Home Alone (Genesis) Playthrough

A playthrough of Sega's 1992 license-based strategy-platformer for the Sega Genesis, Home Alone.

Played through on the expert difficulty level.

The Genesis version of the Home Alone game is among the best of the games made for the film. Granted, the bar wasn't ever set terribly high, but it's actually a good game! Who would've imagined?

With everyone in the neighborhood away on vacation, Kevin defends five houses in his neighborhood from the intellectually-disabled Wet Bandits and their scheme to rob everyone blind. You begin with a selection of traps (stuff like tacks, tar, Micro Machines, etc) that have to be placed in strategic locations around each house as you zoom between them on your motorized sled, running over snowmen and crashing into trees as you go. If you've found the house that has the gang's van parked outside, then that's your cue to take action.

Once you've located the Wet Bandits, you've got to prevent them emptying all the safes in the house. They'll trip and fall on your traps, and while they're distracted you've got to run around finding all sorts of household objects to fashion weapons out of. If you can max out the "pain" gauge, the robbers will drop any loot they've found and flee. If they empty the safes and escape, you lose the house, and if all the neighborhood houses are lost, it's game over. If you can hold out for the duration of the timer, the police will arrive and you'll win. Pretty simple once you work out what's going on.

The graphics weren't cutting edge, but they do have some nice details, and some of the animations (like Joe Pesci turning into a rubber ball) are pretty funny. The music doesn't draw a lot of attention to itself, but there are a couple of cool tracks (like the BGM for the Ultra Modern House), and the game's controls are pretty straightforward and intuitive. The biggest novelty, and perhaps the best part of the game, is the weapons building system. It feels a bit underbaked with too few of weapons and items available to get creative with, but the system itself is fun and adds a bit more depth to things than merely aiming and shooting.

But why do none of these games feature an old man with a snow shovel and a trashcan full of mummies?!

If you want a Home Alone game that actually manages to be decent, the Sega version is a good bet. It's a bit thin on substance, but it is a lot of fun.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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