The Addams Family

"Mystery of Life #344: What does Gomez smoke to grin like that all the time?"

Movies to game conversions don’t always come across as anything that has to do with the actual movie. When you add this in with the long track record of what the Nintendo Entertainment System has to offer you with different games that are supposed to represent the movie or even action television shows, you’ll find that games such as the Addams Family is a result! Putting you in control of the ever-smiling Gomez Addams, you must trek through your huge ass house looking for the other members of your family and collect money to ultimately rescue Morticia from the clutches of evil kidnappers. As with most action games of this type, you have a sub-standard story that really doesn’t link up tot he movie other than the different characters that you run across and the standard Addams Family name. With an exceptionally high difficulty that is attached to the game, on top of it being a one time through kind of game in which you only play one-player, Addams Family is one of those prime examples of what not to do with a movie conversion game!

The game play is strictly run and jump gaming with plenty of platforms and otherwise thrown in for good measure. Most of the game is spent wandering through the various rooms of the house, looking for other family members and amounts of money that you can save to use on saving Morticia from the kidnappers. Through your trekking in the house, you’ll face off against some wild looking enemies and different types of boss characters that will try to keep you from completing your goal! Something that you’ll find though is that Gomez, in all of his smiling glory, doesn’t take damage the same way that you would expect from other platform action games. When an enemy nails you, a small life meter counts down and if you’re constantly touching an enemy when you get hit, then you’ll find yourself deader than a doornail in just a few short seconds. This only adds to the frustration that the traps seem to cause at a regular basis, and you may find that the difficulty is set too high if you’ve been away from the NES games for too long. Once you’ve gotten the hang of the game and how it is played, then you’ll find that much of the game is just simple exploration of everything around you and that can become slightly repetitive all in itself!

The control of Addams Family is limited to jumping, ducking and moving back and forth on the screen to either attack or avoid your enemies. Traps and otherwise require timing and precision, but most gamers will probably find that the game doesn’t off either of those two aspects! The NES controller has never been known, or ever will be known for having the best, precise control in any video game, and this title is no different than the others. Timing on killing the enemies that you face off against requires you to know just when to jump, and with the slow response of the NES controller, you may find that this task alone will take an hour to learn effectively. Beginners shouldn’t start here with this game, simply because the difficulty of the game itself is ramped up so high that anyone with very little action gaming skill won’t be able to learn the controls, and therefore get frustrated.

Visually, the game suffers from lack of detail and some severe image break up in some of the most critical points of the game. While the stages that you roam through are huge, the lack of detail in any of them is limited to pictures that have eyes move and the enemies that come at you! Once thing that sticks out in my mind directly is the fact that Gomez has this permanent grin on his face that doesn’t go away no matter what happens to him. If you can withstand that, then you’ll notice that Gomez himself doesn’t have much detail and moves rather stiffly. The attacking animations are strictly Super Mario in their presentation, so if you’re looking for something cool and wild, then you’re really looking in the wrong place. Sorry for ya.

There is something to be said about the Addams Family theme song, and although it’s nice to hear every once in a while, the game is a constant loop track with the same damned song every thirty seconds or so! There are some other tracks in the game, don’t get me wrong, but when you compare them to what you hear for most of the game, you’ll find that it really is the same thing, only with a little variation thrown on top. The sound effects themselves are strictly action game standard in which you have your usual bleeps and bloops that don’t really mesh with the game, and in some instances for a brief shining moment, you have the distinct sound of something crashing to the ground. However, these instances are so few and far between, that you probably won’t notice them amongst the rest of the noise that is happening in the background of the game!

For a movie to game conversion, Addams Family is average at best, with much of the game emphasis being placed on trying to hook in the avid movie fans. With the side scrolling adventure, the ramped up difficulty and the way that Gomez moves, there is only one conclusion for me in this case, and that is the game isn’t put together all that well! If you can sink your teeth into an extremely challenging, yet long game, then you may find that this title ranks up there enough to belong in your revered collection. But if you’re looking for a game that has more depth, more characters playable, more of anything and a learning curve that doesn’t feed you to the wolves, then you may need to look elsewhere, cause Addams Family just doesn’t cut it.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/01, Updated 12/27/01