First game sucked. Had so many issues with collisions and enemies blindsiding you from off-screen. Bosses are also a joke. Very much a novelty carried by its artstyle and kickass music. The animations were also nice.Second game was good but unpolished. They fixed the screen crunch and collisions are better. Most of the weapons fluff (Toaster, Bouncer, and homing missiles are useful) but the level design is much better. It felt like they were finally getting somewhere....Unfortunately, the game was a flop.Third game got cancelled. There's a prototype floating around but I don't think turning 3d was the right move.Jazz Jackrabbit is something I have mixed feelings about. "Sonic with a gun" could work. Hoping for a Source Code release so at least the first game can get out of DOS hell proper.Whatabout you? Have you played any of the Jazz "canonically fucks the princess" Jazzrabbit games?
>>12166386>pc platformers Why are they all so fuckedIts like they fell out of an alternate dimension where SMB never happened. They all seem to be busting their asses trying to reinvent a wheel. Like they're flying blind with zero clue as to how physics should work or level design. Its bizarre. They somehow make late 90s pc hardware look weaker than an NES
>>12166386bBest mascot design
>>12166436I think jazz is interesting because it's like they saw sonic the hedgehog but never played it and thought to copy that.
jazz>sonic
>>12166436Dedicated hardware makes a HUGE difference. MS-Dos was all CPU. That's why we now have graphics cards.
Cliff is such an embarrassment
>>12166881This is the game we got when only Cliff worked on Jazz Jackrabbit without the help of Dead Dodrill. It's clear who the real force behind Jazz's appeal was.
me and a buddy used to play jazz 2 multiplayer over LAN, we'd make our own maps and battle eachother. fun times.
>>12166436PCs had a few great platformers (to name a few: Prince of Persia, Abe's Oddysee, Heart Of Darkness), it's just that you might not think of some of them as "PC platformers" because they had versions on other hardware.Another thing is that many of the good platformers on PC were of the "cinematic" kind (where your movement is tied to a grid) rather than platformers like Mario where you move with pixel precision. For some reason the console-only crowd dismisses the former as proper platformers, as if nothing but Mario clones are allowed to be called platformers.Also, PCs were suited for more kinds of games (thanks to keyboards, mice and analog joysticks), so just by percentage, less of PC games happened to be platformers
>>12167394>you will find pc had a few great platformers if you include these games that are not platformersno shit bro
We're had the source code for Jazz 1 for YEARS anon holy fuck, there were ports on the wii and psp for fuck's sake. 2 only just got the decomp treatment and ports recently at least, but it's literally all out there if you want it.
>>12167584>We're had the source code for Jazz 1 for YEARS anonWhere? And if so, why is OpenJazz even a thing?https://github.com/AlisterT/openjazzTried using this and 2nd boss just stood there. Is there just no one willing to port it?
>>12166436Well first of all consider the quality of western platformers on console. Better than PC, yes, but still mediocre at best. So you aren't going to see anything amazing to begin with.Now consider the PC does not have backgrounds, sprites, etc. Every facet of the game has to be built in software. So all of the on-paper extra power of the PC processor goes into actually running the game, whereas the console has hardware specifically designed to play sidescrolling platformers.Finally, consider you don't get a real controller to play with. Before the 2000s when you could just plug your xbox controller in, PC controllers sucked ass.
>>12166881fuck off, Sweeney
PC developers are more intelligent, on average, and platformers are the lowest form of video game, only fit for the masses.
>>12167967Excuse me? western platformers were some of the best
Just so we're clear, the actual Source code for Jazz 1 has never been leaked or released officially. Furthermore, using it to make Source Ports would be a tad on the annoying side as it was written in Turbo Pascal...Yes that is the actual name of the language it was written in.Dunce over here >>12167584 is mistaking OpenJazz, a crude but well meaning attempt at decompiling the old game in C++ as the game's actual Source Code when it isn't. It's also incomplete and full of bugs but retards still port it to things like the Wii, Switch, etc cause they're retards doing things in their spare time.Jazz 1 is still in DOS hell. Sad but them's the breaks.
>>12166386>Sonic with a gun
>>12166449>>12167967>Dedicated hardware makes a HUGE differenceIt's definitely a factor as to why platformers on microcomputers sucked so hard compared to those on consoles, but hardware alone doesn't paint the whole picture. For instance, no MSX-standard computers were capable of horizontal scrolling until 1989's MSX2+, yet right after the 1985 release of SMB Jap developers started releasing a ton of really great-feeling platformers that were really fun despite having flip-screens or jerky scrolling. In contrast, the 8- and 16-bit micros popular in Europe, especially the Atari and Commodore models which all had dedicated hardware for sprites and scrolling, were flooded with awful "platformers" that had awful physics and terrible gameplay despite clearly trying to ape SMB.So more than anything I think economics and culture had more to do with the state of platformers on Western micros. In the US, lots of devs were making very solid arcade-style games for the Apple II and C64 in the early 80s but our interest in 8-bit micros dissipated almost entirely by '86; by that point, most families could afford getting a PC clone or Mac for 'adult' genres like simulators or RPGs as well as a NES for 'arcade'-style games like SMB, so it didn't make sense for Americans to try to develop SMB-type games on computers. Only Apogee and the shareware revolution of the 90s made PC platformers profitable, in combination with a whole generation that grew up with Nintendo and wanted to play similar games on machines they now had to use for work. Commander Keen wasn't a success just because of Carmack's smooth scrolling wizardry, but also because everybody at id played lots of SMB3 and other NES classics so made sure Keen FELT good to control.
