Jill of the Jungle: Jill Saves the Prince

The Good
Everything. The graphics, the music, the "feel" of the game.... everything about it is a work of art. I grew up playing Jill I and III, and only recently actually I got to play Jill II for the first time. These games shaped my love of computers and fuel my obsession with DOS and older computers!!

The Bad
This was the last in the series! It should never have ended!! Also, I was not too crazy about the overhead jungle map, but it was ok.

The Bottom Line
Super cool, a must play. The graphics are awesome for such an old game! Take a trip back in computer history with Jill III!!

The Good
The third and final episode in this series is even better than the second. Greatly improved controls and animation and wonderful sound effects, music and level design add to this really fun to play game. Clever puzzles and cool ideas are all typical to this game, a tribute to the genius behind Unreal, Tim Sweeney.

The Bad
The sound routines were not modified, so they don't work. But it's otherwise a truly great game.

The Bottom Line
A perfect conclusion to three great games. Get it and play it.

The Good
Well, Jill is back once again in the final chapter of the Jill of the Jungle series. She now wears her new blue suit. and she is hungry for some more action.

Story: This time, though, instead of just roaming around the jungle and slaying wildlife that gets in her way, as she did in her previous adventures, Jill actually has a mission. You see, she must find and rescue a prince who is held captive by an army of Green Lizard Men. It's up to her to save the prince before the Lizard Men eat her for dinner. However, finding the prince is not that easy.

Gameplay: You see, like her previous adventures, you control Jill and must come face-to-face with different kinds of wildlife, which will harm her if she is not careful. That's way you must find a weapon (which will either be a knife or a blade) in most of the areas, or failing that, simply jump over them. If she loses damage as a result of coming in contact with the enemy, you can collect apples to restore her health, but if your health is fully restored already, you can collect the apples anyway for points. Hazards include flames, spikes, and water. You can't shoot these, and coming in contact with any of these will kill Jill instantly, only to have her resurface from the beginning of the area. As the game says itself, she has unlimited lives. All of the enemies can be killed, but two of them, the red demons and the leopard seals, are invincible.

Throughout most areas, some passages will be blocked by locked doors which must be opened by a red key. Likewise, you will also encounter gates that can only be opened by gems. As with previous adventures, other passages can be accessed by using an elevator or pulling a switch to get rid of those gray barriers that are blocking the way. (There may be two or more switches that control the barriers, and you may get confused, so it is a matter of trial-and-error.) Jill also has the opportunity to turn into an animal, which include bird, frog, or fish, and the transformation takes place if Jill happens to walk right in their icons. Of course, each animal has their disadvantages. For example, the frog can't shoot bullets or stick its tongue out to knock enemies around. To transform Jill back in herself, all you need to do is find a icon that says "Jill", and Poof!

That's the gameplay in a nutshell. When you start a new game, you are treated to a birds-eye view of the map, and there's Jill looking nothing more like an ant with fancy colors, and surrounded by trees. Your targets are huts. There are about 12 of them in the game. The whole idea is to enter these huts and Jill will enter a new dimen, er, area that may take some time to explore, depending on how much of an expert that you are wen it comes to platform games. When you have left the area, you return to the map, and repeat the same process, but with the other huts. Some areas of the map are blocked by gem gates, which as I mentioned two paragraphs back, cannot be opened without gems. The control panel can be accessed which lets you turn the noise on/off, save/restore games, or quit a game in progress. Unlike early Apogee games, if you save a game in the middle of an area, the game won't let you restore back to the start of the area, but rather at the point where you saved the game.

Graphics: Jill Saves the Prince can be played in CGA, EGA, or VGA. Although that her suit is blue all throughout the game, the color of the suit actually varies, depending on which one of these video modes you select at the configuration screen. In CGA, for example, her suit is green, but in EGA, it is red. Her blue suit only appears in VGA. If users, at the time, didn't have a VGA card installed in the machines, then they had to make due with CGA or EGA. And if you think that CGA will do the trick well, just remember: Jill may look sexy in just 4 colors, but you won't enjoy the graphics fully, let alone the game experience.

Music & Sound: Jill only supports the Sound Blaster (or the PC Speaker if you didn't get one). The sound effects and most of the music are excellent in this game, and if you like, you can use the NoiseMaker and tap on the keyboard to produce the game's sound effects.

The Bad
Users with fast machine may be able to play the game on older Windows version (95/98/Me) but they should not expect sound effects to be played through Sound Blaster. They may be able to run the game through DOSBox, but even this program has its own limitations.

The Bottom Line
If you like all three games in the Jill series, have a go playing Xargon, which is an excellent game.

Rating: ***