What needs to be on the XBLA? #7 - Jazz Jackrabbit

Sonic the Hedgehog was a big star back in the early 90's. Not so much now, but he was a huge inspiration for a a lot of other console platformers

But he also inspired a PC game - going by the name Jazz Jackrabbit. The game was created by Epic Megagames, being produced by a young Mark Rein, and young Cliff Bleszinski was also a designer for the game. It was also programmed by Arjan Brussee, who currently is a Director over at Guerrilla Games and head of the Killzone franchise. Jazz brought a lot of talented people to the table, who are still going strong in this industry.

Jazz Jackrabbit was the PC equivalent of Sonic. Jazz, a green rabbit from the planet Carrotus and looks like he's stolen the 'digs off Rambo, must rescue Princess Eva Earlong from the clutches of Devan Shell and his army of Turtles. A bizarre space version of Tortoise and the Hare, if you will.

Despite the many inspirations of Sonic, Jazz is still an absolute fantastic game and stands on its own, unlike other games like Radical Rex or Awesome Possum. It took full advantage of MS DOS for the time, besting previous year releases like Duke Nukem II and Raptor: Call of Shadows.

In the game Jazz would run around a level, jumping on Springs, collect all kinds of pickups, and getting to the end. How it differed from other platformers is that Jazz has guns - Jazz couldn't simply jump on any enemy (remarked on in the comic book included with the full game), shooting was his only option. He's got 5 weapons, ranging from your usual Blaster to Flame Thrower, but you've got to collect more ammunition to use them.

Jazz was made with nine full episodes - each containing 3 different levels with two acts each and one boss per episode. The game originally used the classic Shareware model used at the time - where episode 1 was free and players could then buy 1-3, 4-6 or the whole lot. The Jazz CD release later on included an additional 3 episodes. Each level uses a different theme, such as classic Forest levels, a Factory filled with lightning monsters, underground caverns, levels filled with... fans. All kinds of wacky ideas.

Each level had a Special Stage - gotten to by collecting a Red Gem in the second act. These stages are simple 3D stages where you have to run Jazz around collecting a specific amount of Gems, which will gain you an extra life. No "Get All Chaos Emeralds" but I feel bested Sonic CD's similar "destroy the UFO" Special Stages.

The music in Jazz was phenomenal - one of the best uses of Sound Blaster ever. It's filled with some lovely synth tones that filled the Epic library - from One Must Fall to Epic Pinball to Tyrian - and gave each level that distinctive sound. Jaz would yell out the occasional "Yum!" or

Jazz can be done on XBLA, but it'll take some effort. Cliff has mentioned previously that "If anybody knows a person out there that can do it for us, more power to them", but Mark Rein has mentioned that "It wouldn’t be possible to bring Jazz, the old original Jazz code which was a lot of assembly code, to Xbox Live Arcade"

That's an old quote though - it certainly is possible, but like everything it would require money. There are projects such as Open Jazz which uses the Jazz files in order to work on other platforms - much like JDuke, WinQuake, ScummVM and DosBOX - wrappers that play the game. The've had quite a lot of progress, to the point where it's been ported to other systems like the PSP, Dreamcast, Linux, practically anything useful. It's possible, but effort is required.

Duke Nukem 3D is being ported to the Xbox Live Arcade, and DOOM has been ported to every other console ever - Jazz is certainly a possibility, with all episodes. Heck, the CD version runs at roughly 50 megabytes total.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 could also be a possibility, and a lot of people love that game, but I'm not nearly as big a fan compared to some other people. That was a Windows specific game, and had a whole lot of options like Multiplayer which might be more suited to XBLA - but I think the first game would be a whole lot better.

What could be even better? A full blown remake, Bionic Commando Rearmed style. It'd look absolutely gorgeous considering the source material, and the music could be dreamy.


So who could do such a port? Well it so happens that Epic recently bought Chair Entertainment - creators of Undertow and the upcoming Empire: Alpha Complex for the Live Arcade. Both games are 2D using 3D and I think they'd completely up to task for a Jazz remake. If not they certainly have the experience of Microsofts platforms to do a straight up port with tweaks. I'd love either to be honest!