Jack the Nipper II

STORY / GAMEPLAY
As jack and his family travel to Australia, our hero is quite unhappy with this, so he jumps off the plane using his nappy (!) as parachute and lands in the middle of an African jungle. It seems that all this "escape" went all wrong since now he is exposed to great danger and must confront wild animals and natives having some...coconuts(!) as a weapon. This sequel is really funny, huge and the graphics are really different from one area to the next. There are many screens to explore and it’s easy to get lost. You must always be on alert to face either upcoming enemies (like bats, birds, humans, elephants etc, all with a very funny and cartoonish appearance) or even deadly pits, waters, lava and so on. Most of the time you must make a quick decision before someone or something finally kills you. Some of the nasties can be avoided just by jumping over them and some others must be killed using... coconuts (!) Note: You have a limited amount of coconuts so you must try to find more. Jack The Nipper II is really fun to play but quite tricky to progress. It’s a rather difficult platform game and you must move very carefully all the time. Eventually, the action is entertaining and there are lots of funny details like some enemies that wear sunglasses or when Jack picks his nose every time he waits for your next move! Jack the Nipper II is among our favorite 8bit games back in the days (and still is)!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The ZX Spectrum version was released on tape only and runs on the 48k Spectrum. It features nice, colorful and funny detailed graphics (jungle, rivers, animals, native humans etc), and looks similar to the CPC but with more limited colors on-screen (it is another Spectrum port to the CPC I think). The sprites look so funny and move fast and smooth, though there is no scrolling on this version (the game runs in flip-screen mode). In general, this game is very pleasant to watch even if it does not use any special visual techniques. For me it is one of the best looking early Spectrum games ever. The introductory music is great as well (but limited to the old YM sound generator of the 48k model) while there are some nice (and rather funny) sound effects during gameplay.