Before we begin in ernest I think I should make clear that in I am
unable to write a fair and balanced review of Jet Set Willy II as I am
extremely bias towards this game. You
see, this was my ‘gateway game’, the first game I ever played (excluding my
mindless fumblings as a toddler in the arcade) and the first game that I
owned: purchased on impulse from
Superdrug no less back when everywhere sold games, and actually before I even
owned a computer!
Not only was it an
immediate portal to a vast and surreal universe (once I’d secured my
rubber-keyed spectrum a few days later), but in many ways it was a conduit to
the gaming world at large, so I hope you’ll understand and forgive me my
prejudices.
Jet Set Willy is the third outing for the character of Miner
Willy of Manic Miner fame (Jet Set Willy II is kind of an expansion pack for
the first JSW game adding more rooms and different music). Flush with cash after his success in the
mines, Willy decided swap his helmet for a topper and treat himself to a large
country pile and celebrate with a party of biblical proportions. Now, there’s a party I would like to have
been at; although I would only have been seven at the time, so I may not have
gotten the full benefit.
To say this house is large is a ridiculous understatement. It’s also very well appointed and comes
equipped with all the conveniences you’d expect in a playboy gazillionair’s
pad: Swimming pool, private beach with yacht mooring, a space rocket to
transport you to the space station annex and of course all the young
go-getter’s want the latest must-have gadget: a gateway to hell.
As the previous resident, an eccentric professor, left the residence
in mysterious circumstances, many of his experiments and contraptions are still
running. I can’t even begin to fathom
what unholy experiments this crackpot must have been working on, but the
resultant fallout seriously prevents ergonomic movement through the property. One would imagine that being accosted on the
stairs by a huge, flaming skull would play to the buyers favor at the
negotiating table, so the house presumably came at a knock down price.
Somehow, Willy was able to convince guests to join him for a soiree
at his death trap of a mansion, but we arrive on the scene after the final
guest has either left or fallen victim to one of the many peculiar
hazards. We can only presume that the
party was a success judging my the amount of glassware strew throughout the
house. Willy awakes in the bathroom
where our hero has been purging his system of the excesses of the previous
evening, as graphically illustrated on the cover. But unfortunately for Willy, who’s
understandably quite keen to hit the hay by this point, his housekeeper Maria doesn’t
think risking her neck to gather the dirty glasses is in her job description,
so she stands guard over his bed, denying him access until the last of the mess
is cleared up.
Personally I’d have sacked her on the spot, but I guess Willy either
loves a challenge or has matriarchal issues. And so Willy embarks upon the
greatest adventure ever undertaken without leaving the house.
Unlike Manic Miner, the individually named screens can be attempted
in any order, which delivers an amazing sense of scale and encourages epic
exploration whether you decide to collect the items or not (I usually
didn’t). Just navigating through the
game world can while away hours and there is always something more to see.
Collecting all the crockery is a somewhat daunting task to say the
least, many of the room layouts will leave you scratching your head or thumping
it raw with frustration, and the Prof.’s experiments certainly don’t make it
any easier. Whether your head is
smashed in by a large rotating lemon, or your jaxi is being speared by a
levitating rooftop guard, death is instantaneous and with only seven lives it's often not long before you’re crushed under the naked foot of failure in a Monty
Pythonesqe scene signaling that your final life as been depleted.
You certainly can’t blame the controls for
you failure, with just Left, Right and Jump you aren’t going to get
confused. I prefer to use keyboard over
joystick, but that may be because I didn’t have a joystick when I first had the
game.
The music is simple, but like everything else is perfectly judged. The title screen treats you to a superb 8-bit
rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, while the scale of the actual
adventure is enhanced no-end by looping In the Hall of the Mountain King (or If
I Were a Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof in the case of the original JSW)
A game with this much character can only have been made at this
magical time of bedroom coders, where one person’s wonderful eccentricity could
be tapped and converted to code. The game was and is immensely popular and
elevated it’s author Matthew Smith, already idolised for Manic Miner, to
legendary status.
I feel rather lucky
that my first game was one which was bound to strike such a chord with me. The sense of humour coupled with the spirit of
exploration and discovery still wows me to this day, almost as if the game was
aimed especially at me to entice me off my bike and into games. Intentional or not, it worked. I know not all games can be like this, but it
would be nice if there was a little something of the spirit of JSW in games
today.
Thanks to Guest Blogger - Andy Pryer
You can also follow Andy on Twitter @ClammyLizard
During the age of Nintendo many video rental stores also rented NES games. Those stores would close regularly only to sell their stock off at low prices. I bought many NES games this way. Not very long ago, I was approached by a man who once owned a video rental store and still had his stock of NES and SNES games in storage. I had done some computer work for him and he just wanted to trade out the work for the games. No arguments were made.
