Alf
System: SMS
Release Date: May 1989
Developer: Nexa Corporation
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Adventure
Look, it’s Alf! Remember Alf? He’s back, in Sega Master System form! Yep, here’s an adventure game based around one of the 80s most beloved(?) TV shows. The alien life form from Melmac has crash landed on Earth and he wants to fix his spaceship so he can make it to Mars to be with his friends Skip and Rhonda. This game is so short that this video is spoilerific. Go ahead and watch it, you’ll thank me.
You start out in the side yard, seeing both a scooter looking thing on the roof (no fuel in it), and the spaceship broken on the garage. Alf’s first goal is to get fuel for the scooter. You can move left or right off the screen. Video game experience says move right, but you actually want to go left. Alf can pick up a few objects, like the cat or the salami. A trip to the basement reveals a secret passage infested with bats and rats. The bats are constantly spawning and you have to avoid their sine-wave movement (fat chance), or attack them with the salami you got in the kitchen. At the end of the passage is a gold nugget worth $50. Thinking on it, that’s only about an eighth of an ounce of gold, so the nugget certainly wasn’t big. You can’t keep going or you’ll fall into a hole and die.
This gets you enough money for a key from the General Store to open the closets in the bedrooms. You have to be careful as you brave the city street, as the Alien Task Force grunts are looking to capture you and motor scooter riders are looking to end your day. Alf’s hit box is way bigger than his character sprite, so prepare to get pissed as you die when you shouldn’t. The closets hold a swimsuit, which let’s Alf dive in the water out back. Here you have to avoid cats in fish costumes… catfish? Really? And what I assume are the Alien Task Force’s harpooner division. You dive to find some pirate treasure and a giant clam with a pearl inside.
Now you have more money to buy a ladder and a lantern. Whatever you do, don’t buy the Alf Book from the Five and Dime Store. It tells you a little fourth wall breaking story and sends you back to the title screen! With the ladder and lantern, it’s back to the secret cave to fight bats. Hey, where’d the big hole go?! At the very far end, you find a fuel pellet! You get four lives, so make sure you still have one left and die immediately, it’s much quicker. Head back to the scooter and take off. You’ll have to avoid a bunch of jets flying in the sky (who’s working air traffic control?!) and make it to a big spaceship. Hopefully you have $100 bucks to buy the spacesuit and continue on. Now you have to avoid little UFOs instead of planes and falling asteroids. If you can make it all the way up, the moon is holding a spaceship repair kit. Aaaaand, that was ten minutes of your life you aren’t getting back.
Graphics: 1.5
The graphics are easily the best thing about this game. What’s terrible is that the sprite disappears for several frames when you turn around. There are lots of little graphical glitches like this.
Sound: 0.5
The music is terrible.
Gameplay: 0.5
The controls are terrible. The general game concept is terrible. Realize everything takes forever to register and don’t press buttons multiple times or you’ll miss messages.
Difficulty: 0.5
The difficulty is terrible. The secret cave is enough to drive anyone insane. You will die a lot until you master the salami. Then you’ll only die a couple times.
Fun Factor: 0.0
This is not fun in the slightest. It’s terrible.
Overall Grade: 0.6
Alf earns a D-. I don’t know if you picked this up, but the game is terrible. When you lose four lives, the game asks if you wish to continue playing. I chose no.