Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure

"Stay away from this game. Really, do."

I had never heard of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure until one of my friends gave it to me for my birthday. So, I naturally played it. I was not impressed. The game starts with the father of Harry, the main character, getting kidnapped. And, from there… well, I don't know. The story in this game is very loose, and I have still not been able to figure it out more than the basics.

But, even a game with a bad story can still have good graphics, right? Well, yes. The graphics in this game are not too bad, surprisingly. Harry and the enemies have pretty limited animations, which get boring really quickly. The background, on the other hand, is well made and looks nice. Such items such as vines don't really move more than left and right, making the whole thing kind of bland.

Even though graphics are okay, the sound is not. Sound in this game is pretty much non-existing. There is no background music at all. The only sounds you will hear are the occasional birds chirp or Harry grunting as he gets run over by a monkey. Music would have helped this game A LOT.

But, we all know that the game play is one of the more important parts of the game, right? Well, this game does not have good game play. Such things as swinging on vines and grabbing onto ledges can be a nightmare. Often, if you do not have good enough timing, you will fail in doing these things. And that gets annoying. Really annoying. But, all is not like this horrible nightmare. For the most part, the game plays like a regular platformer, but in a cheaper way.

Aside from having bad game play, this game is pathetically hard. While the normal enemies, such as the monkeys, are a real breeze, the bosses are damn hard. They have no sensible patterns of attack, and one attack will all but kill you. It gets to be really frustrating, especially since it starts on level one. If the game designers would have taken the time too balance the monkey and the cheetah (the boss) out, the game would flow much better.

As for replay value, the game doesn't offer much. Because of the difficulty, you will most likely not want to replay this sad excuse for a game.

Please, what ever you do, do not buy this god-awful game. Please, just don't.

Final score: A lousy 3 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/23/04, Updated 06/08/04