GRAPHICS SOUND CONTROL FRUSTRATION FUN FACTOR OVERALL

NES 1 Player Adventure/Racing/Platformer Ahhhh...excuse me for a second, this review would be very misleading if I didn't admit first my bias for Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. Memories are to blame as they immediately come back to me and rush through my head everytime I see or hear anything pertaining to this game. I've just about memorized everything in it. Hours of playing my aunt's NES as a kid in the early '90s--countless of hours--playing her only three games in loop: Dr. Mario, Wheel of Fortune, and of course Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. Some may call this torture. I, on the other hand, fed my NES addiction with what I was offered. The plot of Adv. Magic Kingdom obviously is focused towards the 6-year old audience since it's so, um, idiotic. (To be fair, how many NES games really focused heavily on a good thinking man's story, anyway?) Your adventures begins with a cut-scene featuring Mickey as he tells you about the dreaded missing keys of Disneyland. Apparently the only one able to fetch the keys is you--a shady cowboy hat-wearing boy--and so ye set out to collect six silver keys scattered around the park. Remember, kids, Mickey depends solely on you to return the keys to start the parade!! Gosh gee! Getting into the specifics of the game-play aspect, the overworld map allows you to enter any of the five stages based on the following Disneyland rides and attractions. -The first two rides are standard side-scrollers based on The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Carribean (both have noticeable elements that try to recapture the actual ride, with decent visuals). Excellent control, music, graphics, everything is spot-on in these two stages. Savor them like the actual food within the parks--they're as much as you'll be able to afford in this entire video game. -The next ride is a strictly-par racing mini-game that puts you inside of a sporty red race car, which really contains nothing to wow you or capture anything of the actual attraction. Instead of a just balls to the wall racing sim, the main goal is to basically make it through the course in one piece. Things can get tricky as you have to quickly jump into the air when going off a platform and time yourself when crossing expanding bridges. (Think: Bump 'N Jump.) -Next is Space Mountain, a "push-a-button-as-fast-as-you-can-when-alerted-to" mini-game. Sounds fun? Then shoot yourself... now. This when the game shows very un-Capcom-like symptoms: it's both below-mediocre and boring. Amazingly they also managed to include absolutely nothing ride-related at all besides some run-of-the-mill space scenery. -The last sub-game is based on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster, and unlike the above racer mini-game, proves the designers did their homework and added a few resembling qualities of the actual ride. Fellow "park-experts" should expect the western theme and some of the comedy (PIGS!@!) that makes the real coaster so darn fun. -Later in Adv. Magic Kingdom, there is a small trivia game that requires you to answer general Disney questions in order to obtain the last silver key. It is something different from the rest, but I sense the work of lazy-ass programmers afoot trying to make their lives easier by not having to code another attraction to be made available. I see both It's a Small World and Tom Sawyer's Island on the map, Capcom people! For shame! ......In regards to the overall graphics and control in the game, things are a mixed bag. Some attractions have a lot of graphical candy, while others (such as Space Mountain) have next to nothing in that important atmospheric part. And for the control, which also depends on the mini-game you're playing, it often varies from excellent to horrid. (Case in point: The Haunted Mansion and Pirates levels have excellent control while Racing is way-WAY below stellar.) ......Sound effects throughout the game are pretty weak, too, but the majority of the music tunes are actually extremely well composed. I still enjoy the simple beat found in the Pirates of Carribean level and the techno-ish racing melody (I guess some of this can be attributed to my beginning statement of the many hours of playing the game over and over and over and over...) ......BOTTOM LINE: I love Disney World and the amazing attractions therein. Adv. Magic Kingdom only comes within a half an inch to this feeling through only two of the five stages mentioned above. Everything else could have been planned better by almost anyone that has actually been through the parks themselves. Oh yeah before I forget! Why wasn't there a Splash Mountain mini-game, huh? It's just only one of the most popular rides in the park! Still, I would recommend this to any fan of either Disney Land or World (since the rides are almost 100% identical). Everyone else, well, you have been warned. -Mike