The Addams Family

"Kooky, spooky and ooky. I love it."

Mysterious and kooky and altogether awesome. It's the Addams Family, everyone's favourite friendly psychopaths ready to roll in this awesome platform adventure game. And the shocker? This game was actually awesome! So let's get into why.

STORY
While the box art would imply this game was based on the film, you won't get that idea from the story. And this is old school SNES at it's finest so there isn't even really a story at all. You spend the game as Gomez Addams, the father with great swordsman skills and a damn fine moustache. His entire family has been stolen away by some random monsters and spread about through the house, which is apparently bigger than a airport. You gotta save your kids, your brother, even old Grandmama too. And you need the family to open up the vault where your wife is being held by the boss monster. That's as much of a story you'll get.

GRAPHICS
Now the Addams Family went for a real cartoony feel so I found myself playing and wondering: “Is Gomez a midget?” Of course he isn't but that's just the style the game is. All of the characters are short happy caricatures of themselves and the enemies you come across in the game are all weird spooky haunted house style creatures that are looking to give you a beat down. The environments you walk around are basically a series of blocky rooms complete with paintings for backgrounds. Or at least that's what I thought of it. I will give credit to the various places you go though. Gomez finds himself entering a giant freezer, underground, inside a screwed up greenhouse, inside a giant furnace, there are a whole slew of places that probably don't make sense but they all look great.

SOUND
The music was awesome. Of course they throw in the actual Addams Family theme in there complete with snapping fingers, but the original music is something else let me tell you. It's catchy and intense and I loved the heck out of it. And the game also features sound effects. Shocked? But seriously I don't really know how else to describe them. They do an adequate job and really that's all you need to know. The music rocks.

GAMEPLAY
Alrighty so what about this 2D game makes it a classic? Why it would be the fun addictive gameplay. As I said before this is a platform adventure game where you play as Gomez and search through the big Addams' Family Mansion in search of your family who's been taken hostage by the evil unexplained monsters. If you wanna talk about a game that isn't linear, this is the one to get. You start off in the main hall and there are doors everywhere. They all lead to different sections of the house and each section more than likely holds a boss creature somewhere. So you don't have to actually play the game in a certain order. If you wanna try looking in the greenhouse first, by all means go ahead!

And an interesting thing to note is that not all bosses are holding a family member of yours. Quite a few of these bosses take a good effort to reach them, and all they're holding is an extra heart container to beef up your health. You start out with 2 hearts only, but by finding these heart containers you can increase it. I love the non-linear gameplay and the health upgrades and I'll tell you why. If you're one of those gamers who wants a really challenging game, a good little test of your endurance would be to try and beat the entire game with a measly two hearts. It can be done but damn is it challenging.

Our friend Gomez comes across a variety of enemies. Some which are stupid and walk back and forth in a straight line. Others like to fly around like crazy and try and swoop down at you. Our friend Gomez isn't the most resourceful of heroes so he pretty much only has one attack, that being to jump on somebody's head. But Gomez can pick up various little toys that'll help him deal out some real punishment to his enemies. My favourite weapon is the sword which Gomez can use to not only strike things in front of him, but he can also swing it up above him to take care of any annoying bats or things that should get in your way.

The other weapon he can pick up is a ball...thing. You can pick up a white ball that allows you to throw a whole bunch of balls at your enemies. So in other words: just think of it as flower power from the Super Mario games. He shoots multiple balls that go forward and bounce on the ground. It's pretty much the exact same powerup. But one thing Mario doesn't have are is the propeller hat! Because the law of physics don't apply here Gomez can pick up and put on a propeller hat which gives him the ability to fly anywhere he wants.....for a short period of time. Limited powerups make Clement angry! The hat comes in handy for those tight situations where you need to traverse past a giant room filled with spikes everywhere. Which makes me beg the question, who the hell is the architect for this mansion anyway?! But I digress.

The boss fights are fun and simple. Every boss you come across is 3 or 4 times the size of our midget Gomez too. They may look daunting, but trust me, they all have their patterns which show off their weaknesses. They aren't puzzling enemies to beat though so don't expect to be dealing Ninja Gaiden levels of difficulty. (Ninja Gaiden was ridiculously hard. In case you were wondering.) And the game doesn't have a save system but it does have a password system. You get passwords when you beat the bosses, and ONLY when you beat the bosses. So note to new players, write it down when it shows up. Anyhoo, that's the game in a nutshell. You will no doubt see your character die on screen a lot, but the game is never so frustrating that you hate the game.

IN THE END...
I love this game. It's a simple platform action with great music and non-linear gameplay. It also features a sweet soundtrack. The Addams Family succeeds in my book and if you can ever find this gem, buy it immediately. You won't be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/11/07