Re: Aaron's classic audiogame reviews
Interesting Aaron.
I came to Tarzan Junior two years later in 2006. Due to having to redo one of my masters assignments, I couldn't start my Phd for about six months. So that left me basically living in college with not much to do other than watch dvds (I bought all of startrek tng and Deep space 9 at that point, not to mention Babylon 5), reading, and of course checking out audiogames.
After trying titles that interested me like Shades of doom and Galaxy ranger, and then being surprised how much fun some of the less interesting sounding titles like Blast chamber and Esp pinball were, I decided to play my way through the then entire audiogame database and see what these sound games had to offer.
I actually tried Tarzan Junior comparatively early in this process, and I confess, whilst I enjoyed the sounds and atmosphere of the game, the first few levels didn't really impress me enough with the idea that the game should be worth paying for, since as you said, the challenge was rather boppit like.
I did enjoy knocking those monkeys off in stage 3 swinging on the vines, it sort of reminded me of Donkey Kong country on the Snes, and I liked how the old demo cut out just after you run into the alpha monkey (talk about a cliff hanger), however I thought if basically the game was a matter of walk forward and hit things or sterreo target, despite the good sounds I don't think there would be enough to interest me in buying the game.
Then however, I found an audio demonstration of the game (perhaps the one you mention with Sean randle), and i really liked the sound of some of those later stages, especially Torgon battle and the hunt in the mountain, which sounded much more fun to me as an audiogame.
I also redownloaded and installed the demo and tried on insane, and suddenly Smack! there was challenge hitting me right off!
so, at about five in the morning I bought the game.
I finished easy mode I think about the second ay, but later modes took me a bit more time.
i still think the sounds and music here are absolutely awesome, especially all the voice acting (the torgon who trots along going la la la la la la la la la, always make me laugh,especially when you kill him), the problem I always found is that only the last four stages of the game really as if they belong together or have enough features.
Again, the first few stages have good sound and are fun to play, but there isn't a lot other than walk along and hit arrows at the right time, not like finding your way or reloading the torgon gun, and the queen bee battle, nasty though the sounds are, is essentially a one switch game.
I was also always a bit disappointed that I rarely saw the catch the coconuts minigame, and usually just got the number simon with the synth voice, ----- oh and I didn't even know the sling shot actually existed until I'd already completed the game several times .
All in all, Tarzan Junior is great fun, indeed I installed it again and played it through, and it's still hilarious, however in a few aspects it does strike me as a collection of ideas vaguely stuck together to form a game, rather than a coherent game planned from the beginning, and some of those ideas are better than others.
Still it's always worth a play, and I hope people that haven't tried it before will give it a try.
Oh, and btw, to all of those who talk with doom and gloom about "these kids making games," it's also a point that Philip Bennifall came up with something of this quality at the age of fourteen!
Lastly, as a couple of nitpicky points, yee gods the game over sequence on tiger fight is down right grusome, ---- oh and btw, if Tarzan could just grab the bombs from the insane blaster, why did he not do that earlier? Indeed if there were these apparently easily defeatable torgons wandering around with high explosive, why bothr with the gun of power in the first place?
Though I will say, the Torgons as enemies are sort of fantastic, more games should feature evil psychotic killer gorillas carrying high tech armourments as enemies, especially when they sound this freaky >
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