The best way possible to sum up Jazzpunk is to call the title a first person adventure game. However, Jazzpunk is far from being JUST a first person adventure game.
Necrophone Games has come up with the best surrealistic experience in video games. There are weird Fear and Loathing moments which seem very drug trip-esque, but JP on the whole is a surrealist experience from bright color palettes to audio/visual distorting sections.
The player finds themselves controlling Polyblank, a secret agent of kinds who is sent on a super secret mission to spy on those damned Reds. The only way to describe Polyblank is simply as Polyblank: many blanks. Polyblank is a great mechanism to pull the player into the experience while still being the enigma that is Polyblank instead of being a generic faceless silent protagonist. Much like other adventure game titles, the goal of every scenario is to solve a puzzle. There are mini games along the way and side quests all stranger and more satisfying than the last. More often than not the solution to a puzzle ends up being pretty comedic with gems such as “cook the pig” and messing with Soviet lunch times.
The largest boon to the flow of the title is the way that puzzles actually function in game. There’s somewhat of a living breathing experience in many ways. Something changes in one place and affects other areas. In every situation it will more than likely be pretty clear what you’re to do, but the hard part is finding out how to do it sometimes. The Soviets have a standardized lunch time and you need to get into the building that some workers are window washing. Walking inside of the Soviet building you’re to be infiltrating and fiddling with the clock to make it appear to be lunchtime solves the puzzle. The very next puzzle’s answer is to take a scan of your buttcheeks and place said scan before a camera. All of this happens in the name of satirizing the Cold War with some serious parallels that can be drawn to modern day western thinking of China. That’s just the first mission, and only a taste of the flavor that is Jazzpunk. One moment you’re laughing, wondering why you’re doing something so strange, and the next there’s serious questions being brought up in a terribly funny way.
Visually everything is very much surrealistic. This is where things can be interpreted as ‘trippy’ but surrealism fits the title much better. There are parts of talking frogs, first person tennis, and a very strange section after the now infamous cooking of the pig. Signature sounds of 50’s era sci-fi and other time pieces are magnificent in bringing the player into the Jazzpunk experience in conjunction with the hyper stylized visuals. The voice overs while being done by a small studio are absolutely spot on. Voice overs can make or break a title which relies heavily on telling some story, but Necrophone found the perfect actors to go with a wonderfully written sharp witted script.
Jazzpunk is not very long. It took me an hour and a half or two hours I think even with getting lost. However, this is not a condemnation of the title. The length is perfect because Jazzpunk is paced perfectly and ingeniously. Every scene bleeds into the next one in such a way that the player is left wanting to keep going. Not only that, but the title manages to draw amazing parallels during the play time and create an experience that is tough to digest in JUST two hours. Writing a review for JP has been challenging to say the least because there is so much to the title. Hemingway’s famous quote about stories being the tip of an iceberg is entirely applicable here. There’s much thrown out in front of you, but also much more to interpret and think about. Mainly what ended up being the take home themes to me were parallels drawn between seemingly opposite time periods and a pervasive sense of nothing being what it seems to be.
Jazzpunk isn’t title for all gamers, but anyone looking for a surrealistic experience would find it incredibly hard to go wrong in buying Jazzpunk. The title itself is just perfectly paced, funny, and poignant in its satire. Fans of adventure titles themselves will also be overjoyed to find that Jazzpunk is a wonderful adventure title from an actual “being a game” standpoint as well. There’s not much more I can say to recommend the title any higher. Go and cook the pig.
10/10
Spritezeit 