>>12168286(continued)In Europe, I think things were more dire because the average consumer relied on much less expensive hardware for gaming and expected software to be cheap and disposable, nullifying both the positive influence of Japanese game design and the financial incentive for innovating the platformer genre.A young dev working on a platformer for release on the C64 and Atari 800 in 1987after their period of relevancy in the US ended and they became cheap enough to import wouldn't be able to find much inspiration from his youth other than some primitive Spectrum title like Miner Wily because that's all most could afford at the time. He might be aware it's a shitty game but it wasn't worth his time to reinvent the wheel since his publisher was going to put the game out on cassette at budget pricing. And the cycle repeats. A young dev working on a platformer for release on the Amiga and Atari ST in 1990 never relevant in the US and both companies slashing prices so they're affordable to Europeans in a desperate attempt to stay afloat wouldn't be able to find much inspiration from his youth other than some budget cassette-only release like Super Robin Hood because that's all most could afford at the time. He might be aware it's a flawed game but it wasn't worth his time to reinvent the wheel since his publisher was going to put the game out on floppy disks and sales would inevitable be cannibalized by rampant piracy.With the exception of studios like Rare who were looking outward to Japan and the U.S. from day 1, I think a lot of European devs were locked into this slop cycle until the market for 16-bit micros imploded from sheer incompetence and consoles like the Mega Drive and especially the Playstation became both affordable for consumers and accessible for ex-computer devs.
>>12168289(continued) That being said, I think most of what I wrote applies primarily to the UK (and France to a lesser extent) since they produced the vast majority of slop on those platforms. I've noticed a lot of the actually playable platformers on consumer micros during that period came from other mainland European countries, for instance 1987's Great Gianna Sisters and 1990's Turrican were done by Germans. JJ1 was developed by the Dutch and is basically Turrican meets Sonic, and for all its flaws is still miles ahead of crap like UK-developed James Pond 3 from the same year. Not sure to what extent SMB was distributed in those countries, but I know the MSX was pretty popular in Spain and the Netherlands so there might have been some crossover influence there.
>>12166436- Commander Keen was great- Duke Nukem was servicable and it's no wonder his 3D outing overshadowed everything- Everything else is pretty mid from Captain Comic to Jill of the JungleThey were fine for their time but didn't have that final polish.
>>12168295>James Pond 3Speaking of James Pond, just what the fuck IS the deal with Robocod and why the hell do they keep porting it over and over and over and over again?That game is just painfully mediocre and James Pond himself doesn't even have any shitpost qualities like Bubsy.Is there some britbong inside joke that I'm missing or is it simply "just cause"?
Yep
>>12168049Thats weird, we had old computers at school so they still taugh us Turbo Pascal even when it was outdated. Its a sort of begginer language but it can be compiled to be really efficient and you can insert assembly into it. Jazz 1 runs pretty good on 386 with not that much slowdown.>>12166386Jazz 1 might be too fast on a 486 or newer. Jazz 2 I wanted back in the day but never saw it. The reviews made it seem amazing. Jazz 2 I think is about as good as the typical 16 bit game.
>>12166386And it was still better than SonicAlso Jazz is way more attractive
JJ2 was one of those games everyone had installed on their PC back in the day and it was fun as shit
>>12166436>Its like they fell out of an alternate dimension where SMB never happened. They all seem to be busting their asses trying to reinvent a wheel.It's genuinely bizarre, isn't it? They all have utterly shit physics that would've received universal ridicule on consoles, but some reason there was a cluster of PC gamers that ate this garbage up.By far the strangest thing is this piece of shit somehow still has an active online playerbase. Can you believe that? People are playing Sonic with Guns: Shit Physics Edition online. I've tried to comprehend what the fuck it is that they see in it, but to no avail. The only thing I can praise about it is Alexander Brandon's wonderfully unique music.
>>12172561Jazz Jackrabbit (specifically Jazz Jack Rabbit 2) has its own Sonic Retro tier autist fanbase due to its online component.https://www.jazz2online.com/Furthermore, these guys have officially added to the game with their mod (Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Plus, yes just like Sonic Mania Plus) which is officially bundled with the GoG version. Recent edition: 32-bit color support for the level editor.Shame they can't fix the controls.
>>12166386Tim Sweeney:From choppy butt-tier dosformers to billionaire.Skunny devs curse his name.
>>12168161Wow, that's so hardcore and cool!
>>12168372Likely some tax evasion/fund embezzlement shit. Better not look too much into it.
>>12172561The secret was it was FREE. You can shit on Super Mario Bros 3 if you didn't like it AND paid $49.99 back then (Which is like $89.99 today)But all these other games were Shareware or just flat out copied bootleg style. The price was right.
>>12172590It's like the Temu version of the Sonic fanbase.They want to fuck these characters too.
>>12173151Who wouldn't?
>>12173151You're not wrong there. There is a guy who rebuilt Jazz 2 in a completely different engine.https://github.com/deathkiller/jazz2-nativeThe problem is the physics are all off and the game is SLOWER than the original. What kind of autist spends his free time rebuilding a game in a new engine without caring about accuracy? It's not like the engine itself is made from scratch (It's the Ncine Engine) but you'd think all the effort would go into making something that feels close to the original.https://github.com/nCine/nCineCould be this engine is just trash but then, why use it? So many questions....
>>12166386Why did they make Jazz look so sexy?
>>12173268Cause they game won't sell if your character is unappealing. See the very confusing GBA version.
