Jim Power In Mutant Planet Longplay (PC Engine) [60 FPS]
106Developed and published by Micro World in 1993.
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Although originally released on the Amiga computer, it seems that Loriciels thought they had a bankable vehicle in Jim Power as a character and franchise since it was ported/re-developed for a surprisingly diverse range of machines. Loriciels would go bankrupt in 1995, but not before releasing a PC Engine version of the game on compact disc for the Super CD-ROM unit in 1993. This release is much closer in design to the Amiga version than either the Mega Drive prototype or SNES version.
Growing up, I'd never heard of the PC Engine console. Principally released in Japan in 1987 and then 1989 as the TurboGrafx-16, the machine is a curious hybrid of an 8-bit CPU backed by a surprisingly powerful dual 16-bit graphics unit. The system did receive a European launch in 1990, but reportedly in extremely limited quantities. My principle interest in longplaying this version of the game was for for the fully mastered CD audio score from none other than Chris Huelsbeck himself; more on this later...
The game's back-story is retold via an opening introduction sequence, which doesn't feature in other versions of the game; a nice touch, although it's a little long-winded in the telling.
It's immediately apparent that the PC Engine sported some impressive graphic capabilities for the time. The graphics are crisp and vibrant and the scrolling is generally pretty smooth. However, the frame-rate does suffer in certain places and the parallax scrolling seen in the backgrounds of the main levels appear to have been removed. Nevertheless, it still remains a visually attractive game.
Unfortunately, the actual game beneath the glossy veneer of the graphics and presentations is actually a very ugly beast indeed. Whereas the Amiga version was solid platform gaming experience, Loriciels really managed to butcher the gaming experience here.
The first thing that becomes apparent is that the jumping control is terrible. Instead of jumping and moving at the same time, the player has to jump vertically and then press left/right on the pad to move, which is terribly clunky. I spent a lot of time mistiming jumps and falling to my death because of the jumping mechanic and it really detracts from any enjoyment the game might have offered.
Secondly, the difficulty level is very inconsistent. The boss characters at the end of each level are remarkably easy to defeat, whereas the enemies in the jetpack flying sections require far too many hits to destroy; these sections in particular become more of an exercise in finding a safe part of the screen to hide in until the enemies have flown past rather than attempting to destroy them.
On the subject of annoyances, many of the enemies in the platforming stages don't stop moving when they reach the end of the platform where they are located. Instead of reaching the end of the platform and turning around, they have a nasty habit of shifting to the next available platform and killing the player. I did get used to this after a while, but I suspect it will catch other players off-guard and result in more than a few unexpected deaths.
As you might have gathered, the game is a bit of a mess. However, the one beacon of light here is the fantastic CD soundtrack produced by Chris Huelsbeck. Whilst the Amiga version sounded great, there's simply no competing with the fidelity and production values that the CD-ROM format was able to provide.
If nothing else, the game is worth persevering with so you can hear the full soundtrack, although I do recommend having a piece of wood handy to bite down on whilst playing; it's the only thing to cope with the pain...
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