Jazz Jackrabbit

There is one game that showed everybody that the PC was starting to become as viable a gaming platform as any console on the market. While DOOM was an entirely new experience, Jazz Jackrabbit replicated the experience players had on their SNESes and Mega Drives. Its protagonist even became a mascot for PC gaming at large.

But how does this 1994 game by Epic MegaGames (now only Epic Games, apparently they're not Mega anymore) hold up today? Is it still good? Or do you need to put on your rose tinted nostalgia glasses? We played the game in August, trying to find out exactly that.

In this episode hosts Martijn (Tijn) and Florian (rnlf) are joined by three guests to discuss this game. First of all there's Tim (LunarLoony), returning from all the way back from our episode about Pinball games (May 2020!). We also have Patrick (patrick_wd), and Wietse (densy) joining for the first time. Wietse is a game historian currently working on an article covering Jazz Jackrabbit, which will be published on his website (see links below) next year when the game hits its 30th anniversary.

We also got a voice message by Wouter. Thanks for that, Wouter!

Enjoy!

[ download mp3 ] (133 mins, 152 MB)

We once again got lots of help from DGC member console with editing this episode. Many thanks to him and all who make this show possible!

RELEVANT LINKS:

* Our guest Tim (LunarLoony) is on Twitch and YouTube

* www.gamegeschiedenis.nl is a Dutch game history website run by our guest Wietse (densy)

* Overview of Jazz 1 versions

* JJ1 version 1.3 community patch (now part of the GOG release)

* jazz2online.com Jazz Jackrabbit fan website

* Vector Demo (1991) by UltraForce on: Pouet and YouTube

* Control Freak: My Epic Adventure Making Video Games, by Cliff Bleszinski

* 1994 Usenet thread about Apogee vs Epic drama (through Google Groups)

* Epic MegaGames was discussed earlier on DGC in episodes 19 (Tyrian), 46 (Jill of the Jungle) and 75 (One Must Fall: 2097)

* New: we're now accepting donations through Ko-Fi

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