Jump Raven

Jump Raven was the second game released by Cyberflix, in 1994. The game's technology is similar to that of Lunicus, released by Cyberflix one year prior, but this time employs a more detailed storyline and environment. In an opening sequence of the game, we see future New York City, which has fallen into horrible disrepair in the aftermath of global warming and rising sea levels and a bankrupt federal government. The premise of the story is that gangsters, neo-nazis, and various other thugs have acquired large stores of weapons (from the government) and have ransacked New York's store of cryogenically-frozen DNA of endangered species. The player's job as a bounty hunter is to retrieve them.

Copilot

Before taking off in a fancy hovercraft, the player chooses a copilot who can navigate or fire weapons. selecting Nikki, Chablis, "Cheesestick" Limbaugh (supposedly descended from Rush, though he is black), Thrash, Lark or Dogstar. Each copilot is unique and may not be available for every level.

Scenario

The game's three difficult and lengthy levels are played in the player's hovercraft flying around the streets of New York. The opponents drive tanks or fly planes and insult the player frequently. The user can choose between one of several bands for theme music in each level. each band has a unique song per level. the bands include: x-static, deathkiller, pink flaand (a reference to pink floyd), and smoove da groove. The name "deathkiller" was coined at a trade show - two Japanese girls watched the demo and described it as "deathkiller". evidently there is no accurate translation from Japanese to English for that type of video game...

Game control

Game control is rather complicated as the player can move up, down, left, right, and forward and backward. The player must also control weapons. Fortunately, the copilot can take care of one or more of these functions.

Reception

The game was reviewed in 1995 in Dragon #218 by Paul Murphy in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Murphy's review was negative, concluding "I don't care how good a game looks or sounds, how cool the animation and special-effects are, how easy it is to load or save: if it isn't any fun to play, it's a failure."^[1]

References