Pitfall: The Lost Expedition Horror Games Review

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Title: Pitfall: The Lost Expedition
Format: CD-ROM
Score:
Platform: Windows 98
Publisher: Aspyr Media
Hits: 191

Review of Pitfall: The Lost Expedition

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Comments for Pitfall: The Lost Expedition

• Posted on 2007-09-05
  Pitfall: The Lost Expedition
  
  I'm an old school fan of this franchise. The play control of this game is excellent and coupled with a fun physics engine. You will not find the game childish as you may other platformers. Excellent heroesque music, beautifull graphics and steady pitfall style challenges will capture your imagination and draw you into a simple, yet entertaining plot centered around discovering an ancient power & a lost fabled city. And the constant challenges of pitfalling, will delight your sense of accomplishment or possibly frustrate you at times. All in all, a positively brilliant title.
  
  My only caution, is to point out that the game will not minimize to the task bar - so be sure your computer is optimized for it before you get into the game, and try to save often.
  
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• Posted on 2005-01-20
  Pitfall is pretty cool!
  
  I picked up Pitfall: The Lost Expedition because of it's nostalgia factor, and because I like mascot platformers. As soon as I saw it, I caught myself thinking "oh, cool--a new Pitfall game"--it didn't take long after that for me to talk myself into buying it. Little did I realize however, that I would be in for a true treat. Pitfall manages to avoid committing many of the sins which are normally all too common in console ports. The game supports rumblepads, has pretty good graphics, and perhaps best of all, doesn't force you to switch between using your gamepad, and keyboard/mouse when you exit to the menus. It has also been updated to be comparable to modern platformers nicely.
  
  Pitfall stays pretty true to it's original gameplay forumula of running and jumping puzzles, but also adds several new conventions to the mix, such as a treasure hunt, climbing and scaling walls and cliffs, and even rescuing a damsel in distress (as well as other explorers and comrades). There's even an interesting over arch to the story centered around an ancient power, and a legendary lost city. This keeps the game interesting, and drives the action along. Paying homage to it's forebears, Harry's long standing friend from Pitfall 2 "Quickclaw" returns in this installment--though as a jaguar this time whereas he was originally a lion. His presence isn't just cursory either--you find out much later that he plays an important role in the story. Harry himself has been modernized as well havng allot more personality, a stylized look, and new moves too--among them are several unlockable "heroic actions" which you can either purchase (with recovered idols) from one of the game's many shamans (who also sells maps, health powerups, and other useful items), or unlock them as you progress by finding heroic handbook pages. And you're going to need them as Harry will be racing against a rival explorer for the treasure and artifacts (as well as the lives of his friends), and fighting in croc filled swamps against screaming natives, as well as a variety of idiginous critters. Many of your enemies like the scorpions and crocodiles are familiar, but offer new challenges. There are as you might expect, a fun assortment of "native" games, and bonus challenges scattered thoughout the game as well. The graphics while not spectacular, are pretty impressive for a game with such modest system specs (though those water effects need some help) as you'll notice nice detail touches like Harry's hair blowing in the wind, his backpack bouncing on his shoulders as he runs, his breath pluming in the cold (during the snow levels), and even some fairly detailed, and nice looking 3D backgrounds. Throughout, the levels are large, colorful, fun to explore, and nicely decorated.
  
  Pitfall has also been modernized in the sense that it fully embraces dual analong gamepads, and is a bit innovative in the way it uses them--the right joystick controls Harry's right hand, and you will use it for a variety of imaginative things like grabbing idols, throwing dynamite, paddling the raft, climbing with the pick-axes, shooting with the sling, and accessing inventory items. At several points, Activision also throws in sly jokes, and tributes to previous Pitfall installments as you find that it even contains an emulator which includes full versions of "Pitfall!" and "Pitfall 2: Lost Caverns" as playable mini-games. More than that, playing these games, and reaching certain scoring threshholds in them grants codes which unlock different outfits for Harry to wear in-game (Nicole, Old School Harry, and Pusca) as well as a few handy cheats. I thought this was a nice touch as other games with bonus/mini-games like "Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut" contain them purely for your enjoyment, and that's fine--but here, Activision has gone one better, and there is an in-game reward for playing them. But then, would it truly be Pitfall if like all Pitfall installments, it didn't have the original Atari safari stuffed into it somewhere? Overall, Pitfall: The Lost Expedition is a game which remembers it's roots, and I find that refreshing. Fans paying attention will notice nods to nearly all previous Pitfall adventures in the presence of Quickclaw (from the early 2D Pitfall games), the tiki statues pointing the way for you to go (from Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure) and the health re-fill fountains, and pick-axes (from Pitfall 3D). Truly, David Crane (desigher of the original game) would be proud.
  
  I can find little to complain about in Pitfall save that it doesn't implement a true "save anywhere" system (you re-start at the beginning of an area regardless of where you save) so like many platformers, there is a slight reliance on a frustration factor to keep you playing at times, but the game doesn't seem to over-rely on it. The game isn't a system hog, and doesn't seem to demand inordinately high system system specs. However, the game is one of those rare ones which will not minimize to the taskbar--which could be a problem given that without any way of opening the task manager, or returning to desktop, it would force a hard re-set if the game were to freeze up, or otherwise become unresponsive--thus, it's advisable to play it with background programs and/or processes minimized. Mercifully enough though, problems like these seem rare--on the whole, the game seems very stable, and well behaved. The game is fun, at times funny, entirely family friendly, and in many ways stays remarkably true to the franchises roots while still managing to update its' self impressively. Indeed: there's allot to like about this newest Pitfall installment, and I would find it difficult to mount a convincing arguement against it being the most fun, and compelling entry in the franchise yet. Overall, I'm satisfied with my purchase, and don't see myself selling, or trading this game. There were moments when I caught myself wishing I had a game guide (also available here on amazon--search for "Pitfall Harry Official Strategy Guide"), but the puzzles and brain teasers don't seem terribly abstract, or overly difficult. But make no mistake: Pitfall's main selling points are it's personality, and high nostalgia factor. For a game that launched as a value title (I paid $30.00 because it was a new release, but I've seen it on the bargain rack since then for less), you'll be hard pressed to beat "Pitfall: The Lost Expedition" for old school platforming fun.
  
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