Bomb Jack is a platform game released in arcades in 1984 by Tehkan. It was followed by two official sequels, the console and computer title Mighty Bomb Jack, and the arcade gameBomb Jack Twin and Bomb Jack II, which was licensed for home computers only.
Gameplay
Bomb Jack is a hero who can perform high jumps and float in the air. His goal is to collect all red bombs on the screen. The game's antagonists are enemies such as birds and mummies which, once they drop in the bottom of the screen, can morph into things like flying saucers and orbs that float around the screen, making Jack lose a life if he touches them. Collecting bombs will increase the bonus meter at the top of the screen. When the meter is completely filled up, a circular bouncing "P" appears, and when collected, it will turn all the enemies into bonus coins for a short period during which Jack may collect them. Other similar bonuses are the B which increases the score multiplier, the E which gives an extra life, and the rare S, which awards a free game. There are five different screens in the game, each featuring a distinct scheme of platforms. There is a special bonus for collecting 21 to 23 lit bombs in a row, out of the 24 bombs of each round.
In Japan, Game Machine listed Bomb Jack on their May 15, 1984 issue as being the third most-successful table arcade unit of the year. Crashmagazine gave the Sinclair ZX Spectrum version a 92% rating with the comment "A great arcade conversion, don't miss it", while Zzap!64 was less enthusiastic for the Commodore 64 version giving it 47%. Commodore User gave the Amiga version 6 out of 10 citing that the Amiga should be well capable of doing better on a then four-year-old arcade game. The Spectrum version of the game went to number 2 in the UK sales charts, behind Green Beret.
Legacy
Sequels
Bomb Jack II is a licensed follow-up developed for 8-bit home computers by the British games publisher Elite Systems in 1986. The game went to number 2 in the UK sales charts, behind Leaderboard. The music featured was the theme from the ThunderCats animation - as odd a choice as that may seem, this is because the game was originally meant to be a tie-in for that series, but was reskinned to follow on from Bomb Jack. Mighty Bomb Jack was released in 1986. The game was largely identical to the original game in almost all factors, except that the same screen layouts from the first game in the same sequence were now linked in a map-like continuous form by scrolling passages. Mighty Bomb Jack got less favorable reviews than the original game. Bomb Jack Twin was released in 1993 by NMK. In this version, two players could play simultaneously.
