Pitfall: The Lost Expedition – Episode 1, Jungle

Cross Tarzan with Indiana Jones and you'll create an extraordinary man. Someone with the ability to jump from tree to tree using his whip, find treasure with the help of his monkey friends, and then take on the Nazi bad guys in his loincloth.

You might think there's little call for such a singular fellow these days, but you'd be wrong. Can you imagine anyone better to seek out an ancient artefact and defeat a Giant Guardian Monkey that's lurking in the South American jungle?

That's the challenge set before you in Pitfall: The Lost Expedition – Episode 1, Jungle, the first part of a trilogy lined up for release by Digital Chocolate, and you'll soon be leaping all over the screen like a baboon on a perpetual sugar rush as you get stuck into its classic platform action.

It's all slick stuff. The animation and scrolling are very competent and the backgrounds, although not incredibly exciting, are suitably relevant to the jungle environment and create a sense of place.

The controls are responsive too, enabling you to go exactly where you want to go. Simple directional keys work together with the action functions to create a seamless package that'll have you swinging through the tree tops with ease.

There's plenty of variety in the gameplay too – you use special features such as ropes and slingshots, for example – which should see Pitfall Jungle holding your interest for many hours.

And while at times the game surpasses its traditional 2D, sideways-scrolling platform roots, in essence it keeps things simple. There are hints and guides along the way, aiding you in the art of climbing, shooting and also in strategy. Everything is so easy going that you feel like you're learning your alphabet all over again, in a nice laid-back primary school where you know you're going to get to play with the building blocks again in ten minutes.

This approach doesn't come across as patronising; it enables you to reach a comfortable level with the controls and options available, before too much is asked of you. Such care reflects well on the thought that's gone into Pitfall Jungle's development.

The only aspect that we can really criticise is the music. A catchy little tune that repeats itself over and over again, it's fun for the first level. But as it appears on all the rest too, it soon wears out its welcome, and it's the one part of the game that seems a bit lazy. On the upside, it's bright and breezy, adding subtle overtones of fun like a monkey's fuzzy barnet, and lying somewhere between elevator music and a 10-year-old's music class keyboard project.

On the whole, though, Pitfall Jungle looks and plays like something you wouldn't be afraid to take home to meet your parents. With its beautifully intuitive controls, sense of fun, and some genuinely brilliant level designs, this is a report card to treasure. The game may not be incredibly original, having been built on an age-old, tried-and-tested two-dimensional platform foundation, but it makes the most of what it has been given and, thanks to some clever little touches, it does itself proud.

Pitfall: The Lost Expedition – Episode 1, Jungle

Pitfall Jungle's classic platform style never fails when it's done right. Monkey magic.
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