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Jumpin' Jimmy is a kangaroo with a fruit fetish, willing to go to any lengths to acquire his favourite food. His quest takes him over a large platform-filled area, where all manner of native Australian creatures attempt to bar his way. Koalas, Snakes and Spiders conspire against him, throwing ripe bananas and boomerangs, or momentarily stunning him on contact. Being a boxing kangaroo, Jimmy can deal with most creatures by use of his fists. This knocks them momentarily unconscious, enabling him to escape.

The playing area is set across six scrolling screens. When a likely looking place appears for Jimmy to start his search, any movement of the joystick causes him to leap down from his perch and land on the first platform beneath.

Fruit lies around the playing area, forming the shape of numbers - a feature which becomes more apparent when viewed from the top of screen radar. Other landscape features which both help and hinder our antipodean hero are glowing stars (which transport him around the landscape) and elevators which allow him to reach other platforms. There are also baby kangaroos to be collected, along with valuable jewels to increase his score.

Falling from a platform or colliding with anything hostile causes Jimmy to sprout wings and a halo, whereupon he floats, angel-like, to the top of the screen and a life is lost.

Up to four players can participate, competing over four separately loaded levels. Details relevant to the current screen are displayed during loading, giving clues as to the use of any collected objects.

Platform games are not exactly a dying breed, but they should at least be a protected species. Jumpin' Jimmy represents the worst of the genre.

It's tremendously difficult to play, with almost no serious objective other than collecting the fruit. Matters are made worse by illogical gameplay, where literally stepping from one platform to another causes death.

Sometimes it makes you wonder if these games are play-tested at all before being bundled off to the distributor. Leave the three quid in your pocket... and Jumpin' Jimmy on the shelf where it belongs.

I can't see why the programmer bothered to make this so hard - losing a life because the character under your control falls to a platform only a few pixels below is ridiculous.

I also can't understand why the program requires a multi-load - none of the levels are bursting with amazing graphics and sound or outstanding gameplay which push the C64 to its limits, so why make an unplayable game even more unfriendly by using a multi-load?

Some of the spot effects and jingles are clear and effective, and the game has style, but it's severely lacking variety and playability - a pity, as it could have been a neat little budget game.

Presentation 47%
Good options, but a ridiculous multi-load system.

Graphics 29%
Simplistic but colourful backdrops and miniscule sprites.

Sound 69%
Some quality jingles and spot effects.

Hookability 31%
Extremely difficult, frustrating and tedious.

Lastability 25%
Any remaining urge to play is heavily dampened by the multi-load.

Value For Money 34%
Too frustrating and unplayable to be worth the relatively cheap asking price.

Overall 27%
A potentially entertaining platform game ruined by its execution.