Minimum Requirements: 80386 33-Mhz, 4 Mb RAM
The latest PC platformer from Epic Megagames subscribes to the popular console approach of using cutesy forest animals in a quest to save all that is good and decent.
It is 300 years after that watershed race in which the tortoise beat the hare, and like all good combatants, the two races are still trying to prove who is superior.
Devan Shell, turtle terrorist, has kidnapped the beloved rabbit princess Eva Earlong. Who they gonna call? Jackrabbit, Jazz Jackrabbit with his LFG-2000 (hmm, sounds familiar), HE rounds, toaster flamethrowers, RF missiles, rapid fire guns and homicidal tendencies.
The graphics are bright and breezy, carefully drawn and varied throughout the episodes.
Sprite animation is smooth with great care going into the creation of the Jazz-man, his characterisation greatly enhanced by a large number of frames.
Scrolling is super-smooth and above all, fast; two essential traits for a game of this genre.
The bonus stage is sheer brilliance, reminiscent of a SNES mode 7 level as you race around a 3D track collecting gems.
Of course there are the prerequisite number of power-ups that you would expect in a game such as this: health carrots, 1UPs, jumping shoes, super speed, shields, invulnerability, teleport, flying airboards and extra time.
Far from an original method of presentation, Jazz is however something of a novelty on the staid PC, which is better known for its complex strategy games and flight sims than its joypad-bashing bedlam.
The game boasts excellent sound card support, catering for the PAS-16, Soundblaster 16/ASP/AWE-32 and the much-maligned Gravis Ultrasound.
A word of advice: the going gets fast and rough - too fast for a standard PC joystick. Anyone seriously interested in this game should consider purchasing a Gravis joypad (or similar) to truly feel the arcade experience.
If you have a console, then this offering probably won’t excite you greatly; console games of this nature tend to be far more polished. However if you own a PC and have always thought there was something missing in your life then Jazz Jackrabbit may just be able to fill the gap.