Jersey Devil - Playstation review.

I just wanted to bring to light a game released way back in 1998 for the PlayStation which remains to this day one of my favourites; the game I am talking about is Jersey Devil and I have no idea why it was so massively overlooked, as I believe it to be one of the best original releases for the PlayStation.

Jersey devil is a 3D platform game developed by Behaviour Interactive based on the legendary creature of southern New Jersey, the reason that this game is so special to me is because it’s the first game that I ever fully completed and the first game that I got really addicted to, I would even say that Jersey Devil turned me into a dedicated gamer.

When I first got my PlayStation I got a few games along with it, Jersey Devil being one of them. I can’t even remember the other games but I remember putting Jersey Devil in for the first time and from that moment on I was hooked.

The game begins with a very well done animation introducing the main villain, Dr. Knarf and his pumpkin sidekick Dennis.
Dennis stumbles upon baby Jersey Devil while out gathering specimens for the doctor’s twisted experiments; during the cut scene Jersey escapes the doctor’s clutches and we skip ahead many years later to see that Dr. Knarf in causing havoc in Jersey City with his mutant vegetables, setting the story for the rest of the game. You begin in the Jersey City centre and this is the starting location for the beginning of every level, the first level available is the museum, in which you start in the grounds, tasked with collecting a series of letters which spell the word KNARF. Once you find all the letters you then progress through the door with the Knarf symbol and the next part of the mission begins.

The rest of the levels follow the same pattern but as well as this you have enemies to fight, stuff to collect, sometimes frustrating platforms to traverse and some fun quirky environments to explore, this may make the game sound repetitive but all of the levels manage to feel unique and exploring them is great fun, it’s the kind of game where at some points you will be tearing chunks of your hair out in frustration but at the same time never want to stop playing.

I don’t quite know what it is about Jersey Devil that makes me like it so much, it has a great cartoony style, the environments are bright and interesting, the characters…well, have character. You never feel like you’re fighting a generic enemy put there to solely fill the environment; each one is imagined and animated so that it acts unique and is designed to fit into the world it lives in.

The boss fights at the end of the levels are great fun as well, even though you’re always fighting Dr. Knarf and Dennis, it’s always done in a different way using one of the doctor’s whacky inventions or mutations, whether it be a giant frog trying to swallow you, a sumo wrestling monkey or a fat lady trying to smother you in her cleavage, each one is fun to play and offers a great way to end each level. You are also rewarded at the end of the boss fight for finding and breaking all the Knarf boxes throughout the level, doing this gives you a bottle if nitro so as well as winning the fight you get the added bonus of triggering the animation of Jersey Devil smugly shaking the nitro bottle and dropping it to the ground to blow Dr. Knarf and Dennis sky high.

I better stop here, otherwise I can talk about this game all day, but I will bring up a few more points as to why this game was hated by some of the few people that tried it. Firstly, and the point that I 100% agree with is the control problems, you first encounter this issue when you enter the museum at the start of the game and have to jump from tiny platform to tiny platform in order to get to the next room, trying to precisely jump in this game is an absolute nightmare and made even worse by the fact that the platforms and spaces you have to land on are so small. And back then there were no analogue sticks so you were stuck with those horrible arrow buttons that make your fingers feel like they’re about to fall off after about 10 minutes of using them.

It was also highly judged because Jersey Devil uses a spinning attack very similar to Crash Bandicoot but ashamedly I was never interested in Crash so this meant nothing to me. It was also said that the graphics for this game were not on par with other current releases, but this is something I don’t agree with. Anyway I’ve finally managed to come to a stopping point so in conclusion, if you haven’t played or heard of this game, find a way to play it!

Reviewed by Mark Wilson 26/11/2012