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a good game for the gba

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I played the game on the pc, the gameboy color and now saw it on the gba. So i picked it up hoping it to be as good as the pc version since i did not like the gameboy color version. All i have to say are positive things for this game. If you like arcade scrollers u'll like this one...

Witty character dialogue isn't the only joke here

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Here's an example of what happens when too much effort is put into witty character dialogue and not enough is put into making a fun game. Effort was also put into the graphics. Between making everything look good and inserting humorous dialogue at every turn, the designers of this game apparently forgot to give us decent game-play.

Pitfall Harry is on yet another expedition with a professor friend and a lady he has the hots for. The plane crashes, the survivors are scattered about the Amazon jungle, and Harry has to find them while collecting treasure, slaying scorpions, and battling numerous tribal bad guys.

The game starts out promising, with a nice-looking side-scroller level. The graphics here are sharp. Everything looks great. Harry is very well animated, as are the scorpions and other creatures he encounters during his travels. The backgrounds are impressive, sporting some great detail. When Harry slays the nearby scorpion with his slingshot, a ghost of the creature rises from its corpse. This is a typical platforming level. Slay the scorpions and other creatures, jump up and grab ledges, find a treasure or two... It looks great and plays fine.

But this was just a gimmick to draw us in, for this game is more than just platforming. Soon we are hang gliding, tobogganing down a mud slide, mountain climbing, jumping on logs in a swamp Frogger style, and doing other things that turn out to be incredibly annoying. This game follows a linear motif across several different worlds. Each world starts out with a thrill-seeking level (hang gliding, tobogganing, etc), then a top-down level, then two side-scroller levels, then a boss.

The only thrill-seeking level I actually enjoyed was the hang gliding. It's sort of like a top-down shooter. A stupid one. But it was fun. Harry hang glides and tosses rocks at tribesmen and birds who are coming after him. The rest of these levels are a bothersome chore to get through. Harry toboggans down a mud slide while avoiding harmful obstacles. He climbs an ice cliff while avoiding suicidal penguins and falling ice cycles. He rides an inner tube down rapids. The Frogger style one is the worst offender. He jumps around on a pogo stick, jumping on logs, lilly pads, and crocodiles. Let's set aside how stupid this is. It's not fun at all. You have to stay ahead of the constantly moving screen while doing all of this. If you get pushed off screen, you lose and have to start over at the beginning. Rather idiotic.

Then we're in an overhead view scene where Harry has to explore, find treasures, and rescue two adventurers (all of whom have broken legs). I didn't mind these parts as much. The jungle scene was pretty nice, sporting some great looking scenery. Piranhas inhabit streams that Harry has to get across. Scorpions, tribesmen, and rock-tossing monkeys all stand in our hero's way, but usually you can just run past them. The later levels feature geysers, flame spouts, and other hazards.

Then we're off to side-scroller land, traversing two platformer levels. The goal here is just to make it to the end and collect a few treasures along the way. There are vines to swing on, crocodiles to jump over, obstacles to avoid, and prevalent tribesmen and creatures. Finally, Harry squares off with a boss, all of which are pretty difficult. Good thing our hero has unlimited lives. The designers seem to want us to play this game all the way through, but they make the journey a difficult and rather annoying one. It doesn't help that the level designs aren't all that interesting to begin with. The bosses aren't all that interesting either. I don't mind being challenged as long as it's worth my while. The payoff here is conspicuously absent.

As mentioned, witty character dialogue is littered throughout the game. Harry has a dry sense of humor. He engages in dialogue with the professor and the girl he has the hots for (both of which have broken legs), he talks to various lost adventurers who all look the same (these guys also have broken legs), he meets a talking jaguar who annoys him, and he makes fun of the tribal bosses before each encounter. There's more witty dialogue here than there is interesting game-play.

Visually, the game looks awesome. Backgrounds during the side-scroller levels all have sharp detail. Harry and his opponents are very well animated. I especially like the scorpions. They did a great job on them. The top-down levels don't look too bad either. Harry leaves footprints in the snow as he traverses a snow-covered mountain (nice touch!). As mentioned, I liked the jungle scene with streams and lakes. I didn't notice the graphics much during the thrill-seeker levels because they were mostly such a chore to get through.

The sound department is a mixed bag. Effects are good. Music ranges from tolerable to quite awful. Some levels have ambient jungle sounds in the background (another nice touch).

But none of this matters because the game is just not fun. I don't care how good it looks. The platforming parts are annoying to work through, the top-down parts are lackluster, and those thrill-seeking parts are just gawd-awful. Perhaps they should've spent less time thinking up witty dialogue and more time working on decent level designs. Whatever potential this game had for greatness was lost in the sheer variety of poorly constructed challenges that Pitfall Harry has to overcome.

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