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First released for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Gremlin Graphics in 1986 with Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and MSX versions following, Jack The Nipper was a hugely successful arcade adventure revolving around the life of a very naughty toddler. Jack himself was actually based on the popular comic strip character Sweeney Toddler, who was created by the legendary Leo Baxendale and appeared in popular publications such as Whoopee!, Shiver and Shake, Buster and Whizzer and Chips. The game sadly never got an Atari 8-bit port back in the day so Mariusz and Tezz thought it was about time that was rectified. Having already ported a number of Spectrum games to the Atari 8-bit including titles such as Saboteur, Manic Miner and The Great Escape they definitely seem like the right people for the job here!

As you might have guessed, you take the role of the titular Jack, a naughty young child who wants to break the world record for naughtiness. This is recorded the "naughty-ometer" at the bottom of the screen along with your lives, inventory and nappy rash, which works like a health bar. He needs to carry out various wicked pranks on the unsuspecting inhabitants of his town, but if he comes into contact by angry adults he will be spanked. With each spanking his "nappy rash" meter increases until Jack ends up losing one of his five lives. Contact with the various monsters and ghosts that inhabit the town will also add to your nappy rash too.

The various items that you come across on your travels can be picked up and then used to create mischief, part of the fun of this game is discovering what pranks can be caused and how you perform them. A lot of the humour in the game is very British and also quite puerile, so if you have a childish sense of humour you'll have no problem working out what each object does and what havoc can be caused. Some of the puzzles are very obvious though - for example weed killer being found near a nicely made up garden and super glue being suspiciously close to a set of false teeth.

There's no doubt that Jack The Nipper is a hugely amusing game and there is here to get your teeth into, this isn't a game you're going to complete quickly. The controls work well and there are no issues with things like collision detection here, all in all the game plays rather well. I also liked the recreation of Ben Daglish's excellent music that appears on the title screen, it's always good to hear the POKEY chip sing.

The graphics are pretty much identical to the ZX Spectrum original and while there is nothing essentially wrong with that as they were perfectly serviceable, they are all in monochrome and you do feel that with the colour abilities of the Atari they could have improved them a bit. The sound effects are also extremely basic here, again just like the Spectrum original, and I do wish they had given the option to have the music in-game too. I realise this was just a port but you do still hope it would use the more advanced abilities of the Atari computers a bit more.

In summary, there is no doubting that Jack The Nipper is a fun and enjoyable port of a ZX Spectrum classic that will bring Atari owners hours of fun. You just need to remember that this is nothing more than a port and not a game that's going to show of the technical abilities of the Atari computers. You should also take into account that the game is completely free to download too, so go and grab your Atari Max flash cartridge (or similar device) and take Jack The Nipper for a day out!