Game preservation is a topic close to and expensive to my coronary heart. Growing up with PC video games (I didn’t get my first console until my teenagers), I misplaced depend of what number of floppy disks I’ve seen misplaced to the pure magnetic entropy of our world. As such, it’s at all times value celebrating when somebody untangles the purple tape and strikes a deal with a purpose to re-release a number of the video games I grew up taking part in.
This week, GOG raided the vaults of Epic Megagames. Back earlier than the studio developed humility and dropped the ‘Mega’, the Unreal Engine giants had been huge on the PC shareware scene, and now you’ll be able to expertise each Jazz Jackrabbit video games and Epic Pinball for your self by the mixed magics of DOS emulation and fan-patching. Just be warned that nostalgia is a fragile factor, and fond reminiscences might crumble when uncovered to the tough mild of the fashionable day.
In all seriousness, I’d advocate skipping the unique Jazz Jackrabbit. As with so many PC ‘classics’ of its time, it’s a crude imitation of a console sport design that doesn’t fairly perceive what it’s doing. In this case, it’s Sonic The Hedgehog, solely with weapons and an much more claustrophobic digital camera, even twitchier motion and little or no warning that you just’re about to collide with an impediment or enemy, forcing you to shoot wildly into the gap each time you begin working down a hall. Still, in its favour, it did have fairly good artwork, plus a implausible soundtrack.
If nothing else, it was forward of its time. Sega didn’t actually take into account the implications of giving Sonic a gun till Shadow the Hedgehog.
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is extra fascinating. While slightly buggy at launch, Jazz 2 is a marked enchancment over the primary. Bumping up the decision, Epic opted to drag the digital camera again, exhibiting extra of the extent at any given time. This sacrifices slightly of that sense of breakneck velocity, however makes it so much much less fascinating. Jazz 2 additionally introduces a second playable character for extra selection, together with cooperative multiplayer.
This can also be the definitive model of Jazz 2. The GOG model consists of the Secret Files enlargement, including a not-too-hot new episode and a 3rd playable character, the sporty Lori. Yeah, I’m fairly positive the builders noticed Space Jam too. GOG additionally embrace the Christmas-themed promo ranges and have (optionally) built-in the community-made JJ2+ fan-patch, which fixes lots of bugs and improves on-line multiplayer.
The shock deal with of this bundle of re-releases is Epic Pinball. Unlike Jazz, which was a wobbly imitation of console requirements of the time, Epic Pinball did the PC proud, with a broad vary of extremely various tables (the space-warping Enigma specifically), an awesome soundtrack and good (if barely too flat) artwork. While Epic Pinball pales compared to the likes of recent choices like Pinball FX, for its time, it was among the many finest there was. While pinball followers is likely to be higher off with trendy takes on the style, it’s an excitingly nostalgic museum-piece, and is likely to be value a re-evaluation in case you solely bought to play the shareware model again within the day.
You can get Jazz Jackrabbit 1 & 2 and Epic Pinball on GOG now, both individually or bundled together for a slight discount, bringing the trio right down to £14.87 mixed.
