Games of the Abstract: Jazz Jackrabbit (1994)

 

Developer: Epic Games (as Epic MegaGames)

Publisher: Epic Games (as Epic MegaGames)

One Player

MS-Dos

 

In my early youth, I recall the shareware era of PC gaming, as for his job and in his general interest in technology, having PC magazines from the early to mid nineties that I perused in, leaving titles etched in my mind to track down still as an adult, as well as playing versions of games in their "shareware" version. Long before you could play Japanese arcade games legally, there was a line drawn between PC gaming to arcade machines and videogame consoles, shareware a huge part of early PC gaming. Bob Wallace¹ helped innovate this format to become what it did in the nineties, which meant free versions of software being made available for the public. In terms of videogames, before broadband and the internet were a practical concept, it meant free versions of games like Wacky Wheels (1994), one of the games I remember playing, and the first chapter of Jazz Jackrabbit, the subject of this review, being available as incentives for buying the full games from their creators by phone or by post. It is early versions of demos, aside from the fact you could get a substantial amount of content, and that shareware compilations are their own curious creations in comparison to the likes of Playstation One's nostalgic era of magazine demo discs, bundled together in compilations which have leaked onto online and are being picked apart now with fascinating in the modern era. Shareware is a curious world to consider, from the time they ran on what is called MS-Dos, an operating system that was discontinued by the 2000s and games came on floppy discs, where such titles exist like Engineering Jones and the Time Thieves of DSPea (1991), an adventure game by Harris Semiconductor, the American technology company about electronics that is part of PC software's own nebulous galaxy.

Jazz Jackrabbit, from Epic Games, the future creators of the Gears of War and Unreal franchises, is a creation by Arjan Brussee and Cliff Bleszinski which clearly wanted to be MS-Dos' Sonic the Hedgehog. Retelling the Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare if it had escalated beyond a foot race between hare and tortoise to a gristly science fiction war, you play Jazz Jackrabbit, a green commando bunny who travels the cosmos to defend his planet Carrotus and defeat Devan Shell the Tortoise, who has kidnapped Eva Earlong. Earlong is clearly indebted to Mario games to in how she is dressed like Princess Peach, if with a significantly more buxom and revealing figure. That could be a crass thing to include in a review, but it is worth bringing up as, only really appearing in the animated cut scenes when you complete chapter, it emphasises that when it came to the sexual side of Furry culture, eroticised animal people, we can probably put the influence on creators in various mediums, even if for a family audience, getting bored and designing their female characters to be attractive to them during the eighties and the nineties, which really says something about the heterosexual male libido that is complex and for an entirely different type of review.

This, knowing now Epic Games created this, really shows this is the macho retelling of a cartoon platformer, where the speed of Sonic is there but the main inclusion is that Jazz has a gun with a variety of firepower instead of deadly stomping abilities - standard fire, flame and missiles, and the bouncing blue grenades, which become useful as, with the game mechanics being slowly exposed beyond the first chapter, you will have to drop them down platforms (and try sometimes up) to wisely clear the path. With the difficulty modes having Easy turn Jazz into a baby, Medium onwards becoming more muscle bound and intense, this definitely becomes a parody by pure accident of what happens when the Gears of War creator, Cliff Bleszinski himself going on with Epic Games on Unreal and Gears of War as a designer, made a 2D nineties shooter platformer. It is very early nineties, also skirting a line to not let Jazz become a copyright duplicate of Bucky O'Hare, Larry Hama and Michael Golden's comic book creation, a green humanoid rabbit fighting evil toads in outer space, who got a cartoon series and videogames including a Konami scrolling beat em up. Alongside a boss being a parody of Sonic and Zool, a British platform character from the time, being spliced in a David Cronenberg teleportation machine accident, and Jazz Jackrabbit in what it parodies and how it looks could not be anything but its timeframe even if it did not come as shareware on a floppy plastic disc.  

Jazz Jackrabbit the game itself is solid. The problems are more that, in the collected together Jazz Jackrabbit CD version I can access in the modern, with all the chapters, the Lost Chapters and a Christmas special, what is a solid game I will compliment with a lot of virtues, and fairness, also has a lot of mean and repetitive gaming choices, and does feel stretched in the end. Most of the game is more dodging your opponents on a variety of planets with firepower just a necessary clearing tactic. Two stages per planet, baring a few that fire back, you are more concerned with trying to negotiate around the enemies and even on Medium mode, the closest to Normal, this game has an unfair habit of dropping them on mass (strutting lizards, monkeys etc.) from above, or leaps of fate where you can find your jumping onto a mass of enemies or spikes. The game is strange in that when it is not mean, it is a challenge which yet has a lot of fairness - a look up and down button which shifts the screen ahead, health and power ups in a lot of levels at good times, a checkpoint system and save system which, common to this era of games, means even losing all your lives makes this still fair in that area. It is however a crap shoot that some levels, even if they have these benefits, can be mean for reasons which would have been ironed out in later decade gaming to balance out challenge to not forcing you to be unable to react to hazards appearing out of nowhere.

