pattern around the box. It looks really nice. But the rest is rather bland. It just looks like they photoshopped (or whatever they used in 92) Culkin, Pesci, and Stern onto a bland cover. Honestly, using the movie poster would have been much nicer. It’s a bland, forgettable cover.
STORY
Young Kevin McCallister is once again in a heap of trouble. Due to a mishap at the airport, Kevin gets misplaced from his family on their way to Florida, as he winds up in New York. And to make matters worse, he just so happens to once again run into Marv and Harry, the newly coined Sticky Bandits. The duo are no longer robbing homes, but plan to rob toy stores. Specifically the shop known as Duncan’s Toy Chest. It’s up to Kevin to put a stop to the crooks once again.
GAMEPLAY
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is a one player action platformer. You control Kevin McCallister as he has to survive in New York, as well as deal with his old enemies Marv and Harry. You can move Kevin with the D-Pad, can jump with the A button, and use certain weapons with the B button. Kevin also has a knee slide attack that can be used by holding down mid-run. This will be your main weapon in the game, but that isn’t always your saving tool, as I’ll divulge into further in this review
The game is broken into five levels, each based loosely on events from the movie. The game starts at the Plaza hotel, where Kevin has been caught using a stolen credit card. You have to survive through the hotel, dodging Rob Schneider, who will choke the life out of you if you get caught (No, he’ll literally cost you one life if caught). You’ll also contend with jumping grandmas, luggage carriers, and evil possessed vacuums.
You’ll be left with no set understanding of what to do, so more than likely, your travel will end on the first screen for a while. What you have to do, is get to the end of the area with the elevators, and press repeatedly on the button, while dodging flying luggage to open the elevator doors. This is where the controls will start to feel crappy. Sometimes you can use your knee attack to instantly destroy the oncoming luggage. But sometimes it won’t work. It’s usually best to time your jumps and avoid taking damage.
From there you’ll go from floor to floor. You’ll have to enter each floor, and go from right to left before you can enter the elevator again. You do this until you eventually make it to the kitchen, where you have to defeat the head chef by… undressing him? I haven’t watched the film fully in a while, but I don’t think that happens in the movie. After that, you have to make it through central park. Dodging crooks, and rats. Even going through the sewers, which are filled with pigeons dropping worms on you. If you manage to make it through there, you’ll enter your uncle’s townhouse, and finally face off with the crooks. Though good luck with some of the worst platforming in the game.
You have to jump from tiny beam to tiny beam, and chances of error are extremely high due to the design of the beams. They come off looking larger than they are, so those said chances of error are increased even higher. You need to find the keys in each floor, and trek back to the door at the start of each floor that will take you upwards until you make it to the roof. This level is kinda neat because you actually can lure Marv and Harry into several traps that will take them out.
And after surviving that level, Kevin will then slide down the fire escape, and be chased by Marv. You’ll aways have to be on the move, which makes this harder than it sounds because literally everything is coming to get you. Bats, falling flower pots, flying trash can lids, even a safe gets dropped on you.
If you can avoid all that, you get to the last level of the game where you’ll have to climb the giant Christmas tree in Rockefeller Centre, while once again avoiding Marv and Harry. Thankfully, when you make it to the top, you can get help from the Pigeon Lady, who will seed the crooks long enough for pigeons to damage them. If you can survive long enough, you’ll beat the game, but unfortunately get a rather underwhelming ending.
Kevin starts with three lives and five hit points. Lose them all, and it’s clearly game over. And of course, there are no continues, and no passwords. It’s one of those “Short but challenging” games, where the game’s difficulty is ramped up due to the lack of content. And with the short length of most of the levels (the hotel being the longest in the game) that is definitely the case here. Which makes this game a pisser, since you’ll need every life and hit point to survive.
There are several items Kevin can use to survive. Most hidden in areas you’ll have to jump around to get, while others in plain sight. There are 4-packs of cookies. When you tally up 20, you’ll get one extra hit point. Then there are cheese pizzas, Kevin’s beloved delicacy. Collect five slices for an extra life, or an entire pie for an instant one up. There are candy canes, which make him invincible for a short amount of time, bottles of aftershave that make him faster, and gives him the power to jump higher. And finally there’s the bell, which will… let Kevin do the screw attack? Well, that’s an odd duck.
There are also weapons Kevin can possess. First are the pearls, which you can use to trip up enemies nearing you. Then there’s the dart gun, which will stop your enemy for a matter of seconds. There’s the boxing glove gun, which will defeat most enemies, and the super glove gun, that can defeat stronger enemies in one hit. This little brat is at least armed to the teeth.
The hit detection is bad in this game. Really bad. As previously mentioned, sometimes the slide will work great and take out whatever enemies are prone to it, most times it won’t. And as mentioned previously, jumping is bad, since you can’t always predict how well you’ll land on a platform. On the other hand, at least the game does take an effort in following the film well enough. But not enough to make it a fun experience.
GRAPHICS
The game has bland, forgettable graphics. They do use cut scenes that do their best to represent moments in the film, but even they aren’t all that good looking. Levels are all awful colors, and get crappier as the game goes on with ugly browns and greens throughout the latter levels. All in all, it’s a filthy looking game IMO.
MUSIC
The music in the game is very high pitched, and not very pleasing to the ear. Which is a shame since they do use the main Home Alone theme during the first level. You’ll also immediately notice that the sounds for picking up items, and getting hurt sound awful familiar. The game’s sound was done by the same person who worked on the audio for the Simpsons games on the NES, not to mention the same sound that would be used in several other games for THQ. Which in turn would explain the crappiness in general that this game suffers through.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is a terrible licensed platformer. Surprisingly worse than the game that preceded it. It suffers from an annoying difficulty bundled with terrible controls, and a lack of help when trying to understand certain goals you need to do to survive each level. It’s paired with bland graphics, and a forgettable soundtrack. This is a far better example of the sheer terrible nature of THQ games in the NES era. And no, unlike the last game, I don’t have a secret soft spot for this one. It’s just downright trash. Avoid this one. This game is a New York nightmare.
RATING: Thumbs Down