Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (32X)

THAT is what a decent looking title screen looks like. This was a pretty popular game if I remember right, definitely more than Super Pitfall ever was anyway.

Our story starts deep in the Mayan jungle, at the legendary temple of Uaxactun. Pitfall Harry Jr. notices what looks like an extra life statue and calls his dad over to see, but he's busy being kidnapped by something mysterious off screen. So Pitfall Jr has to race to the rescue.

Crap, it's a pit of quicksand! Or perhaps not. I don't know much about quicksand, but I'm pretty sure doesn't typically shrink to nothing, then grow again just when you least want it to like this.

It seems like every time I jump over one of these pits, I get hit by landing on the snake hiding on the other side off screen.

And if I try jumping a little short to avoid the snake... the damn quicksand grows again and I get sucked in to an instant death.

Stop waving Harry, you idiot! You don't wave cheerfully when you're getting pulled to your death. Look at that snake, laughing at him.

Harry is FURIOUS to find an extra path leading up into the trees. That icon of a crocodile chasing him in the top right his his health bar by the way. The closer the croc gets, the less hits you can take. To be honest I'd rather have a nice easy to read health bar.

These damn demonic monkeys keep throwing... stuff at me. So I'll throw some stuff right back. I use my sling to fire rocks that I found in pouches around the level. I've got 50 of them so I'm sure I'll be fine. Harry's got other weapons too, but they're low on ammo so I'll save them.

The trouble with jumping around in the trees though... is that one slip sends you back down again, probably just as one of these damn pits of quicksand opens up. Is that snake there on the left looking at the screen?

The main thing that stands out to me about this game is how well animated it is. It seems like they've used any excuse to throw in another animation for Harry. He's even got two different animations for climbing up and climbing down.

I need to be careful with jumping on vines. I don't want to have to climb all the way back up here again. And with 0 lives falling into quicksand now would be game over.

It looks like these trees are impassable, I'll need to find another way up. These graphics are really well animated, but they don't look like anything technically amazing, I wonder how the mighty 32X Pitfall compares to the SNES version.

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (SNES)

Okay yeah, there's definitely a difference there. The 32X has a lot more colours to throw around it seems. Also it has an animated background. Harry Jr's looking a bit pillow shaded there on the 32X version though.

And these trees I can walk right through, totally inconsistent! Actually this is never really a problem in game, I just wanted an excuse to show off his expression.

These elastic things are weird. You grab them, fall, then spring back up like a bungee cord. If you let go at the right time you go flying up into the air. If you let go at the wrong time you feel like an idiot, then have to go back and try it again.

This seems simple, all I have to do is time my jump right and I'll grab the vine.

I didn't time it right. I didn't really enjoy playing this too much, but I though it was pretty enough to go through just to see the graphics.


I can't be arsed working my way back up to that vine though. Next game.