Forget Lions - this Jackal is king of the jungle!
However, this game was almost one-of-a-kind back then, even if it is a port of the little-known arcade game known as Top Gunner.
You see, while the premise of Jackal is a simple one, the game itself is wonderful. However, we’ll get to that in a second.
As the game itself says, you’re breaking into enemy lines in order to rescue P.O.W.s captured and held in camps over six lengthy stages of enemy forces and bases. The country you’re breaking into and single-handedly destroying is never mentioned – but it doesn’t really matter at all.
What you control is a jeep – either green or brown, depending on if you’re either the first or second player. Your method of attack? The first weapon is a machine gun that always fires up, no matter the direction you face – seemingly useless, but handy in some situations. The second attack will vary – but you start out with a grenade hurled from your jeep. This is basically your main weapon, and it will often one-hit-kill most any plain enemy.
The game play is the one of the best parts of this game, though. You see, this is the only game with a top-down control scheme where you can rotate the directional pad and watch your character spin about in a circle, almost exactly following your motions.
Of course, this wouldn’t matter if the game didn’t at least provide some difficulty. And provide it does.
The first stage is a basic jungle level, which can be considered a warm-up level in many ways. The player is introduced to the many various enemies – including little soldiers who can be run over by your jeep, artillery cannons that can rotate to follow you, tanks and even PT boats.
Early on in this level, the player is also introduced to the P.O.W. camps that the enemy has. While most of the buildings inside these concrete-walled locations are typical bunkers, there’s often a smaller fancier looking bunker as well. Inside this bunker is an Officer P.O.W., who grants an upgrade to your jeep’s primary weapon. These powerups can stack up – going from plain missiles to missiles with splash damage to the side… and finally giving you missiles that have splash damage in a cross-shape.
The player is to collect both plain and Officer P.O.W.s and deliver them to a drop-off point shown by a helipad further up the level. As the player gets closer, an allied helicopter will fly up and land there. If the player doesn’t make it in time, the chopper will leave – stranding you with a jeepload of P.O.W.s and a missed chance for bonus points.
Further levels vary between other stereotypes – ancient Greek ruins, an enemy naval base, a mountain pass, the enemy’s training grounds and finally their main headquarters. Each level gets even harder as you go along – and the bosses of each level get more and more epic as you go along.
Despite being a one-man (or two-man in two player) army, your jeep is also rather fragile – only able to take a single shot from any enemy before exploding. Yes, this even includes those wimpy soldiers you can run over in the first level. Apparently, your jeep is made out of Napalm or something.
When you die, of course, a life is lost. Any upgrades you were carrying are also lost, and the number of P.O.W.s carried by your jeep is slashed drastically as the surviving P.O.W.s are also scattered about around the wreckage of your jeep. If you had multiple Officer P.O.W.s, only one survives – giving you a chance to run out and kick more enemy butt before dying again.
There are also some actual powerups outside the Officer P.O.W.s, but they are all strangely hidden throughout the game and actually invisible until shot. Brown Stars will wipe out all enemies onscreen, whereas Green Stars will grant the player an extra life. The ever-so-elusive flashing star acts like getting the max number of Officer P.O.W.s, giving you the max missile after picking it up.
The game itself looks wonderful for the NES – the colors are rather vibrant for the old console, with a lot of differing colors shown onscreen at once. However, some enemy units can blend in with the background on other levels later on – which makes for some small headaches for a while.
The music for this game is also something fantastic for this era of gaming – each stage has its own tune, and each one sounds like it belongs in the stage. There isn’t an off note to be found in the game itself, though I find myself preferring the second stage’s theme the most. However, the sound effects are a little lackluster overall, detracting somewhat in the long run.
To wrap it all up, the game isn’t perfect – there’s a distinct lack of replay value if you don’t want to try and get a better score the next time around. However, the game is far more fun with two people, if you can pull it off in this day and age – and even if you can’t, I heavily recommend getting this game at any garage sale or used game store you can find it at.
The only problem after that would be getting a working NES, but that’s another story entirely.
Final score:
9.5 Out of 10