Jack and the Beanstalk

Copyright : Thor Software | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Jack is a poor lad that has to make money by selling items from the farm in order to get the next meal on the table, one day his mother tells him to sell the prize cow down the market and off Jack goes. On arrival he is stopped by a strange man that offers to exchange the cow for some "magic beans", Jack was only young and decided to take the man up on the offer. That night Jack planted the beans outside and awoke the next day to the sight of a magical beanstalk, not one to ignore something of this nature he decides to climb the beanstalk and see what he can find.

Graphics

Jack & The Beanstalk was written by Thor Software in 1985 and as such should be taken into consideration when looking closely at the graphics. Upon first glance the game looks very basic, no extra features, basic and small sprites, dull colour scheme and pretty poor animation and collision detection. But then when we look at the games being developed for sister and brother machines of the same time period we soon realise that these naff looking graphics are much better than other games being released by bigger and better software houses than Thor. This game will certainly appeal to a younger audience more than it would to anyone over the age of 13 as it?s obviously designed to look like a childrens game and although the graphics aren?t ground breaking they must have been something to show off back in the day.

Sound

Sound is very basic indeed, remember that it was released in 1985 and while software houses like Gem Software had managed to combine music and sound effects on the same event (in-game) it appears that smaller houses were only just learning the basics. Music is pretty much all you?re going to hear on this one and even that is only played when you start the game or manage to loose a life (trust me, it?s easier to die than you think).

Gameplay

Gameplay is very simple, collect the items on the ground and then further up the beanstalk while avoiding the snakes, spiders and birds that lurk about the place. While it sounds easy you can bet all the money you have in your pocket right now that it?s a long shot from being just that, we can imagine the current generation of children becoming bored of the game after not getting very far on the first 3 attempts and then not playing the game ever again, especially when you consider the loading times involved.
Looking at the audience this game has been targetted at you would expect a much less difficult level of gameplay, you are only given 3 lives to complete the game, the control system needs a little more work and if you so much as look wrongly at one of those nasty things you?ll find yourself looking at the "game over" screen sooner than you think. How extensive the game testing was in this game is anybodys guess but I can safely say that it probably wouldn?t get passed through the system today even if technology hadn?t moved a single bit.
If you?re aged under 13 and you don?t have a bad temper or like games with bad collision detection then this one might be for you.