Jumping Flash! 2

""It's up... it's good.. YES!!!" I heard Marv Albert yell, or was that another dang hallucination?"

More gloriously underappreciated videogaming here. The original Jumping Flash was the Playstation's first "mascot-like" game. You might have noticed that the whole thing never really took off. Our mecha-rabbit Robbit was overlooked and tossed into bargain bins across the country, a true shame given the quality of his game. And then the sequel came out. Overlooked as well, of course. And this is where our story begins. Jumping Flash! 2 is essentially one of the old floating-platform greats, if it were put into 3-D. This is what makes it interesting. You have a first person view of Robbit, and he can move around in any direction, and he has different sorts of guns. Lots of people thought that the game was a cutesy variation on Doom, but it wasn't. This is a platform game, and you will learn that when you press the jump button. You can triple-yes-triple jump in this game. Most of the game is played on top of a building or floating platform of one type or another. The object is to hunt down the MuuMuus, these.... little... things. You will know what they are when you see them. Hunt down the MuuMuus, jump on your enemy, be careful not to be shot... it's all very entertaining.

The graphics are average for the time, and for the style, flat shaded polygons, the occasional texture, nothing fancy. It looks a lot like a child's drawings, in a strange sort of a way. Then there are the cutscenes. These things are so... dumb. They're awesome. Imagine, if you will, a group of MuuMuus getting massively drunk on something the American dub [much like Star Ocean 2] refers to as "Root Beer Fizzies". Imagine a villain dressed like a ballerina who has a Kung-Fu grip larger than Metropolitan Chicago. Do you have the idea yet? Good. The sound is fitting of the setting, which is a bizzare Hawaiian motif. [thus explaining Baron Aloha and the ukelele solo in the first stage] And there are cartoonish sound effects, and an annoying co-pilot you might want to turn off. Other than that... the game is great. Even for kids. Imagine, a videogame that we won't have to cover Timmy's eyes for!! That's the way! Make more Jumping Flash games, and we'll work out way to a better, kinder, gentler world! Whoo-hoo!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99