#26 - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

You must be THIS high to enjoy this game.



Now you're playing with power.

I believe it was Mark Twain that said, "A book is only as good as its movie or game adaptation." Well, if such a saying was ever said or if it's just one of those ol' mythical statements that gets passed around from time immemorial, I would challenge the person who said it to a duel. If the book was as good as this game, we'd have pronounced Mark Twain a hack and given him up to the dregs of history long ago. I'm rambling a bit here in this introductory paragraph, but here's a statement that sums it all up: this game should never have been made.

Seta, the makers of such outrageous gaming classics as "8 Eyes" and "The Wizard of Oz," are the masterminds behind this "adaptation." According to the "cutscenes" in the game, Tom Sawyer has fallen asleep and is now dreaming that he's up to some no-good adventures, including fighting octopi and shmup river rafting. The graphics are nothing short of excrement. Controlling Tom actually made my guts churn a little bit, because he looks like a young boy dressed in old fat man's clothes; certainly not an appealing main character. The AI is non-existent, as you can easily destroy enemies by just pressing the A button and unleashing a barrage of rocks. Control is actually quite good, and it's this saving grace that prevents the game from being worse than it is. Music suits the game well, but it's nothing you'll remember after switching off your Nintendo.

Truth be told, besides the graphics, there's nothing really wrong with the game. There's just no reason for its existence. The stages aren't memorable in any way; the only challenge is provided through faulty game mechanics, and once you figure out how to exploit those, you can easily breeze through the game; and the game itself is very unsettling to look at - like a child went to town with a 99 cent Tom Sawyer coloring book, where Tom resembles a misshapen hunchback. You can apparently play as Huck in two-player mode, but I doubt it really changes the gameplay. What it boils down to is a mediocre game with a book license. Pass.

D