Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure – Hardcore Gaming 101

This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series Pitfall!

In the early ’90s, Activision announced that they’d be releasing updates of some of their classic Atari 2600 titles for the then-current consoles. Among the titles announced were River Raid, Kaboom!, and Pitfall. However, the announced River Raid and Kaboom! updates never materialized. Pitfall, however, did, in the form of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. Reimagined as a modern platformer, The Mayan Adventure brings a lot of new things to the table.

Harry now has a grown son, Harry Jr. The two are exploring some ancient Mayan ruins, searching for the lost treasure of Uaxactun, which is “guarded by the spirit of an ancient Mayan warrior, Zakelua: Lord of Evil”, when Harry is attacked and captured by an unknown assailant. Harry Jr. immediately races to the rescue. Harry Jr. has to traverse ten stages to rescue Harry, and unlike his father, he has a neat arsenal of weaponry (no guns this time, though). The slingshot is the weapon you’ll use the most, as not only can you fire stones with it, but it can be used as a short-range melee weapon. Slingshot stones can be replenished by gathering bags of them scattered through the stages. Harry Jr. can also use Mayan boomerangs, and the Exploding Stones of Pacal, that can clear a screen of minor enemies. You can also hold down the fire button to charge your sling and throw a Super Shot.

The game looks and plays a whole lot like Aladdin (Genesis) and Earthworm Jim, with lots of large levels that zig and zag back and forth, with complex scenery that looks cool but can be complicated to navigate. It also inherits its sluggish controls which prioritize animation over responsiveness. Still, Harry Jr. is more agile than his father ever was as well. Not only can he swing from vines like his old man, but he can also climb ropes, crawl, bounce off of spiderwebs and bungee flowers, latch onto pegs and cords, pull levers and even ride ziplines. Mastering these skills will help you defeat the denizens that dwell in the jungles and ruins. Harry Jr.’s rescue mission starts in the Ceiba Jungle, which leads to the Xibalba Falls, the Tazamul Mines, the Lost City of Copan, Copan Temple, the Lakamul Rain Forest, Yaxchilan Lagoon, the Balankanche Mine, the Tikal Ruins and finally to the Temple of Tikal, where the final battle against the Warrior Spirit takes place.

There are also artifacts to find to help Harry Jr. on his quest. There’s the Time Keeper, which freezes everything on screen for a short amount of time; the Mayan Chili Pepper, which lets Harry Jr. run faster and jump higher for a short time; the Golden Idol, which is a small statue of Harry Jr. that awards him an extra life; the Location Idol, which not only points Harry Jr. in the right direction, but also serve as checkpoints; and the Sacred Heart, which refills some of Harry Jr.’s life gauge. The life gauge itself is represented by a crocodile which slowly approaches a picture of Harry Jr. with every bit of damage he takes, and eventually eats him when he loses a life. There are also Treasure Pieces: gold coins, diamond rings and gold & silver bars, the last three of which are a nice nod to the original Pitfall!

Of course, there are loads of jungle creatures to fight off: monkeys, hawks and snakes being some of the first Harry Jr. encounters. As the game progresses, expect to run into skeleton warriors, living stone gargoyles that throw axes at Harry Jr., the Spirit of Chaac (which commands fire), Vapor Ghosts and more. Notably for the first time in Pitfall history, there are actual bosses to fight. Among them are Jaguars, which were favored bodyguards of Zakelua (the later ones you encounter assume humanoid form and attack with their claws and a staff), and the Warrior Spirit of Zakelua himself: a giant stone golem. Some of the stages have no bosses, you just finish them and move on.

Making a return from Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns arcade are mine carts. There are large ones that you can push to get to out of reach areas, and smaller ones that Harry Jr. can ride like a skateboard. The Balankanche Mine, or as it’s titled in-game “Runaway Mine Cart,” features the smaller ones very heavily. In that stage, you must navigate the mines at breakneck speeds. There are three tracks, all of which have green lights at the end. You can move freely between the three tracks, so if one of those green lights suddenly turns red, jump to another track immediately. Eventually Vapor Ghosts will appear and chase the mine cart, so you have to avoid those too.

There are also warps that will lead you to something called The Loltun Vault. In it, you’re playing a game of “repeat the tones” using three levers. Every so often upon successfully repeating a tone, a treasure will drop down for Harry Jr. But while all of this is going on, the solid rock ceiling is slowly descending. The tones gradually become more complex in nature, forcing you to go as swiftly as possible. If you succeed, you’ll get a bonus, usually a one-up. If not, you get crushed.

At the end of the game, after you’ve defeated the Warrior Spirit of Zakelua, Harry Jr. finally finds Harry. He’s tied to a large obelisk, which looks suspiciously like an Atari Fuji symbol. In a funny twist, Harry looks exactly the way he did on the 2600. After that, Harry and Harry Jr. walk off into the sunset. At this point, you’ll receive one of two messages. There are letters scattered throughout the stages, some well hidden, that spell “PITFALL” when you pick them up. If you missed even one, the game tells you “Victory is yours… but it looks like you missed something.” If you have all of them, the message reads “VICTORY! Now take a photo to document your triumph.” For that, it hardly seems worth the effort to collect all of the letters.

No matter the platform it was released for, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a lush looking game. The level of detail in the backgrounds is fantastic, no matter what stage you’re in. The characters are all superbly animated, as it appears that not a single frame was spared. The Genesis version looks good, but the graphics aren’t as colorful and they look very dithered, and the soundtrack lacks the robustness of other versions. The SNES version takes full advantage of the system’s expansive colors, and sounds fantastic, but it’s missing some effects – the shimmering lake in the background of the first level is gone, for example. It also runs at a lower resolution (256×224 versus 320×224 of other versions). The 32X version looks slightly nicer than either of these, but it runs at 30 FPS, making for a much less smooth experience, and the soundtrack is identical to the Genesis version. The Sega CD version is basically the same as the Genesis cartridge version, but adds some FMV for the opening of the game and a CD-quality soundtrack. The Jaguar version is very similar to the 32X release but it runs smoother, but the sound is very similar to the Genesis version. The Windows version is the best, offering brighter graphics than all of the other versions. It runs smoothly and features the same soundtrack as the Sega CD version. This also includes a hidden bonus level based on Earthworm Jim, since it was ported by the same team. The Game Boy Advance version, released several years later, is handily the worst, as the colors are overly bright (to make up for the non-backlit original GBA screen), the screen is too zoomed in, and there’s very little music – and what music is there suffers from the GBA sound chip. The Sega CD, 32X, Windows, GBA, and Jaguar versions also contain three additional levels: the Palenque Ruins, Tomb of Palenque, and Jaina Island Falls.

The original Atari 2600 Pitfall! is available to play as well, either by using a code at the title screen or proceeding to stage four, Lost City of Copan. Once you spot a very familiar looking scorpion, you’re near the entrance to the warp that will take you to Pitfall! It’s not an emulation of the original game, though. It’s been lovingly recreated. If you’re at home with the Atari 2600 Pitfall!, you’ll be at home here.

David Crane had some nice things to say about Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure: “The lead designer on that game was a big fan of my game, so he took pains to make a better game than most. He took advantage of the more powerful system when he originally authored it for the Sega Genesis, and there were some very nice animations in the game.”