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"A Three Hour Bore"

Gilligan's Island the television show was a guilty pleasure. The story about an inept first mate and an obese captain taking five vastly different people on a simple three hour tour only to be shipwrecked on a deserted island was filled with tons of goofy plot devices. Who could forget the Russian cosmonaut landing in the lagoon or the mad scientist that experimented with switching the marooned castaways' brains? It was incredibly hokey, but you came back for more because first mate Gilligan was the lovable moron. You wanted to see how he'd screw up the gang's plans for escaping the island ever week!

Although the most action Gilligan and his captain, Skipper, ever saw on the show was cowardly fleeing from a six foot rubber spider, Bandai somehow translated the campy sitcom into an adventure game. There's actually a fair amount of good to Gilligan's Island.

The game is divided into four levels where you'll control Skipper, with Gilligan in tow. After learning your main objective through a story sequence, you'll navigate the island trying to complete it. Each of the four maps is large but not completely overwhelming either. Bandai also had the good sense to include an in-game map, a feature NES classics like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid could have benefited from. The map will come in handy since it not only marks the locations of Skipper and Gilligan but any castaways you've found as well.

Before you can solve the gang's bigger problems, such as building shelter before a tropical storm hits or rescuing your domestic slave Mary Ann from headhunters, the dynamic duo will have to carry out smaller errands first. By speaking with Mary Ann, the Professor, or the wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Howell, you'll be given jobs like retrieving the Professor's stolen communicator from an ornery gorilla or delivering Mr. Howell his just-washed bathing trunks from Mary Ann.

Fans of the show will note I didn't mention the skimpy dress wearing movie star Ginger. Strangely she's missing from the entire game. No doubt Ginger was just too sexy for Nintendo of America!

Only one castaway will ask Skipper for help at a time, so you'll need a little luck to stumble upon the right one. Fortunately the other characters will give you obvious hints as to whom you should go see and sometimes directions to find them. Locating the crew without directions is pretty easy too because they're always in one of the few smaller rooms on the map making it a simple process of elimination.

To make things interesting, you're also given a time limit on each level ranging from ten to twenty minutes. It's enough to allow for a few wrong turns here and there, but it keeps you moving. Even then, you can grab hourglasses, which are by far the most common power up, that add a whole minute back to the clock.

Unfortunately now there's a whole lot of bad to talk about.

Staying with Gilligan is integral to the game. Not only does leaving him behind cause the time limit to plummet, but completing objectives requires forcing your little buddy to do all the physical labor (big fat Skipper could have a heart attack!). For example, when Mary Ann needs a pair of luscious coconuts, Skipper sends Gilligan to climb a tree, where he will report, “I found a nut.” In addition, castaways won't even speak to you without Gilligan because they'll be preoccupied with the potential trouble he could cause. But having to stick with your first mate isn't the problem. It's trying to get the guy to tag along.

You'll play as Skipper with smooth controls, but the AI will guide Gilligan through the perils of the island. Usually he'll follow close behind, but other times he becomes a real pain. There's a random glitch where Gilligan will actually dart off in the opposite direction and then trap himself in the edge of the screen. You're going to have to leave the area entirely and come back to a cranky first mate that will instantly start playing Follow the Leader again. Other times you'll walk over a slim bridge and the slightest upward movement will cause Gilligan to plummet into a chasm and following him will only force you onto a long path away from your destination. Strangely you'll also need to force him to jump into tiny, circular holes to explore the cavernous depths below the surface. This proves annoying since you need to walk into the screen's wall for several seconds before Gilligan finally tries to follow, barely touches the edge of the hole and falls in. If Skipper jumps in ahead, Gilligan will cowardly stay behind, which is disastrous since few holes have ladders to climb back out.

