Jumpman

The Good
I always enjoy games more if they have simple plots, and one of them is Jumpman, a 1-4 player game in which you must make your man collect the brown bombs to defuse them. This game involves a lot of jumping, as some platforms just cannot be reached by foot.

While defusing the bombs, you need to avoid the white bullets that appear on the screen, which will quickly shoot down at you if you are at the same level as them. Besides bullets, you need to watch out for enemies that are scattered throughout the game, including robots, nuclear bombs, vampire bats, UFOs, and more. When defusing the bombs, unusual things happen like parts of ladders and platforms disappearing, so watch your step.

The game itself consists of 30 levels, and it has three difficulty settings. Once you have complete the game with the easiest difficulty setting, it is recommended that you play the game at the harder difficulty settings, as these settings will contain more challenging levels. Jumpman also has two other options: "Grand Loop" and "Randomizer", which lets the game more or less select random levels for you to play. The game involves a bit of strategy, in which you need to analyze the level by choosing the path that will allow you to complete the level quicker, so that you can get some bonus points at the end of the level.

Jumpman was released for various home systems. The graphics were great for its time, though it cannot be compared to today's state-of-the-art 3-D graphics. I enjoyed watching the introduction, where Jumpman brings out different colored letters that are in his name one-by-one, and puts them down on the vines, but has a bit of trouble when he deals with the "N".

The sounds are also excellent. I really liked the sound when Jumpman walks, as when he does, it sounds like a clock ticking. I also liked the short "death march" theme that is heard after he falls.

The Bad
The game can get a bit boring after a while.

The Bottom Line
If you like jumping games with simple plots, then I recommend playing Jumpman for the Commodore 64. It has great sound and graphics, and sure beats the other versions hands down.

Rating: ***