Fester's Quest

"An Addams Family game worthy of playing....somewhat.."

Shooters that take on a slightly different attitude and tone, and especially when they revolve around the Addams Family, are rather rare to see. In this little outing, you play as the lovable, undeniable Fester and your job is to stop the invading horde of aliens from destroying your hometown and everything that you love! All right, enough with the suspenseful and rather lackluster plot to the game that is older than the Nintendo Company itself and let’s get down to it, shall we? Fester’s Quest is a game that features plenty of action with a limited tie to an RPG trait and rolls them all up into a single game that takes plenty of time and patience to complete. Add on to this that some of the visuals in the game, although well detailed, have a tendency to completely and totally disappear from view when the action gets too intense, you’ll find that Fester’s Quest is little more than a Guerilla War variation with a fat bald headed guy as your main hero! Action gamers will probably get a kick out of this game, simply because there is plenty to shoot at and some strategy to learn, while anyone else will find that the game is nothing more than ‘been there, done that’ gaming.

The game play is relatively simple in which you control Fester through several different areas in town that range from the streets to the sewers and really have nothing more than hordes of enemies to fight against in the process. You’ll go from exploration to find different items to facing off against incredibly challenging boss characters that will test not only your skills as an action gamer, but your patience as well! One of the best elements that the game has to offer is that you can pick up different power up items that will dramatically increase your weapon status. You have a pair of weapons, one of which is very useful while the other is nothing more than a skill testing useless item that really has no business in the game. Through collection of different sphere’s, you’ll be able to either increase the ability of your gun or whip upwards with collection of blue globes, or down and away with the collection of red globes. In all honesty, the game couldn’t be any simpler than it is when it comes to the run and gun style action that it portrays. Unfortunately though, you have to devote a ton of time into the game, because there is no save feature and passwords aren’t an option here either!

Control is another factor in which the NES control seems to suffer from some serious lack of responsive capabilities and you may end up looking at a dead fat man if you’re not careful! The Ghost Control that you find here in the game can be so bad at points, that actually getting through the game is more of a chore than it is a challenge and therefore takes away from the overall enjoyment of the game. There is nothing here that is terribly difficult to learn either. All you have to really do is point Fester in a particular direction and start firing off against whatever comes your way. Any gamer of any skill level and experience can pick up this game and go with the simple to use controls, so if you’re thinking that the game is all that impossible to control, it really isn’t.

Visually, the game has it’s good points, with most of those being when you’re on the inside of buildings. To me personally, it looks more like something out of the original Phantasy Star, but you’ll find that most of the game is spent in the overhead view fighting the various aliens! Now, the aliens really don’t have much detail or even variation to them, and with the NES muting the colors and blurring some of the finer detail, it may be exceptionally hard to actually see just what is going on during the game. If you add into this that the game tends to completely break up visually when there is too much action on the screen, then you’ll find that it is just more reason to create a headache further into the game!

The audio that you find here is nothing more than strange pop music that is placed to be a mood arousing adventure into the game, but seems to come off as a little too quiet. In most cases, you’ll be too busy with the effects that seem to blare through the speakers to really know just what in the hell is going on with the music anyway! The effects alone are nothing more than a ton of bleeps and bloops with some screeching sounds thrown in for good measure. In all honesty, there is no real reason that you can’t just mute the damned game and listen to something that is worthy of your ears, saving both a headache and the effort of having to open an aspirin bottle.

While Fester’s Quest isn’t exactly a terrible game, it isn’t one of the most best presented games that I’ve found out there on the market yet. You’ll find that the game features some of the most cookie-cutter action gaming, but gives you the infamous fat-man {no, not Mario} with a gun, a whip, and plenty of different aliens to fire off at! However, the game suffers from a couple of above average killers that come up with the choppy visuals and missing animation frames, the lackluster audio track and the severe Ghost Control that comes up when you’re really trying to get through the game. If you’re deep into action games that feature small problems like this, and really have no originality to them, then you’ll find that this addition to the Addams Family series is nothing more than another action game to notch your belt with. But if you’re looking for a game that features some truly innovative gaming with different features that you’ve never seen before, then you’ll find that Fester’s Quest is just another one of those games that never got enough wattage to the bulb to make it burn bright!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/02, Updated 01/02/02