Gilligan is a chicken at heart, but fortunately the tubby Skipper will protect him. Or at least he would if Gilligan's Island didn't have horrendous hit detection. The numerous hyperactive monkeys, ferocious wild boars and swarthy headhunters that roam the island can easily smack you to the ground rump-first, but trying to punch or club them on the noggin is near impossible. You're better off just avoiding the enemies entirely and just hoping you can take out the mandatory bosses. However, then the lack of action becomes a huge blow to the gameplay because adventure games like The Legend of Zelda are fun thanks sword play breaking up the monotony of constant exploration. In essence, you're only going to explore here.

Unfortunately not all of the exploration elements are well executed either. There's a lot of backtracking just to complete objectives. For example at one point you'll follow the same route three times in a row just to exchange messages and items between Mr. Howell and Mary Ann. To make matters worse, a lot of errands - especially climbing trees - are repeated throughout the game only with different items to collect ranging from a wedding ring to Mr. Howell's lost golf ball. In addition, you'll have to partake in unnecessary button mashing to wade through unavoidable quicksand pits and rivers. To make matters worse, you can easily be swept up by rivers and find yourself on another screen far from your intended destination.

Power-ups can also lead to trouble thanks to their appearance being completely random. Besides the common hourglass item, Skipper can grab rope and fruit that appear smack dab in the middle of the screen. Use a rope and you can instantly pull Gilligan to your side, which is great for when he inadvertently drops off a bridge, and take a bite of fruit to instantly heal your wounds. The problem is the game sometimes keeps giving you only one of these two items for long periods of time. During my playthrough of level three, I barely found any fruit, so I arrived at the boss with six ropes and no means for healing.

Probably Gilligan's Island's most embarrassing failure is its attempt at humor. While exploring normally, the two protagonists will always chime in with one of three unfunny jokes. After completing objectives, the game resembles the show with scenes like Gilligan failing to unlock a door or Skipper yelling at Gilligan not to move so he doesn't break anything, but even these gags get old thanks to Bandai reusing them several times throughout the game.

Electronic Gaming Monthly once claimed Gilligan's Island was one of the worst games of all time. I definitely disagree with them there. The title has some decent adventure elements like a sizable chunk of game environment to explore, an in-game map, and characters that provide helpful clues. Unfortunately the terrible hit-detection, wonky Gilligan AI, and constant backtracking still make this a bad adventure. Stick to re-runs, little buddy!

"For a deserted island, it sure gets its share of havoc..."

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale—a tale of a wacky game, that's based upon a TV show, but isn't all that lame...

Cutting right to the chase, how could a classic 60's sitcom not make the ideal video game? Well, ''ideal'' may not be the right word—no, it certainly isn't the word, but the thought is nevertheless inventive—especially when said game focuses on the adventures of a shipwrecked crew from the hit television series Gilligan's Island. Oh joy of joys!

For those unfamiliar with the show, the gist of it is as follows: five passengers, accompanied by the skipper and his first mate of the SS Minnow, were thrown across the ocean one afternoon when a severe storm capsized their small ship and interrupted their three-hour tour. Thus, the portly skipper (named ''Skipper'' or ''The Skipper'' of all things) and his blissfully ignorant right-hand man, Gilligan, became stranded on an uncharted desert isle along with the snooty Mr. and Mrs. Howell, the brainy Professor, country gal Mary Ann, and Ginger the movie star. Comedy and slapstick erupted from this odd seafaring-turned-nightmare situation, but this never kept audiences from wondering just why the Professor could easily make a radio out of coconuts yet never once elect to patch a hole in a measly boat.

Staying on the same page as the TV show, Bandai's Gilligan's Island once again has this unlucky group going for the impossible—attempting to get rescued from that infernal hellhole disguised as an island! This time, however, a storm is threatening their escape and an infestation of maniacal headhunters is standing between them and the world beyond. As the Skipper and the AI-controlled Gilligan, players must run to and fro while dodging man-eating monkeys, gathering odds and ends, and rounding up fellow castaways (with the exception of Ginger, who is mysteriously absent from the game. Perhaps she was captured by natives who then fed her over-dramatic keister to a volcano. We can only hope).

