Game Boy Advance

Pitfall: The Lost Expedition

Before Mario, there was Pitfall Harry--jumping over scorpions and swinging across vines in his own Indiana Jones-style adventure on the Atari 2600. What players remember most about the original Pitfall games were how unforgiving they were. Landing in a pit or falling into a crocodile's mouth would simply kill you. Pitfall: The Lost Expedition for the Game Boy Advance isn't nearly that tough, but it does stay true to Harry's roots in various ways. There is plenty of platform-jumping and vine-swinging to be had, and you'll need split-second reflexes (as well as the constant use of the continue function) to advance past some of the game's nastier obstacles. Along the way, you'll find all of the trappings that you'd expect to find in a modern platformer on the GBA. Minigame tasks and plot scenes crop up frequently, and the character animation is so smooth--not to mention hilarious--that most players will come away genuinely entertained when all is said and done.

Pitfall! biggest claim to fame is that it was arguably the first game in what's known as the "platform" videogame genre, and Pitfall Harry was the first platformer hero. Everyone who had an Atari 2600 had a copy of Pitfall! because it was something entirely unique; platformers weren't considered a cliche in the market yet, and while it wasn't exclusively responsible for the rise of the Super Mario Bros. design, David Crane's design at least got to market before the genre really took off during the 8-bit system days of the mid-80s. And because of the lingering trademark in the minds of the retrogamer, every system generation Activision blows off the dust of its namesake to create a new game in the Pitfall franchise.

I recall when Activision changed video gaming forever. Activision was an upstart game maker trying to get noticed by Atari users in the early 80s. One day, in an issue of (the now defunct) Video Gaming magazine, I saw a one page ad for "Pitfall Harry". There was a screen shot of a "stick figure" man facing off with a cobra. How weird that looked??!! I had been playing Asteroids, Space Invaders and Combat!, but here was this NEW type of game. I was intrigued. A trip to my local Sears (where I used to play games on their version of the Atari) changed my gaming expectations-- forever. Though I never was really good at it, a friend bought the game and I tried to Master it every chance I got.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend Pitfall The Lost Expedition. You will want to love this game, but you won't. The jumpy camera, the silly broken-legged story, and questioning weapons will leave players feeling empty. This game has everything to make a solid platformer, but a little more time in development could have could put this game on par with the other great games on the system. If you want to play a great Pitfall game, play the Atari version, or better yet, check out Activision Anthology on GBA.

n conclusion, the game simply has too many design flaws for it to get anywhere near the quality level of its predecessors. While technically respectable and occasionally exciting, the gameplay is far too generic and the controls are far too unintuitive to make this game a worthy purchase.

Nostalgia is a fabulous thing. The passage of time buffers our memories and makes even the darkest of past unpleasantries -- that time you bared your breast at the Super Bowl or went on that career-ruining rant after losing the Iowa caucus -- seem benign and laughable. The power of nostalgia isn't lost on game makers. Whether it's a brand-new port of an old classic or a revival of an old favorite, there's just something exciting about reliving a bit of our gaming past. Activision is hoping that gamers get this same thrill when they fire up the multiple versions of Pitfall: The Lost Expedition. The big console versions have been well received, but some of the old-time platforming fun gets lost in the GBA game.