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| Welcome
to Game of the Week! Each week there will be a
new featured game on this page. The game may be good,
average or diabolically bad, it really doesn't matter!
Just look at the pics, read the text and enjoy the nostalgia!
:-) Game of the Week! is open to contributions so if you
would like to contribute
a game article for this page you're more than welcome
to! Every article we receive will be considered! |
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Jet
Set Willy II
1985 Software
Projects
Programmed
by J. Darnell & S. Birtles
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| Most
text of the present article comes from the review published
in the fourth issue of the British C64 magazine ZZAP!64
(August 1985). |
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JET
SET WILLY II
Software
Projects, £8.95 cass, joystick or keys
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Jet Set Willy was a classic game on the Spectrum
about two years ago and has been converted to just about
every micro apart from the Cray I.
Now
comes a follow up or, more accurately, an expansion
on the original game. Instead of the sixty odd rooms
there are now about a hundred, and they're all of the
same ilk as the first JSW.
The
idea of the game (for all you first-time readers) is
to collect all the objects left behind by the guests
after a riotous part before Maria will let you go to
bed. There's over a hundred of these flashing objects
ranging from wine glasses and bottles to tap tops. Once
these are all collected, you can return to the master
bedroom and have a good, long sleep.
The
Ball Room East hasn't changed much in the year
and a half, except that whilst guarding the Master
Bed Room Maria's allowed the dust to gather.
The
mansion itself is quite an oddity. There are loads of
really strange rooms filled with animated nasties, robots
and thingies. The original cast of rooms and characters
are intact in the new version but the new rooms don't
contain anything new in respect of the original at all
and merely expand on the predecessor.
There's
a space shuttle, which takes you to the top part of
the building, and the sewers are several floors up from
the basement. Also, remember the myth that was circulated
about a boat coming up to the beach and taking you to
an island in JSW, well that has now been added
to this game -- art imitates the hoax.
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Oh God! Software Projects have the cheek to release
a follow-up that's not even an original one at that!
Crummy 'sprites' which would shame a Speccy, and sound
which is as horrible as the game itself. The point of
the game is ruined -- you
only need to collect a few objects before falling asleep.
Apart from the new rooms there's nothing special about
this game, it's the same old show trogging about the
rooms and collecting the objects. I thought that perhaps
they might have made more action with interactive objects,
but no, it's still the same old boring left/right/jump
syndrome. When this is compared with the more modern
aardvarks like Cauldron
and Strangeloop,
it just pales into insignificance.
. . At the moment Software
Projects are releasing some pathetic and disappointing
pieces of software and unless they wise up, they could
start to flounder. Come on you guys! Let's see something
amazing for once.
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Presentation 47%
Nothing
special, plus ludicrously long protection code
sheet.
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Jet
Set Willy
was certainly a cult on the Spectrum, hardly as
wonderful on the 64, perhaps because it still
looked so much like a Spectrum game graphically.
Well, JSW
II
suffers the same problem -- still looks like a
Spectrum game. However, that seems to be the least
of its problems really. Quite how anyone could
have thought that adding some extra rooms to an
old game and effectively re-releasing it (a sort
of Close Encounters Special Edition) would thrill
anyone, let alone force them to part with £8.95,
I don't know. Trouble is that the new rooms actually
lack any of the flair of Matthew Smith's original
design, at best they're no improvement. In terms
of lasting appeal etc, well the game's no different
to the original, only longer.
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Graphics 24%
Very poor and no improvements over
original, unless you think quantity makes up for
quality.
Sound
42%
Screechy 'tune' (!) for masochists.
Hookability
44%
Just interesting to see what's
new . . .
Lastability
22%
. . . and what's new ain't that
interesting!
Value
For Money 25%
Seems rather a lot for 40-ish new
rooms.
Overall
24%
First sequel to actually include
the original, perhaps you ought to send in your
old JSW and get a refund against the new
one.
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Htmlized
by Dimitris
Kiminas (9 May 2002)
Other
"Games of the Week!"
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