Jill of the Jungle

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.

The Good
Jill is a beautiful 2D blonde who defies the "helpless" stereotype as she leaps, climbs, soars and swims her way through various dungeons. I was lucky enough to play this when I was just getting interested in computer games - it wasn't easy back then to find games with a strong female lead. There is no deep intellectual involvement here - a little puzzle-solving and weapon-throwing, but still fun after all these years. The graphics are appealing despite the blockiness; they are colorful and bright and the reds and yellows stand out like gems against the dungeon backgrounds.

Jill marked my first experience of "flying" in a game and playing as a character other than human. Being a phoenix, frog and fish were all unique adventures, and unlike some games I played later, you have to work to stay aloft or to swim. This has the benefit of involving you just that little bit more in the experience.

Jill starts the game with a dagger and later acquires a throwing-star. The dagger returns to you boomerang style, but if you're not careful you can lose it in a lava pit. The throwing-star is a particularly satisfying weapon for demolishing boulders, which make a nice shattering sound.

The background music is low-key and unobtrusive. Sound effects are just wonderful throughout the game, from the oddly frightening "ah" sound the evil frogs make (Yes, scary frogs!)to Jill's "got the apple powerup" noise. You can play back all the special effects sounds to your hearts content on the clever little noisemaker feature outside the game.

The Bad
I find it really unfortunate that Epic abandoned Jill after the trilogy; just think what adventures she might be having now!

The Bottom Line
I love this game! It's mildly challenging, graphically beautiful, and it has a quality of innocence that makes me return to it again and again.

The Good
A simple and neat shareware platform game, I got Jill of the Jungle when I was about 9 or 10 as a gift in a chocolate package. It didn't work on my computer (XT) of course, so I had to go to the neighbours to play it on their 386. But it was worth it: cool (if not amazing) graphics, good music, great (or so I thought) PC-speaker sound effects and fun, fun gameplay made it an instant favorite of mine (and my brother's too). It's just plain cool, and I still play it from time to time to this day (pathetic, I know).

The Bad
The controls are programmed slightly on the bad side and tend to occasionally function erratically; the sound effects/music routines aren't very well programmed either and do not work on newer computers (mine at least). Also, the premise is really stupid - but that's part of the charm :-)

The Bottom Line
A really cool shareware game. Play it, you'll like it.