Jazzpunk: Director's Cut

If you enjoyed Kihachi Okamoto‘s brilliant 1967 spy spoof „Age Of Assassins“, chances are you‘ll enjoy this game. Unfortunately, since that film was never released outside of Japan, chances are approx. 52.000.000:1 that you don‘t know what I‘m talking about. „Jazzpunk" has you explore lovingly crafted retro-cyberpunkish environments while doing typical spy stuff, like stealing keycards or switching suitcases while in drag. Side quests include going to the cinema, feeding Koi or DJing at the big baddie‘s apartment. You‘ll also find a number of FPS minigames - wreak havoc as a cat, turn matrimony into a matter of life and death in the aptly titled „Wedding Qake“ and punch Japanese cars into oblivion in an excellent first person rendition of the ever-popular „Street Fighter II“ bonus stage. Film and video game geeks rejoice! - „Jazzpunk" has class about the things it parodies, so you likely won‘t find any references to lame and obscure memes. On the downside, this game is short. It falls nicely inbetween the „Modern Warfare“ type of short and the „Slender - The Arrival“ kind of short, which rounds up to about 2-3 hours of gameplay. But don‘t let that deter you, „Jazzpunk“ is such a singularly fun experience, with style to burn and tons of oddball humor, you‘ll want to start right over again and show it to all your friends and then play some more.

Jazzpunk itself is a fairly boring game, with very pointless objectives to complete in each level. Its draw is everything around those objectives - meaning side-objectives, mini-games, weird mechanics and the various nonsensical occurrences. Which, sadly, there aren't a lot of in each level. Regardless, once you complete them, you have to return to the main objectives and complete those in order to move on to new experiences. I found Jazzpunk very funny, and quite enjoyable to mess around with, but enjoyment of this game is very subjective. The humor is nonsensical, and the game's idea of jokes is showing you something unexpected - such as a pool that is actually a trampoline. Enjoyment also greatly relies on being able to move from level to level just as you're losing interest with the level, and have seen everything there is to see there, or just about. Getting stuck in this game is a death sentence to your enjoyment of it. Luckily, levels are fairly small, so most of the time there's no chance of getting stuck for long periods. But the small levels also mean there isn't a lot to experience in each level. It's most felt towards the end, since the ending to the game is a rigid "boss fight" on top of the roof of a building, making it the smallest level in the game, without many distractions from the level's main objectives. My only other major gripe is that the game can be sometimes painful on the eyes, with how bright everything is, and how quickly the character moves. Jazzpunk is an enjoyable distraction, if found for a major discount. I felt there could have been more levels, but what I got felt enough for me to not feel ripped off. Especially since towards the end the humor seemed to deteriorate in quality, and started to rely more and more on cheap pop culture references - such as seeing flying toasters in the sky.

Jazzpunk is an aesthetically peculiar title drabbed in 'cold war' era inspired absurdism that plays out a series of 'episodic' interactive narrative setpieces. A lot of the reviews on site praise this game like is compelling; this proved to be nothing further from the truth for me. Believe me, I wanted to like this. During the episodes, while sometimes you will have a 'freedom' to explore which is as shallow as a plastic kiddie pool, most anything that advances the plot is predetermined, such that after a while it feels like you could simply watched someone play the 'main thread' of the game and fast forwarded the slow and badly paced bits. The easter eggs, despite adding welcome novelty, roll into an experience that proves rather trite and derivative, even while beating up cars may prove satisfying. The absurdity fails to elevate the work to live up to anything remotely climactic, which almost seems to have been the goal. Jazzpunk unfortunately amounts to a short inane 'wacky' adventure that thinks rhetorically asking "hey do you remember things from between 1992 to 1996?" like it's going out of style is a substitute for humour and synergy between content and features; it is a lot of empty space with very little to do. The only surprise after a while was that it didn't say "Information Super Highway" to death. Since GOG is given to a 5 star system: I give it 1 star for the attempt and the look of the game. I give it 1 more star for oddball appeal, which I'm no doubt sure is the appeal of the game for most people but, I can give no more because; overall, the experience proves to be tedious, slow, boring, and without any redeeming qualities to the hashed togeteher elements to satisfy you beyond a veneer of novelty. In short, there are far better priced 'indie' games worth your time and cash. If you want a pastiche narrative experiment that tries and maybe succeeds but it does so on its own terms so far you can't even tell for sure, then this game is for you!

Jazzpunk - at first you think its going to be a game with jazzy music and 70s nostalgia. But not with this weird game. But let me start at the beginning: you start up the game and the intro - its just phenomenal. It fits the coming game up to 100% but does not tell you much. You start in a subwaystation and your boss hands out some pills so you can on a mission. And here it starts: the psychedelic adventure you would not expect. The Graphics are pretty and the world has many aspects and settings. From russian officecomplexes to the neuralnetwork of the game up into the intestines of a crocodile-person. In addition you get those little minigames - which you can do but do not have to. But they add a nice touch of "what the f.. is going on?". As told at the beginning: the music is great. If you like the lowtune of some Jazz and not so hype music you will love the sound setting. But thats not everything the game has to offer. The story is pretty easy and not really worth to review. And thats the first reason why this game only gets three out of five stars. The story is mediocre. More cannot be said about it because everything would be a spoiler in itself. The second reason for another star loss: the gameplay. Basicly you dont do much. Walking here, jumping there. It is just a walking sim in which you press E to get a joke or funny line. So..all in all its a good game. Around 2 and a half hours of jokes, funny lines and your drug adventure. As an ending note: this game would be a fantastic VR-experience if you like but unfortuneatly its not. I would still recommend to buy and play this game but dont expect too much out of it.