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C'mon. Own up. Are you a Munsters or Addams fan? We reckon that while Fred Gwynne is a legendary folk hero the Addams Family wins out on sheer class and weirdness. Clur reckons that the game is (un)dead good too.

What's a girl supposed to do? By order of the almighty Ed, there'll be no ooky's, spooky's and definitely no kooky's at all in this review. Not even the words of the song all wiggly across the top of the page. I'm lost without a kooky or two. But the game wouldn't be. Lost, that is. You could take out every kooky, ooky and, indeed, spooky and it'd still be a Corker. But nobody has. Taken out the ookies and kookies, that is. And it's even got the theme tune intact - you know, the one that goes bom-iddy-bom, click click, bom-iddy-bom, click click, bom... [Snip! - Ed]

Okay, so the gameplay isn't exactly ground-breaking stuff, but it's oozing with fun, finesse and style. You play Gomez, the Addams' dad, and you're on a quest to find the rest of your family. They're all locked away in various parts of the ancestral home while the keys that'll release them are hidden in other parts of the huge mansion. (Quite how this state of affairs came about isn't entirely clear but it's got something to do with a lawyer.) All you have to do is set them free. Simple? Nope.

Each room poses a different perambulatory problem. It's never as easy as it looks to get from where you are to where you want to be. The puzzles start off simple - it's just a case of bopping a few baddies on the head - but, as you venture further into the bowels of the mansion, the conundrums become tougher than trying to convince Morticia's pet plant Cleopatra that she could really do with a decent prune. Most of them are ingeniously tricky timing puzzles in which you have to leap or make a run for it at the precise moment to end up avoid being squashed by bouncing pumpkins, falling into red hot lava, skewered by nasty spikey things or generally meeting a grisly end.

And they're extremely addictive; most of the time you can work out what you have to do, it's just a matter of getting the timing right that's the problem, so no matter how many times you get splattered, you'll always want to have just one more go, just to prove to this stupid computer that you can do it. Sensible restart points help in this respect, too.

The game map is mightily massive and displayed as a series of rather than a continuously scrolling. This does have its advantages: if you accidentally wander into a room and there's a baddie coming right at ya, then you can nip back to the safety of the previous screen.

Not all the lurking nasties can be completely obliterated. Some are indestructible (and lethal to touch) while some just pause long enough for you to leap over them. However, if you do kill a monster, leave the room and then return to that room, you'll find that he's come back to life (if life is the right word, that is). This might sound like a bit of a swizz, but sometimes bouncing on the bonce of some monster or other is the only way you can avoid falling into lava or reach a platform. If one of these monsters vanished permanently when you killed it, if you ever had to go back through that room again you'd end up stuck, basically. So count yourself lucky that they're all members of the undead and can be resurrected.

The graphics are so colourful you'll need to wear Ray-Bans to reduce the glare. Gomez could be accused of being a tad small [I accuse Gomez of being a tad small - Dave], but the case for the defence is size doesn't matter - it's what you can do with him that counts [Dave's objection overruled - Ed]. He jumps like a maniac with springs in his Cuban heels and can even change direction in mid air. Wow, what a man (and he really loves his wife too).

The Addams Family is just pure fabness. An arcade adventure with a soul - quite a few souls actually and Grandma's got most of them stashed away in her handbag. Even if you can't click your fingers in an ever so cool manner, you'll love it. Trust me, I'm a vampire.

Graphics 88%
Luvverly stuff, brighter than your granny's purple hair-do.

Sound 77%
Dum-iddy-dum, click click, dum-iddy-dum, click cli... [I'm warning you! - Ed]

Playability 89%
It gets its hooks in like a thing with lots of hooks on it from the start.

Lastability 85%
You'll be stuck to it like a fly in a fly trap (but you won't be dissolved).

Overall 93%