Gilligan's Island is not a standard platformer to say the least; instead of making one's way from point A to point B, players must follow clues given by either the Professor, Mr. and Mrs. Howell, or Mary Ann in order to progress through the four levels. These obvious ''clues,'' which seem more like orders, range anywhere from finding a lost ring to fetching Mr. Howell's golf ball (why oh why did the Howells bring all their worldly possessions on a short sight-seeing trip, anyway?). As inane as they may seem, completing these missions is the key to unraveling the plot and getting our cheerful pack of island dwellers back home. Mind-blowing, isn't it? No, not really. In a nutshell, Gilligan's Island is best looked at as an entertaining romp through trees and underbrush that should prove satisfactory to anyone with enough time to kill... all without the canned laughter.

Unlike in the show, the island in Gilligan's Island is a dangerous mass of jungle bursting with homicidal enemies. Cougars and wild boars run back and forth in every direction, pitfalls lay in waiting for unsuspecting boat captains to fall in, and boulders plummet from the sky with the sole intent to leave passersby with concussions. Clearly this isn't the friendliest place on earth; players will most definitely fall under that impression the instant they trip over paths of rocks and end up being bombarded from above by rabid birds. Luckily, the Skipper does have a single attack: a badly-connecting punch. Since there are few moments in the game where any form of attacking is actually needed, much less effective, a simple ''dodge and run'' method is the only requirement throughout much of the adventure. To make things just a bit easier, a few random items are scattered about the island including extra health in the form of bananas, hourglasses which add one minute to the timer, and ropes.

Being the witless character he is, Gilligan, who constantly follows the Skipper around on this quest, can many times get himself into the most moronic of situations. If players don't pay extra attention to Gilligan's position behind the Skipper, they'll frequently find him either stuck in a pit, wallowing in quicksand, or simply ''trapped'' in a section of the island. Of course, things would be better off without having to baby-sit the accident-prone dimwit, but that would make too much sense. As things are, the timer in the lower left-hand corner will immediately reset to two minutes if the Skipper and Gilligan are separated, giving players that much time to either find him or face a grim ''game over'' screen. However, if a rope is found, players can easily retrieve Gilligan in an instant rather than having to retrace steps for what seems like an eternity. As tedious as it sounds, this is thankfully the only crippling portion of the game worthy of vein-popping frustration.

Thanks to a text box perpetually situated at the bottom of the screen, a plethora of cheesy dialogue from both the Skipper and Gilligan is constantly displayed for players to laugh—or groan—at. This obviously isn't intended to serve any purpose other than to make our lead characters appear more like their humorous television counterparts, but fans of the sitcom may be more than pleased to know that, even in sprite form, Gilligan is still as sharp as a horse's backside and the Skipper still acts like one.

Gilligan's Island is nothing graphically hideous nor spectacular, although the opening does manage to appropriately capture each character's face in a realistic way very reminiscent of the show's intro (all except for the Professor, that is, who now dons a fluorescent orange hairdo). All of the in-game sprites appear slightly comical and include each character's most notable physical trait (e.g., Gilligan's goofy hat and Skipper's robust form). The surrounding island environment, with its dirt trails, waterfalls, and endless jungle vegetation, does become a bit repetitive after a short while; however, given the length of the game itself, it's hardly anything that becomes gag-inducing. Likewise, the music is more of a mixed bag of tolerable tunes and annoying messes straight from the bowels of Hades. Even so, the game's excellent version of the sitcom's opening theme that many of us know and love more than makes up for any sub-par melodies.

Gilligan's Island stands as one of the few games of its kind that not only uses its source material to its advantage rather than lowering itself to a mockery-ridden fiasco, but also provides players with a short yet sweet alternative to the more earnest adventure titles on the system. No, it isn't perfect, but who would expect it to be after becoming lost for years in obscurity? What we have here is a simple, amusing game based on a show that was once even bigger than the Skipper's prodigious gut; one players can return to again and again whenever boredom comes knocking. Your only regret may be the same as mine: never catching the episode where they finally left the damn island...