On Tue, 01 Nov 2022 07:06:05 -0400, Mike S. <
Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:
On Mon, 31 Oct 2022 14:17:16 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
Never heard of him or it.
I have but only because I watch a lot of gaming youtube channels.
Spalls is right. Think Sonic the Hedgehog, but for the PC instead.
You are all making me feel old.
Then again, I really shouldn't be surprised the Jazz games aren't
remembered. Although he made a big splash on his debut, Jazz's fame
fizzled out pretty quickly. He was notable not because of his
gameplay, character, or visuals but simply because he was able to
compete with better known platformers. There was a general assumption
that PCs simply could not match the performance of consoles when it
came to fast-moving platformers like Sonic.
This wasn't entirely without reason; although the CPUs of the
Megadrive and SNES were far outclassed by that on PCs, those consoles
had a lot of support software that let them move sprites into and out
of memory very quickly. It was only because PCs became so much faster
that they were able to 'brute force' their way past their limitations
with their raw computational muscle. Still, with many publishers still targeting 286/386 machines (and using slower real-mode memory
routines), the raw oomph of PCs wasn't visible to most gamers. "Jazz"
was a wakeup call in this regard.
But other than that, Jazz Jackrabbit didn't bring much to the table.
It had some satisfying gameplay, but it didn't really stand out
amongst its peers. Its character was the just another example of the smack-talking rebellious pseudo-teen that was so popular in the 90s.
Its visuals - though quick - weren't mindblowing. It was an okay game
for its genre - and one I quite enjoyed at the time - but otherwise it
was not memorable game.* Well, other than its historical/technical
achievement, but twenty-five years later, that's really only of
interest to the nerdiest of PC gamers, I suppose.
TL;DR:** I shouldn't be too surprised people don't have the same
regard as I have Jazz. Nonetheless, if you like that sort of game,
it's still worth playing. And you still have 40 hours to claim it ;-)
===========================
* I did rather enjoy its techno soundtrack, utilizing tracker music
technology.
** Some people, recognizing that they've a reputation for being
long-winded and meandering, tighten up their prose so they get to the
point more succinctly. Me, I just provide a "too-long, didn't read"
summary at the end for the impatient ;-0
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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