Showing posts with label PD - shooters - Horizontal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PD - shooters - Horizontal. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Jungle Hero





Take cover fast!

I remember those episodes of classic 80s TV shows like The A-Team, where they would trek through a jungle in some third-world country to rescue hostages held by the cartel. It was so cheesy and totally unrealistic, yet always entertaining. I really miss the 1980s, especially the TV shows and the music!

Anyway, let's not dwell too much because Jungle Hero takes us back to those days. It’s a straightforward game created in STOS for the Atari ST (not the STe) by Jason Holliday in 1989. There are just four screens, but the objective is simple - on the first screen, there’s a sleeping guard. Sneak up and take him out, but watch out for three twigs precariously lying on the ground. Breaking them will alert the guard.

The second and third screens are about ducking and dodging until you get close enough to take the shot. Unfortunately, I failed, so I jumped through and exploited an obvious bug in the code. The final screen’s a breeze - just shoot the boss holding the (invisible) hostage. Then, it's back to the beginning to repeat the whole thing, like an endless nightmare lol. I managed to rescue one prisoner, but that was as far as I got.

I think it's clear by now - this game is an absolute disaster. It’s awful beyond words. The controls are so finicky that even the smallest mistake gets you shot. The basic mechanics make no sense, and you just die over and over again. It's a constant cycle of frustration. Also, the graphics look like something I would have drawn, and the animations are a joke. Honestly, it’s probably the tackiest game I’ve ever played.

So why on God's green earth am I featuring Jungle Hero?

Easy. Because this is a brilliant game. It's ridiculous, makes no sense, and is mind-numbingly pointless. However, I kept on playing. I couldn't stop. Not only that but the death scenes are incredible, packed with 'gore'. There might only be four badly designed and senseless screens, but trust me, you’ve got to give this a go.

Jungle Hero is so bad it's great! No, it's actually terrible but I absolutely loved it.




He's fast asleep but too far away. Tread carefully and shoot him when close enough.


You're supposed to be able to duck from his firing but I found that impossible.



This giant won't even shoot if you hop towards him like Bugs Bunny!



One final shot rescues the hostage. Not them all, just one...

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Yomo



Yomo is an oldskool-styled shoot 'em up by Aaron Fothergill for Mandarin Software. It was runner-up in The 1989 Games Writer Of The Year Award competition which is pretty cool. I've had this on my bucket list for a while because I always admired its 8-bit feel which reminded me of games I played as a youngster back in the early 80s.

The world is viewed two-dimensionally with a landscape populated by many destructible buildings and whacky vehicles which use the most frustrating mechanics. Our character is a tiny stickman who's on a mission to recover a dodgy nuke dropped behind enemy lines. However, this won't be easy because the baddies are constantly attacking so why not fire off a few heat-seeking missiles before jumping inside something probably stolen from the 1960s? On foot isn't fun, but if you see other stickmen wobbling across your screen then hit fire and gun 'em down!!

Visually speaking, you better not have high hopes because this ain't no glamourous Bitmap Brothers product: the graphics are lame with titchy sprites and ugly scrolling that had my Atari STe crying out in agony. However, I must admit that the sounds aren't bad thanks to lots of crunchy samples - lightning is oddly my favourite!

Yomo is pants but it's also surprisingly a lot of fun and the ability to jump into any aircraft is genius. However, there isn't enough ammo and collecting extra supplies is laborious and very tricky during the heat of battle. Overall, Yomo is frustrating and overly difficult but if you enjoy blowing stuff up then it's possibly worth downloading.

Random ATARI ST articles from the archives