The Addams Family for TurboGrafx-CD was developed by ICOM Simulations, Inc. and first published by NEC Technologies in 1991. It does not follow the template of all the Ocean ports of this game. It instead does its own thing entirely and takes advantage of the audio streaming from the CD by adding lots more sound and speech. Which gives it a distinctive “talkie” feel.
In this game you play as Tully Alford, the sneaky Addams Family lawyer, who is looking to swindle the family out of their mansion. The family learn of the scheme and lie in wait to ambush him as he sneaks around.
The cut scenes are pathetic: a single digital still from the film, with the actor’s voices talking over it. It just seems like really unimaginative game design to me. Pity, really. Some of the graphics in this game are really rough too, like the title screen, which I think was scanned, coloured, and then absolutely mangled by an artist somewhere in a darkened room in Manchester. Probably high on drugs as well, the bugger! 😉
The gameplay itself is fairly rough too. As Tully you have an umbrella that can fire bolts out the front towards enemies. You can also jump and duck, and that’s about it.
This version of The Addams Family does have the large mansion with doors leading to different locations. This time, though, you have to find the right-coloured keys to open the correct doors. Which is a massive ball ache, frankly.
Arguably the most annoying thing about this version of The Addams Family are the goddamn bats! They look cute as they fly past you, only to turn around and swoop down to then harass you. Once a bat has latched on to you it then becomes really difficult to shake off, so you’re well advised to jump up and shoot them whenever they’re first spotted. Which is easier said than done… Also easier said than done is dealing with the spiders that drop from the ceiling and then proceed to harass you on the ground. The bats, combined with the spiders, make for a highly, highly frustrating survival combination!
There are some nice touches in this game, like the golfer in the first level who is constantly hitting balls towards you (he’s very annoying, but you can’t help but laugh when you realise that he’s fully-animated in the background), or the play area surround of an audience watching a film on a big screen. Which I thought was superb.
Overall, though, this game is nothing special, just unusual. Tully‘s animation is excellent, but his umbrella weapon is pretty lame. I liked that I wasn’t playing as Gomez again, but the designers don’t seem to have taken real advantage of the character change.
Fighting against The Addams Family is interesting, but Tully Alford‘s umbrella makes the whole thing a slog. Why not Tully Alford‘s M16? Or Tully Alford‘s pump-action shotgun? Or Tully Alford‘s BASEBALL BAT? Anything, but just a lone bloody umbrella!
The umbrella may have been a poor choice of weapon, but the game remains a definite anomaly of interest. The Addams Family on the TurboGrafx-CD is a curious addition to the Addams Family videogame series.
More: The Addams Family (video game) on Wikipedia
