Jill of the Jungle

The Good
I've been a fan of this game ever since I was very young. In my opinion it looks fantastic; the VGA graphics look colourful and striking. The gameplay is fun and not too hard to master, and the music is very catchy.

The Bad
Some of the puzzles aren't very difficult, but this is balanced out by the others that are. I also have a few problems with the knife-that-comes-back-when-you-fire, which can be a bit difficult to control and indeed doesn't always come back.

The Bottom Line
A bit of fun for those who like platformers. It's hardly a lengthy or challenging game; it's just a great bit of fun.

The Good
Jill of the Jungle has good graphics (because they require 256 colors, but you can run this game with 16 or even 4 colors). It supports joystick and Sound Blaster (any other sound cards aren't welcome). During the gameplay you will face many different enemies, such as snails, frogs and enormous ants, even bigger than you! But you aren't unarmed, you've got a spinning blade and a knife. You may ask, "What? Only two weapons?". And I answer: it's enough. Both weapons are powerful, you can throw a spinning blade to one of these enormous ants and they are dead! And you can morph into frog, bird and fish! Each animal has its own abilities. For example, when you are bird, you can throw fire, but you are very vulnerable to water. You will visit many different places, such as castle and plateau. Some levels also contain puzzles. Sounds are sometimes a little bit bizarre, but they're very funny and they sound pretty good. Music is just wonderful. It's various - some tracks are spooky, other are dynamic or just great. I wish I could have some of these tracks on my cell phone...

The Bad
Unfortunately, this game may look excellent, but there are some things, which decreased my rate. First, Jill has very ugly blue sky background. All puzzles can be very easily beaten (except this castle one, where you have to collect keys and jump to the right platforms. It requires some thinking and reflex). And the worst thing about Jill is length of gameplay. You can finish this game in one afternoon.

The Bottom Line
It's a very good game, if you want to play for 15 minutes or you just love 2D platform games (like me!). Unfortunately there aren't any level editors to keep this game alive longer. What a pity!

The Good
When you get into the game, you are surrounded by lush graphics, great gameplay, wonderful sound (in Win95 or lower) and a 4, 16, or 256 color pixelated babe. I got this game off a CD-rom that had about 25 shareware titles on it when I was 6, and I have been stuck to it ever since. Jill has 14 levels, and two bonus levels that are not too hard to get to. It has no bosses, no blood, no excessive violence, just pure platforming. It has interesting ideas (the elevators are very original, and the Pac-Man style ghosts are cool. Oh, and the crabs, alligators, huge floating eyes, birds that look like butterflies, frogs, bees, giant ants, and those little blue things that get in your way on the chains are nice, too). The music is so memorable I still remember it today. It even has a very nice Save feature. I have fond memories of sitting at my family's new 75 mhz Pentium Packard Bell PC with Win95 on it, and playing it for hours. And a year or two later I ordered the full version and discovered the frustration of the heck level with Jill Goes Underground, and the equally fun Jill Saves The Prince. I still play it (and beat it) today, and I never get sick of it. This is my favorite PC action game of all time, and always will be. Period.

The Bad
The only negatives I can give about this game is that it will not run at all under a WinOS later than 98 SE (based on my personal experience, of course), which is a huge pain in the a for all of us XP users, the Sound Blaster effects and music won't run under anything later than 95 (again, based on personal experience), and it is just a tad too easy, but that's probably just me after playing it for six years, not to mention that I've beat it several times.

The Bottom Line**
If you have Windows 98 SE or lower, GET THIS GAME NOW. I don't care if it's the shareware version (which you can download just about anywhere) or the full version (you should get both), this game is an absolute PC platforming classic, and will live on forever in the history of video and PC games.