Game 24: Adventure Island

Adventure Island has a long and storied history, and is almost as synonymous with the name Hudson as Bomberman is.

I have no idea about any of that, of course. This is the first time I've played an Adventure Island game, although a source tells me that this won't be the last one I play.

To be clear, there's a sequel on the Game Boy, and my source is named Looking At A List Of Files.

In any case, I think that it's important that we look at Adventure Island as a historic game before we just jump in to me saying "oh look I played a game, blah blah blah"

Actually let's skip all that. I'm just going to tell you why this game is super, super weird.

Game 23: The Addams Family - Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt

I know what you're thinking. And really, I'm very embarrassed for you.

Anyway, here's another Addams Family game.

I'm not going to tell you that this game is terrible (even though it is), because that sort of negativity never does anyone good, plus we've already covered this ground, haven't we?

Instead, I'm going to tell you why this game is a masterful work of horror.

Of course, I'll be ignoring many things to get to this point, such as intentionality, quality, and most of the game itself. But it will all be worth it, trust me.

But first, some research. Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt is the sequel to the previous Addam's Family game developed by Ocean. It was released simultaneously for the NES, SNES, and Game Boy, back when Nintendo basically owned everything. The NES and SNES versions of this game were also developed by Ocean and were meant to be a more linear, kid-friendly version of the first Addam's Family game.

The Game Boy version was not made by Ocean, but was instead ported by Enigma Variations. As far as I can tell, Enigma Variations' history involves porting a bunch of stuff and then going bankrupt.

Enigma Variations clearly saw the colorful, sensible versions of the game and said "Hey, how about instead of a straight port we turn the game into a non-Euclidian descent into madness?"

Game 22: The Addams Family

The Addams Family is one of my favorite movies, and even the TV show has a special place in my heart. It's all about a purposefully weird set of characters who nonetheless form a functional and supportive family.

In fact, I just rewatched the 1991 movie this Halloween, and it's great. The basic message of "be different!" is just as charming as it was 23 years ago. I also saw a hell of a lot of innuendo between Morticia and Gomez that I never noticed as a kid.

Good god, that clip.

Anyway, if the Addams Family value is "be yourself despite others", then this game certainly lives up to the Addams Family legacy. However, this game adds on a few values of its own, namely "make everyone hate you" and "be really terrible."

But first, the story:

Game 21: Action Man: The Search for Base X

Oh, where to begin, where to begin?

Well, I guess I should begin with a big HELLO to everyone who is reading this after an unknown period of time without new entries.

I say unknown because I dare not check.

Okay, now that we have that over with, let's just state the obvious here: this title screen is god awful. I mean, the only impression a reasonable person could have is that a giant with awful facial hair had mangled the body of a poor hapless skateboarder. All while a chunk of Tiberium sits idly in the corner, irradiating all who would dare linger.

I guess the corpsified knee-pad fellow there is Action Man (TM) considering how pious he looks despite his awkward neck position. That Udo Kier lookalike must be the villain of the story because, c'mon, those eyebrows combined with the goatee? Obvious chicanery going on here.

Alright well let's get started. I gotta say this music is pretty good - nice use of, uh, chiptunes and whatnot.

Game 20: Aa Harimanada

I took 64 screenshots of this game. Hopefully that gives you an idea of how much I liked it. Also, I may or may not have stopped at 64 because the N64 is my favorite console. There's no telling.

Aa Harimanada is a game of little mystery - it's about sumo wrestling, plain and simple. In fact, the first thing I see when I start up the game is the image to the left, that of a very intense sumo wrestler who appears to have a unibrow instead of eyes. Which, yeah, that's cool. I was worried it was going to be a sumo wrestling simulator or something where I had to worry about eating the right meals and throwing puppies through flaming hoops or whatever sumos do to train. But no, that's not it at all. It's much less subtle. But we'll get to that.

First of all, though, this music is bumpin'. Whoever wrote this is a talented chiptuner, and I wish I could play them for you. Oh, wait, I can! I'll just download the GBS file from Zophar's Domain, convert them to WAV, convert the WAV to an OGG, reverse the polarities and recalibrate the electron ratio....



There we go, that's the title music up first, then the in-game music. See? I told you it was bumpin'. Like a bumper car in a pinball machine. ...is bumping even a word people use to describe things anymore? Is it natural for me to drop the g and add an apostrophe? AM I RELEVANT??

Game 19: A-Mazing Tater

I'm not an amazing writer. I use the passive voice too often, my metaphors are shoddy, my similes are confusing, my sentences are often too long with too many commas; can't use semicolons properly or form whole sentences. It's a shame.

But I can do what nobody else is willing to do: play a game about a block-pushing potato like it's 1991.

They should have sent a poet.

In any case, thanks again to the A-Mazing dash, we get another game that really should be closer to the middle of the list. That's okay! I'm glad I played this game now, because gosh I did not know what I was missing.

Let's be clear, though: I wasn't missing anything of importance.

My first impression of this game is that potatoes look a lot like eggs when the sprite is very small. I like the idea of dancing vegetables though, and I'm excited to find out just what kind of A-mazing A-dventures I'll be having as a potato.

Game 18: A-Force

Aaaaand we're back! I took a break so long that you could call it broken (such writing, much simile). As it turns out, 720 Degrees was the last game starting with a number, so now we're onto the first letter'd game! Yay!

And thanks to the magic of dashes, our first game in A is not Aardvark Quest or Aaaaaaapples, but the inspiringly named A-Force. According to the title of the ROM file, it's another Sachen beauty, who you'll remember from 2nd Space as a fine purveyor of unlicensed Nintendo software.

(Speaking of 2nd Space, I now think that game may have originally been written as a pornographic game. Usually, unlicensed games that involve slowly uncovering pictures aren't showing you architecture ifyouknowwhatImean)

Anyway, despite the ROM file saying Sachen, the title screen clearly states that Commin® made this game. Maybe this was just a clever trick to steer Nintendo off Sachen's tail, like a banana peel from a pirate kart.

Right.