Collection essentials #73: Jackal (NES)
Oops I went slightly out of order, my bad!
Anyways, look who it is again: Konami!! They were pretty good, huh?
Jackal is one of their less-talked-about games, and it didn’t spawn a series unlike some of those other ones. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t great! This one’s a port of an arcade game, with some tweaks to make it more at home on the NES. You’re a soldier driving a jeep that can drive freely in all directions, and you’re armed with two weapons: a gun that always shoots northward, and a grenade that shoots whatever direction the jeep is facing (which can be upgraded to a missile). In the original Japanese arcade release, the gun also shoots whatever direction you face, but that was changed for the North American release and the NES version, and it makes the game way better because trying to turn around just to shoot at someone is an awkward pain. There are POWs you can rescue, which will reward you with powering up your grenade/missile attack. Best of all, a friend can get in on the action for cooperative fun. This is another pick-up-and-play, very fun game from Konami.
My mom got this game for me at a yard sale many years ago, making it one of my first NES games (in the early 2000s when I was a teen), and one that I had never heard of beforehand. I was amused by the message you’re greeted with at the start of the game, “This battle will make your blood boil. Good luck!” I liked it, but didn’t play it a whole lot. Years later I found extra incentive to get into it more when I learned that it’s one of my friend John’s favorite old-school games, so it was just a few years ago that I actually saw it through to the end and beat it. The game then became an absolute true essential!
Comments
Post a Comment