And the game does spam the same type of levels eventually, which is an issue when the game, when it works, is solid and should have focused on being more creative and expanded on its premise. Even in mind to how the game looks, with enemies at points frankly looking like Microsoft Paint creations, these strange hyper coloured environments by themselves are at least memorable, even when they are clearly cribbing from games like Sonic The Hedgehog and games from video game consoles from the time. The music by Robert A. Allen and Joshua Jensen itself is exceptional and the best thing of this game, going between proto-First Person Shooter dungeon synth, techno, and in the Christmas chapter, metal retelling of Christmas chorals which are as funny as they are memorable. The game itself finds issue for me in that, focusing more on piling on enemies and leaps of fate, it does get repetitive and at times frustrating, to the point that, barring a couple, it is a blessing the boss levels can be broken by camping at the beginning of the stage and shooting the boss without worrying about being damaged. These bosses, frankly unnecessary as a result, prove a relief from some of the difficult levels before which felt based more on risks dropping up and down on platforms abruptly even if you are careful and slow the pace of your movements down.

Barring the bonus levels, which really feel like they are following the second Sonic the Hedgehog game from 1992, running into the screen across a course collecting blue gems, there is not a lot of uniqueness to the levels. Finding secret paths and finding collectables is a really good aspect, as these levels can be searched with a lot of time on the content to provide a fine line between not procrastinating but not to feel rushed, but this does not clear through the repetition. More could have been found, fleshing out Jazz Jackrabbit even if with no idiosyncratic level mechanics beyond those we have, including spring pads from Sonic and figuring out you can jump on some clouds, with its personality, both in its tone and knowing one of his creators worked on Unreal Tournament (1999) we could have just turned this into a shooter platformer with more weapons and stranger enemies.

 It says a great deal that the best levels, the most memorable at least, are the underwater ones, usually a type of level feared by gamers, but here manages to have one up on Mario and Sonic in that Jazz bothers to bringing his scuba gear and does not worry about drowning. One does take a risk in having passages entirely in the dark barring coloured lights, which would be a questionable design decision nowadays for players with limited eyesight, but the underwater levels were actually memorable in how, having to search for switches to raise the water levels up to reach platforms, or just swim across mazes, the game is unique for a moment and has a healthy time limit to be fair, giving the proceedings something memorable. That hoverboard given to the player at points helps to, allowing you to freely move around the screen above and under hazards, in terms of changing the dynamics up.

The original shareware version of this game, which I remember the cut off for, was in itself a simple yet entertaining experience, but it does feel like a game which becomes repetitive to a detriment. Character is provided through the music and some of the locations, suddenly appearing in a Dune-like location only with prancing lizards, or a strange urban area promoting Epic Game's own One Must Fall: 2097 (1994), another shareware game I remember, but it does suggest that tightening up games even if they are shorter was a concept worth bringing up even back in the nineties, let alone in the modern day. Jazz Jackrabbit managed to continue onto another sequel and a Game Boy Advance follow up, the PC sequel I have memories of playing, before disappearing into nostalgia and those like myself buying the games digitally. Jazz Jackrabbit itself in terms of looking back at it without nostalgia is naturally going to lead to a great amount of scrutinisation but the thing is that, not the structure of the game itself or even the aesthetics proves a gripe, but that it does repeat itself with at times frustrating game style proves the detriment to what works. When you can have challenge without some meanness, the music is going with a banger and its own colourfully over-the-top tone fits, this even if a work batting under the weight of more well regarded, usually Japanese titles, of this era, does work and I would recommend it. It does however feel bloated which proves a huge flaw.

 

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1) Passing in 2002, Bob Wallace's contributions to computer technology in general are well thought of, as is detailed in his NYTimes online obituary, originally appearing in print on "Sept. 26, 2002, Section B, Page 9 of the National edition". Learning he and Bill Gates used to break into construction sites to drive the bulldozers is certainly the most memorable fact learnt from this review as always happens when I do some research; whilst not professional now, the image of Gates, Microsoft's figurehead, doing this and having a whale of a time in a bulldozer is something I never would have pictured, spoken from Gates' admiration of Bob Wallace as well.