Antarctic Adventure (NES) review "It’s no secret. Antarctica is a truly dreadful place. "

It’s no secret. Antarctica is a truly dreadful place.

Just imagine:

~ Endless plains of ice.
~ Hungry polar bears.
~ Frostbite
~ Chances of getting crushed by a comet increase.

Not exactly the most enjoyable country to visit, unless you’re a masochist. However, after playing the quaint “Game & Watch” styled Antarctic Adventure by Konami, you’ll have a pleasanter outlook on the icy barren wasteland which is unfortunately slapped on the ass of our planet.

Playing the role as an extremely enthusiastic penguin, you have to guide him through a long and winding road of obstacles. Like one of these cheesy LCD games that you get free in Burger King nowadays, it has a scrolling foreground that sends a mixture of hazards towards you. Your simple objective is to guide the penguin from one end of the obstacle course to the other in the bastard of a time limit.

Like any other LCD-styled game, you cannot stop your penguin, but you can move him from side to side to avoid holes in the track or to collect any flags that are scattered on the track. Collecting flags isn’t essential for the game’s completion but it adds to your overall points and, if you pick up one of the flashing flags, your penguin will be able to go at his top speed for an unlimited time. Having this item is brilliant as it allows your penguin to zoom through the stage, providing that you don’t hit anything on route.

Thankfully, as well as being able to move horizontally, you can also get your penguin to jump. WHOA! I bet you didn’t see that one coming. Jumping?! In a horizontal-based LCD style game? Yes, our penguin can leap over pits and seals instead of just having to run from side to side. “Big whoop,” you may be saying but, it was actually one of the first games of this genre to incorporate this into its gameplay. So….yeah. I bet you can’t think of anything that tops that. (No, that Sonic game you got from Burger King doesn’t count!)

Although, the “generous” option of being able to play three versions of the game looks like something worth testing, you’ll find that each game is simply a harder version of the previous one. The levels are simply longer and littered with more traps & enemies. As you can imagine, it doesn’t increase the value of the game whatsoever. Just like its NES brethren, Dig Dug and Ice Climber, the game simply keeps on going until you just get fed up of doing the same tasks. So, basically, you don’t even have an aim in Antarctic Adventure except play it until you get bored.

With these points aside, the game does give you a NES rendition of Swan Lake, which doesn’t sound as horrible as you may imagine. In fact, it’s the only feature in the game that you’ll probably remember. Everything else is fun, but the game completely relies on one concrete method of play, which gets extremely tiresome after a few levels. Antarctic Adventure is worth getting for cheap if you’re into rusty old NES games but it’s not something you’d want to go out of your way for. Unless, of course, you’re a masochist! Which you’re not! Right?

Community review by goldenvortex (July 25, 2006) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.