I’m not really sure what I was expecting from a 'Home Alone' game but somehow I was still disappointed with what I ended up with. I doubt I would have ever even looked twice at this game if not for my recent Christmas/Winter game trend I seem obsessed with and, after all, what’s more Christmasy than the Home Alone films? Well, Santa and the Blackadder Christmas Special I guess but the point is is that this game fit into my theme so I played it. Ultimately, it was a mistake you should not repeat so if you’ve ever lain awake at night, staring at your bedroom ceiling, wondering if you’re missing out on a great adventure by not playing the 'Home Alone' video game… you’re not, so stop worrying about it and go back to sleep.
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Genre: Action
Release date: October 1991
Platforms: Nintendo Entertainment System, Amiga, Sega
ESRB: E - Everyone
The premise of the game is incredibly simple though the game itself is anything but. You play as Kevin who is home alone since his parents accidentally left him behind at Christmas to jolly it up in Paris over the holiday period. Whilst Kevin is alone a couple of burglars are intent on ransacking the house but find themselves going toe to toe with an unlikely foe; you. Your general aim is to not be caught by the burglars and each game lasts for exactly twenty minutes though, unhelpfully, there is no timer unless you pause the game and navigate through menus. During these twenty minutes you need to pick up items from around the house and lay traps for the burglars to be caught in. once they’ve tripped a trap they won’t be fooled by it again so you need to lay another one half a foot away from where that last one was for it to be effective again. I guess if these guys were smart they’d have just left and found another house by now. I think the saddest thing about this game is that it sounds as though it could be quite fun and, really, I was hoping for an extremely retro take on the fantastic game series, ‘Neighbours from Hell’ which you should go Google if you’ve not heard of by now. The whole concept of sneaking around, laying traps, laughing at their stupidity then sneaking off again could be a pretty casual way of blowing off steam but there’s simply no reward in changing up the kinds of traps you use as all the animations are the same. As soon as one of the men trips one of the traps they fall over, flail, then get back up again. That’s about it. The sound effects are even the same sort of thudding noise regardless of what trap you used. It feels utterly pointless to even try something new.
Then, to make matters worse, the game is extremely difficult. To begin with, items are almost impossible to discern from the lurid surroundings as everything is so bright and colourful that it all just sort of blends together into one big headache. When you eventually do find some items you have those samey animations to look forward to again but not without a great deal of stress and anxiety to keep you on your toes first. Kevin turns out to be significantly slower and less agile than these two old men and he struggles with some basic actions such as climbing stairs, which slow him down considerably, and well, walking even seems to be quite tiring for him as he’s a lot slower than the burglars. I think stairs are possibly the worst aspect of the game as whilst they slow you down by quite a fair bit they don't affect the burglars in the slightest and they’ll storm up them with no trouble. Even at just a regular walking pace the burglars are so much faster than you and as the game progresses this problem just gets more and more apparent as they fuel themselves on, gleeful with bloodlust, hunting Kevin down without ever tiring. The faster they move the more traps you need to use but ultimately all you’re doing now is trying to stay ahead of the terminator-esque men and avoid stairs as much as possible. You cannot avoid going up and down stairs however because you are also limited to carrying a measly five traps at a time and, guess what, the place where you can restock is two flights of stairs away. I mean you might as well just give up and let them have the silverware by this point because unless you are a serious hardcore 'Home Alone' on the NES player you’re unlikely to win the game.
Something I haven’t mentioned but which is equally infuriating as the rest of the game is the music. It’s, well, nightmarish. It’s the theme song on a continuous loop but even though it’s the same song I swear to God it was getting louder and more annoying as time went by. Combined with the punishing nature of the game and the gaudy colours I’m quite sure the whole combination would send you quite mad so I made the executive decision of muting the sound. Everything felt a bit better after that mostly because I could hear myself think. Oddly, the visuals aren’t actually that bad. The house is fairly detailed and the characters look pretty good. My only complaints really are that the colours are blinding, the patterns are rather over the top and Kevin doesn’t look like Macaulay Culkin.
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I wouldn’t recommend anybody play 'Home Alone' for the sake of their sanity and time. It’s not at all enjoyable, extremely difficult to play and there are far too many elements that induce intense migraines. The animations are a bit weird, the burglars for instance plod about with their shoulders hunched up to their ears, and the controls are awkward to use. Truly, it’s an insult to the movie and as if Culkin’s current appearance didn’t put me off the films enough already then this game has certainly ruined a certain aspect of it. What I’m saying is that this game may as well have just ruined Christmas, we’ll have to see.
The Good:
- The house looks ok, I guess.
- It's challenging, if you like that.
- It fits into my winter theme
- The rope thing you use to get away in a tight spot is oddly fun
- Basically everything else
- Music is awful
- Gameplay is awful
- Enemies far too difficult
- Irritating limitations on how many traps you can have
- Items hard to see
- Controls are a conspiracy to kill you quicker
- Should have a timer on screen so you know when this nightmare will end
- Animations are unusual
- Kevin doesn't look like Macaulay Culkin
Final thoughts: “Ibeprofen is not enough, where’s that tramadol I had lying around for emergencies? ...Wait a minute, Bethesda made this game? Well they kept that one quiet didn't they.”
