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back to article Jazz Jackrabbit

What with Easter's inextricable link with bunnies, it seemed in order to revisit an old lop eared friend. Jazz Jackrabbit is a side scrolling platform game and one I consider to be DOS shareware gaming at its finest. Who would have thought our friend Jazz would come from the same stable as a Gears of War Nemacyst? Jazz …

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  1. Dave 126 Silver badge

    I know exactly where my Gravis pad is- it's next to my Gravis Ultrasound card- but I can't plug either of them into my laptop!

    I think I lost the little joystick adaptor it came with though, along with that cute screwdriver that came with my Gravis Joystick (not black but the limited edition transparent version).

    It was a different age of PC gaming!

    http://www.armchair.mb.ca/~dave/shust/

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    1. MrT
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      "There's a screw in the handle."

      Brilliant!

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  2. Just a random academic
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    This was an epic game

    I wonder if I can find a copy on the intarwebs (shareware version only, of course. Ahem).

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    1. Jedit Silver badge
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      Pirate

      Re: This was an epic game

      Jazz Jackrabbit is abandonware, I think - certainly there's been no official release since 1996, and an open source recreation project was put online in 2005.

      Of course, if someone wants to do an official re-release or mobile recreation, I'm sure there'll be plenty of folks ready to buy it for the nostalgia value.

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    2. stucs201
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      Re: This was an epic game

      I'm sure I still have a copy of this somewhere. Might have to dig it out.

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      1. RAMChYLD
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        Boffin

        Re: This was an epic game

        I still have the shareware version of the game on one of those shareware compilation CDs that came with my second PC. Too bad I never did get the full version of the game or the sequel.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Never had a PC to play it on,

    but screenshots always made me think someone should have told the designer that the three settings for 'Red', 'Green' and 'Blue' in the palette aren't _meant_ to be mutually exclusive...

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  4. Smithson

    Nice, but...

    Not sure I'd describe the graphics as "innovative". Second shot there bears more than a passing resemblance to: http://images.wikia.com/sonic/images/b/b0/Sonic2HillTop.png

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    1. ThomH
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      Re: Nice, but...

      I would have been more scathing than merely not describing them as innovative. Ditto for the whole game. It was well crafted and fun, but far from innovative in any sense.

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  5. LinkOfHyrule

    I have never heard of this game before so it comes as a cool surprise to find an interesting looking old game I know nothing about.

    I must admit, and I'm not just making an obvious joke for once, I thought from the title it would be a Leisure Suit Larry style game with a frisky rabbit chap as the main character rather than a platformer. Jackrabbit sounds to me like a combination of the phrases "at it like rabbits" and "banging like a jack hammer" and of course jazz is an euphemism for porn - guess I just got a dirty mind though!

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    1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge
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      Today it does sound a bit like

      a lady's private accessory that takes batteries. NSFW.

      I'm not sure how long that particular design has been rabbiting on.

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  6. Christian Berger

    I think it also had a 3D level

    It consisted of a plane with sprites superimposed. They apparently drew the rabit from all sides in all phases of the motion and just put on the right sprite.

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  7. paulc
    Happy

    Another golden oldie is

    One Must Fall...

    a fighting game with robots...

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    1. Trygve Henriksen
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      Re: Another golden oldie is

      Amen to that!

      http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/one-must-fall-2097/

      Destroyed a couple of Gravis Analog Pro joysticks on that game...

      (Anyone has a working one to sell?)

      Felt really good the first time I took down the entire lineup without a single loss myself.

      Then I upped the difficulty and had a REALLY good time... :-)

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  8. toadwarrior

    Only a PC-only gamer would think jazz was good. It borrowed so much from other games and even with that help it just was not as fun as Mario or Sonic.

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    1. Dave 126 Silver badge
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      Here I am, posting to agree with a down-voted comment.

      Platform games on the PC were far and few between at this time. We had some Amiga ports, such as Flasback and Zool, plus some homegrown efforts - Jill of the Jungle, and Duke Nukem, but really, consoles were where it was at for platformers. Sonic was smoother, faster and more polished; Jazz even borrowed the fluffy woodland theme!

      Don't feel bad though- we had flight sims, racing games over null-modem cable - and we were soon to get Doom : D

      If anything, it seems today's console games are all in the 90's PC genre.

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  9. David Given
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    Soundtrack!

    Don't forget the awesome soundtrack --- 4 channel mod FTW!

    On of the levels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2idyeFWdmA

    The main title: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zK2sfWvSE

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