Previous Next

The Munsters aren't half a weird bunch. I mean, they walk around looking like death warmed up... OK, they look like death still cold, but that's not the point. The point is that they're nice! They don't go around haunting or terrorising, they just all look... weird.

Now Mr Pointy Tall himself, Old Nick, has decided that such a weird, ghostly-looking family should be doing devilish things. To try and persuade them, he uses evil tactics to blackmail them - he kidnaps Marilyn, the pretty blonde one! Ooh, the rotter. The rest of the Munster family - Lily, Herman, Eddy and Grandpa - must go to the rescue.

You kick off as Lily, by zapping some of the ghosties that Old Nick has filled the house with to increase the spell level. The spell level is essential for destroying some of the more nasty creatures and for reviving the other members of the family so that they can help you. This isn't all you need though, since you must then collect various objects which will allow you to kill the ghouls and monsters and activate the family.

Walking around the house, you may get the impression that some of the locations are inaccessible. Indeed they are, until you get the right object and build enough spell power to dispatch the spirit guarding the door or stairwell, allowing you to search other rooms. But beware! Any touch by a member of the underworld saps your energy, eventually causing death. Gasp!

The family *must* rescue Marilyn! They can't fall ill to the will of the Devil and turn to the ways of the underworld! Or can they...?

I got the impression while playing this that the programmers of The Munsters haven't been keeping up with the pace of arcade adventure development.

It looks ancient in all respects: dull graphics, awful sound and archaic puzzles. The Amiga's graphics are marginally better than the C64's, in that you can just about recognise the characters portrayed - but they're still well below the standard that the machine is capable of.

The first half dozen or so games are taken up by aimlessly wandering around, getting killed by all manner of annoying ghosties; even when you do work things out, it hardly seems fair or logical.

Oh, and you'd think that 16-bit users would get more puzzles for their memory and they money, but no, the game's exactly the same. Oh dear.

This is an extremely poor rendition of the TV programme. Even though I can't really profess to being a fan of The Munsters series, I can still spot a bad game when I see one.

This is a bad game and I've seen it. Playing for about half an hour gives the initial impression that the programmers have just made the going very unfair instead of making the puzzles mind-taxing, but since it's an arcade-adventure I thought I'd better persevere. It didn't get any better, though.

It got to the point where I just threw the joystick across the table and gave up in sheer frustration. Yeuch.

Presentation 32%
Tacky appearance and a high score table.

Graphics 28%
The C64 version doesn't capture the feel of the TV series at all and the Amiga version struggles to.

Sound 37%
The Munsters theme has been murdered on both versions.

Hookability 43%
Starts off as a really boring experience...

Lastability 31%
...and finishes as an extremely frustrating one.

Overall 30%
A licence that has a fraction of the entertainment value of the TV show.