REAL GAMES - THE ADDAMS FAMILY: PUGSLEY'S SCAVENGER HUNT

I really didn't want to play this, but it had to be done.  And for my efforts, I found a surprising good game.  Not exactly the trifecta of suck I was expecting.

Continuing where I left off in the last review, the stretch of The Addams Family franchise is long and confusing.  After the success of the first 90's movie (and I am speaking only in box office terms), Hanna Barbera released a short-lived cartoon for ABC.  However, the cartoon was based loosely around the newspaper comic from the 30's and had nothing to do with the movies.  This was the only form of The Addams Family that I personally enjoyed.  It was strange, yet entertaining.  It also had a pretty amazing cast of voice actors, including John Austin, who played Gomez in the original 60's tv show as well.  Even though the cartoon only lasted 2 seasons, it was more than enough to get its own video game.  Seriously though, the Super Nintendo would make games out of anything on tv.

Phantom 2040 was a cartoon that lasted less than one season.  It was a story based around Billy Zane's grandson fighting robots in the future.  Even this pile of crap got its own SNES game.

Starting the game, it would appear that this is just a sprite change from the first SNES Addams Family game.  Thankfully, this could not be further from the truth.  Almost every problem with the first game has been corrected...almost. 

The controls are still only 2 buttons.  But instead of an attack, we have a run button.  I assume the game developers considered using both attack and run, but that would require even more effort on their part.  Regardless, this is still better than the pointless attack in the first game.

The soundtrack however has improved substantially.  Instead of the generic shit from the first game looping into oblivion, we are given much clearer music that better suits the mood of the game.  They took out the annoying bicycle horn sound effect; unfortunately, they also increased the fart sound effects 100 fold.  It makes more sense here though, since we are playing as Pugsley and not Gomez.

This game has also improved the visuals by a great amount.  Each stage is unique, and both Pugsley and the monsters have a lot more detail to them.  Even the cut scenes with the other family members look better.  This too has its downsides though, as the backgrounds make it a little hard to see what the hell is going on.  Definitely an A for effort though.

Couldn't think of a picture to go with anything else, so have a grown up and sexy Wednesday Addams.

And now for the greatest improvement of them all: the gameplay!  Whereas the first game was way too short and easy, this game is long and fucking hard.  Every area has challenging platforming, hidden secrets, and they even have some puzzles thrown in.

This is what the first game should have been instead of the poorly made cash in that it was.  It still had its own problems, but it was genuinely fun to play.  I'm giving Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt a 3 creepy looking Uncle Festers out of 5.  However, just because this game was good, I refuse to get my hopes up for the next in the Addams Family trilogy.

The ending is pretty lame.  This is all you get...but at least I got called a great gamesplayer.  Whatever the fuck that is.