Johnny Bazookatone

"It's like playing a really hard SNES game!"

Johnny Bazookatone is a 2-D platformer/shooter that will have you rockin' in your socks!

...or at least that's what I'd like to say.

In this game you control Johnny, a snazzy musician with purple hair and a guitar that can shoot bullets and attack with sonic waves.

The gameplay is simple, yet fairly fun. Johnny can shoot his guitar like a machine gun in 8 directions, jump, do a ''pogo attack'' that is kind of like a spinning jump-kick, and he can sit still while he waits the enormous time to fully-charge his guitar to shoot sonic waves that attack most enemies on the screen.

Johnny's best trick is the ability to shoot his machine gun downwards in the air, slowing his fall and letting him hover. However, timing it so you fall at the right speed is really difficult.

In fact, the whole game is really difficult. The game has no mercy from the start; the first world is covered with spikes all over and has a few vicious enemies that can't even be defeated. Whereas most games have some nice and easy levels at the beginning of a game so that players can get used to controlling their character and interacting with the rest of the world, Johnny Bazookatone lands you straight into hellish environments where you almost have to start out as an expert to survive.

Amazingly enough, it gets harder; I was able to make it to the 3rd section of the 1st level after getting pretty good at the game, but the 3rd section contained a series of long hover jumps over instant-death acid with fish randomly jumping up to hit you and knock you in the drink. I had stocked up an amazing 8 lives and played almost perfectly until that point, which had taken me at least a half-hour. Within 5 minutes all of those lives were gone and I was staring at a Game Over screen.

The other problem I have with this game despite it's being really, really hard is that it is sometimes hard to tell where the ground is. The game uses 3-D pre-rendered graphics for everything, and sometimes it's hard to tell whether something is in the foreground or background, or what parts of things you can stand on or can't. A good example of this is the trees in the first level; they have jagged tree branches that gradually get thinner and go at crazy angles, so it's hard to tell where you can stand on them.

The game is really, really hard. It has no difficulty settings, and only a level-based password system to allow you to ''save'' your progress.

I love the graphics of the game; the characters are round and cartoony, which I find very appealing. The worlds are kind of dirty and nightmarish, but they are all very unique(from what little I have seen). Despite the nice graphics, as I said before, they do sometimes make it hard to figure out where you can stand, what you might run into, etc.

I love the music for this game! The game is about a musician and has a musical theme, so I guess it's natural for it to have attractive music. The music is one of the things that will keep me playing this game.

As far as replay value goes, I assume Johnny Bazookatone will have about as much replay value as your typical SNES platform/shooter. There's obviously nothing fancy to unlock, so if you like the game enough you'll play it more. Of course, the game is so hard that once might be enough...

The game is fun and appealing, though, so if you're a big fan of amazingly hard old-school platform/shooters, try to find a copy of this game. Otherwise, you can honestly find something better.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/24/04