Developer: Necrophone Games
Publisher: Adult Swim Games
Rrp: £12.29 (Gog.com) , £12.49 (Humblebundle), £10.99 (Steam) and $14.99 (Jazzpunk.net)
Released: 7th February 2014
Available on: Steam, gog.com, Humblebundle and their own site.
Played using: An Xbox 360 Control pad
From the moment the introduction sequence to this game started I knew I was in for something a bit different. The blaring jazz music and colourful animation reminding me somewhat of the beginning to The Pink Panther cartoon series from the 60’s.
Jazzpunk is a first person umm….. Hell if I know. In some ways it’s a puzzler but not really. The best I can come up with to describe Jazzpunk is that it’s a first person interactive sketch show. Regardless of how you try to describe the genre of the game I can definitely say that it’s a comedy set in an alternative history Cold War.
You get sent off on a number of missions, generally without any real knowledge of why and Within these missions there are side missions you can partake in, they don’t change anything but instead act as minor distractions.
In fact when it comes to minor distractions this game is really chock full of them, mini games, side quests, running gags, weird visual gags and references.
While the game uses a cel shaded graphical aesthetic it clearly takes heavy influence from the art movements and styles of the 1970’s.
There were some stylistic choices I rather enjoyed, such as making your written mission brief appear within the world (and sometimes be interact-able).
As I mentioned before I felt like I was playing through a strange interactive sketch show, and like many sketch shows its not so much telling a single quality joke as firing as many little jokes as possible. Clearly this technique worked because I did find myself smiling at some of the visual gags and occasionally chortling to the dialog.
As for the plot, it’s pretty nonsensical, I know I was playing a spy and performing general espionage stuff, after that I honestly couldn’t keep track at all. Thankfully the plot really isn’t all that essential, in the same way there really isn’t much plot in an episode of Monty Pythons Flying Circus. It’s all about the gags, everything else is just a framing device.
In case you haven’t guessed Jazzpunk is… Strange, to say the least, it’s also fun and utterly unique. On the whole it lasts approximately three hours, which in honesty s just long enough, any longer and the jokes would wear thin.
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