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This issue has been written by GBAtemp community member Hadrian!
Jazz Jackrabbit
The PC platform isn't well known for its platformers, it's generally known to house some of the greatest FPS/RTS/RPG & simulation titles. However, in the early 90's with the rise of mascot platformers on consoles & computers like the Amiga, a fair number of developers tried their hand at making some. For me Commander Keen is the PC platforming mascot but there were some other notable titles that made the grade. Some were pretty much cookie cutter (Skunny) but there was one that rised amongst those.
Jazz Jackrabbit was developed by Epic Megagames who today are well known for their Unreal engine as well as Gears of War (a franchise I never took to), however back then rather than make shooters, Epic originally started out as a shareware developer and took it upon themselves to bring some quality console style games to the PC platform with the likes of the Jill of the Jungle series, Overkill, Epic Pinball & One Must Fall: 2097.
Jazz Jackrabbit was the usual mascot style character, full of so called "attitude" and was a different colour to what his species are in real life. Jazz is kind of a cross between Sonic, Bugs Bunny & Rambo. He runs around extremely colourful levels blasting the crap out of enemies and collecting floppy discs, carrots and other shiny objects. At the end of each world you get to fight against his arch nemesis Devan Shell who is some kind of nerd Tortoise who kidnapped the Princess Eva Earlong (totally original right?) and in each of Devan's appearances he is in some kind of robotic contraption (where do they get these ideas from!?). Every now and again you get to enter some "mode 7" bonus levels where you run around collecting these diamonds.
Its by the numbers platforming, nothing too special but it is a lot of fun and back in 1994 we didn't quite have anything like this on the PC. It looked great for the time, some good animations and as well as that the music is nice and cheery. It's also a good little challenge, more so than many mascot platformers out there and it is something I do recommend that gamers today should try.
There were some extra editions of this game, the Xmas Edition was an add-on that required the original game and made the original levels Xmassy and also had a new episode called "Holidaius" which had seven all new levels as two new bonus levels. There was Holiday Hare which was released on CD-ROM which not only included the Xmassy levels, had the original game as well.
Jazz also went on to feature in several other titles; 1998's Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (developed by Orange games who went on to be Guerilla Games who developed the Killzone series) where like with most platforming sequels you got to play as someone else, Jazz's brother...Spaz! That game built upon the original but the sprites were made smaller to allow for a faster gameplay style and also the title included splitscreen co-op mode as well as online modes. The game was a significant upgrade over the first title and still looks pretty good today. There was also Jazz Jackrabbit on the Gameboy Advance (developed by Titan Games) in 2002, though for some reason that parodied Star Wars and deviated from the original story though it was a pretty good game. Graphically pretty much everything was overhauled and Jazz and the characters took a more humanoid look. There was a Jazz Jackrabbit 3 for the PS2 but it was cancelled after Epic couldn't find a publisher. That was more of a 3D Metroid-y style adventure title. Jazz has also popped up in Epics fighter One Must Fall and most recently features in iOS Unreal dev kits, in a top down twin stick tutorial.
Of course being a DOS game you would need to use DOSBox to play it, however I do recommend you grab OpenJazz as it plays the game a lot better. OpenJazz is also available to download for Wii, PSP, PocketPC, Dreamcast, Mac, Pandora, GP32, GP2X & Caanoo and those can be downloaded from the link at the bottom, you would of course still need the original game files to play it:
Genre: Platforming
Type: Shareware
Release Date: 1994
Developed and Published by: Epic Megagames
Designed by: Cliff Bleszinsk and Arjan Brussee
System: PC
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