Developed and published by Ocean Software for the NES in 1992, The Addams Family is a cute and spooky platform game based on the 1991 Paramount film of the same name, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld.

The NES version follows much of the standard Ocean template for most of the game and it very much has its own look and visual style, and a few unique features of its own.

I liked the Gomez sprite a lot in this. He always seems to be looking upwards, but the look on his face is priceless in some situations. He unfortunately doesn’t look at the player, like Gomez does in the Megadrive and SNES versions. Which is a pity because I liked that detail in the other versions. He at least doesn’t put his hand into his pocket when he jumps! 🙂

Colour use in The Addams Family is somewhat restricted due to system limitations, but overall I think the game looks really good. Solid 2D pixel art.

The black suit on black backgrounds sometimes makes Gomez blend into the background. The suit’s dark contrast also leads to some striking visuals in other ways though. I eventually warmed to it.

The NES port is not the worst version of The Addams Family out there, but it’s not the best either. It’s sort of in the middle. But it’s still decent enough to warrant playing nowadays.

More: The Addams Family (video game) on Wikipedia