Jackal (video game)
Jackal (赤色要塞) - a video game developed by Konami in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It appeared in Japan on the Famicom Disk System under the title Final Command: Akai Yousai. The game supports 2 players at once, much like Contra.
The story
"Your brothers-in-arms are hostages behind enemy lines, and you're their only hope for freedom. But the firepower you'll face to rescue them is awesome. Rescue the pow's in the buildings. You'll need a pocket full of miracles, and the ferocity of a wild JACKAL." - As told in the start of the game.
The Gameplay
In Jackal, the player controls an armed jeep, or 2 jeeps if in multiplayer mode to conquer through enemy's strongholds(要塞) and rescue comrades imprisoned by the enemy. There are 6 levels in all. The goal of each level is to take the rescued comrades to the helicopter check point located at some point in the level to unload them, and then go on to defeat the boss at the end of each level. Rescuing more prisoners gives you a higher point bonus after the level. This is important because getting enough points earns you extra lives, which help a lot. If you collide with an enemy vehicle, or are hit by one enemy bullet, you lose a life. If you die while 4 or more prisoners are in the jeep, only 4 of them will appear to be picked up again, and the rest disappear. Some buildings contain one flashing prisoner. If you rescue this man, the jeep's primary weapon gets upgraded. If you pick up enough prisoners, then you can get a weapon upgrade while unloading them to the helicopter. At the start, your primary weapon is throwing grenades, and the first weapon upgrade you get changes the weapon to a missile launcher. If you upgrade it more, then when the missile explodes it will launch shrapnel, giving an area effect (first going left and right, then going all four directions). The grenade can be thrown over walls, but the missile will explode when it hits any obstacle. However, the shrapnel from the upgraded missile will pass through all obstacles. The jeep's secondary weapon is a machine gun. The machine gun can be fired only upward, has a short range and is not nearly as powerful as the grenade or the missile, but it's faster to fire than the other weapons so it helps in tight situations. Since it always fires upward, you can use it to damage enemies while still dodging their attacks. The machine gun is not effective against houses. In some areas, you can reveal a star icon. Grabbing this will immediately max out your primary weapon to the full-shrapnel missile. The many different kinds of creatively thought enemies varies throughout the game's levels, though some are always present. Included in the game there are soldiers (which can be run over), different kinds of cannons, different kinds of tanks, gun ships, helicopters, submarines, and other very neat weapons. In the end of each of the 6 levels, there is a boss round, which there is some unusually strong enemy. In the last level, there are 2 bosses.
In Asia, Jackal is believed to be one of the most treasured NES games, along with Rush n' Attack, Gradius (salamander) series and Contra series.
Screenshots
File:JackalFront.jpg File:JackalCredit.jpg
