Jumping Flash (PlayStation): Classic Gaming


	Platform PlayStation Genre Platformer Publisher Sony Computer Entertainment Developer Exact ETA 1995
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When the PlayStation first came out 3D games were still a novelty. Before this time, side-scrolling action games and platformers ruled the roost with the likes of Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fight, Golden Axe, and so forth. With games entering a third spacial dimension, suddenly players were presented with an entirely new way of exploring worlds. Jumping Flash for the PlayStation was an early example of this to hit the home market.

In Jumping Flash, players find themselves controlling a giant, mechanical bunny capable of unloading, cute, cuddly, merciless havoc on its enemies while exploring simplistic 3D game worlds in search of carrots that need to be collected in order to

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go on to the next stage where they’ll likely find themselves doing the same thing again (or occasionally fighting a boss). These stages are all chunks of the Earth that were stolen by an evil scientist named Baron Aloha. His plan was to take these bits of land, pull them into outerspace, and turn them into resorts, and that’s why Robbit, the giant mecha bunny, was sent to save the day.

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Looking back on it now, the way Jumping Flash was set up was incredibly simple. The levels were big and blocky with players trying to bunny jump their way to high up places to find items that needed to be collected in order to progress to the next level. It wasn’t much to look at. The game was acontinuation of the slow, clunky 3D games of the early 90s, but with an FPS view.

What was nice about the game, though, was that there was some exploration included in it. Jumping Flash feels a little bit like a series of miniature playground, where gamers were expected to have a look around, zap some bad guys, and platform their way to victory. It was an incredibly simplistic idea, but just the fact that it was being brought to the 3D realm was a nice change of pace, given that just about every game before that had tried to do this was in two dimensions.

There was also plenty of charm to the game. The cute premise got things rolling with Robbit, and continued with some of his exceptionally cute weapons that include an array of fireworks ranging from roman candles to bottle rockets to cherry bombs. There are also a number of more traditional power-ups to be collected such as extra health and lives, time extensions, and invincibility pills.

The only two things that Jumping Flash really suffered from when it came out was that it was too short, and too easy. The levels weren't very big, and they barely cracked 20 in number. Nonetheless, it still was well received by critics and gamers at the time, and even got a sequel.

It’s nearly impossible to imagine this game to be anything other than rip-roaringly simple in this day and age, but Jumping Flash helped usher in the world of 3D gaming on a mass scale to the consumer market. Before this, all we had were a few games released by Nintendo, and a handful of arcade titles that did this. Jumping Flash, along with a number of other early releases on the PlayStation were instrumental in changing how people viewed games. Unfortunately, it just got forgotten after the likes of Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and the likes came out with vastly better graphics, and sophisticated gameplay, stealing the spotlight from this early 3D game.

Mr. Nash

August 24, 2008