


Jazz can also pick up various power-ups, including a force shield, a hoverboard that allows him to float in the air, a bird that will fight on Jazz's side, and others. Jazz starts with a blaster, but during the course of the game acquires other weapons, such as grenade launcher, flamethrower, TNT, etc. The game is primarily a shooter, meaning that in order to defeat his enemies, it's not enough for Jazz to jump over their heads. However, the rest of the gameplay mechanics are different. The similarity to Sonic the Hedgehog manifests itself in Jazz's uncanny speed, and the fact it increases the more he runs. In this platform game, Jazz, the hero of the rabbit planet Carrotus, must rescue the beloved rabbit princess, Eva Earlong, and defeat the leader of the turtle terrorists, Devan Shell, traveling to different planets to gather clues concerning Eva's whereabouts while liberating them from Shell's tyranny. The standalone version's here, at a cost of 22Mb, or if you have the original Jazz 2 installed, you can grab the teeny one.Jazz Jackrabbit is the PC world's answer to Sonic the Hedgehog. Oddly, I experienced some nasty slowdown, which is either an incompatibility with Windows 7 or something, or 6Gb of RAM isn't enough to run a platform game from 1998. As I didn't, I can't usefully comment on how it compares to the originals. As in, idle curiosity probably isn't worth indulging - this is likely only for those who played Jazz 1/2 to death, I suspect.

It's pretty enough despite the low resolution, but very early 90s in its presentation, music and mechanics. Regardless, it's up on Moddb and it features four new Jazz levels, playable as the green manrabbit himself, his sister Lori or, yes, Spaz. I'm not entirely sure which side of the legal grey zone this falls on, as it can be played without owning Jazz 2. Everything has its fans, of course - and that's why, improbably, Jazz Jackrabbit 2.5 exists. It was huge in 1994 because the PC really didn't get many of the platformers that were utterly pervasive on the SNES and Megadrive, but 1998's Spaz-co-starring sequel was the lurid lagomorph's last gasp, bar an unnsuccessful Gameboy Advance jobbie in 2002. The gifts you've given us over the years.Īnyway, the retromancers amongst you may be interested to fiddle with this fan-made semi-sequel to Epic's old Sonic rival.

I was not previously aware that 90s platformer Jazz Jackrabbit 2 featured the titular bunny's brother, a bug-eyed, drooling loon called - their name, not mine - 'Spaz.' Wait: Epic actually got away with that in a commercial game? Or is it just a term of abuse in the UK, not the US? Oh, CliffyB.
