Review by Zagrebo on 28 Feb 2011 (Rating: 2)
One of those games that surely has everyone wondering what the hell they were feeding CRASH journalists in the Thatcher Years. The usually-reliable gaming magazine gave this game 90%, enouraging scores of impressionable kids to go out and spend their pocket money on it. Yes, the "not officially Pac-Man" playable game whilst loading was a lovely touch, but that's hardly enough to hand out a CRASH Smash for, is it? Although, to be fair, we all thought it was great back then.
But we were wrong. Because Joe Blade II is a poor mixture of maze-game, collect-em-up and repetitive puzzler hidden underneath some, admittedly lovely, graphics and sound.
The plot is that, in the then-future year of 1995, London has been overrun by "punks". Joe Blade, the 8-bit gaming hero with an uncanny resemblance to Freddie Mercury cira 1986 (and, by extension, the "clone look" popularised in the American gay community of the time which Mercury based his look on), has to clear the city of punks. But this time they've taken his gun away. Yes, for some reason Joe isn't able to enter punk-filled London with a gun and so has to dispatch the bad guys with jumping kicks instead. Once you get rid of 100 of them they'll "get the message" and clear off completely. Along with this, Blade has to rescue civillians (who, for some reason, can only be saved once the player completes tedious puzzle sub-games) and collect bouncing dustbins (?!).
The first problem is the enemies - there aren't really any. The punks run and jump around but can't hurt our hero so they are essentially a kind of human cattle for Blade to "collect" by jump-kicking them. And, apart from that, all our hero has to do is rescue the civilians; failing in a sub-game means Game Over and this seems to be the only way Blade can "die".
So, as I said before, Joe Blade II is basically a tedious maze-based collect-em-up with excellent presentation. It can only really be the latter that explains why both CRASH and ver kids loved it so much back in the Autumn of '88. Thankfully, Joe had one more game to come and it's the one that gives some justification to the affection with which the trilogy is held in.
1988 Players Software (UK)
by Colin Swinbourne, Mike Brown, Andrew Severn, Kevin Parker and Simon Daniels
I think Joe Blade II is a bit better programmed than the previous effort. It's noticeable in the way Joe jumps, which is much more natural.
The game play's the same as in every Joe Blade, but with a few differences. There is no shooting at the start, you can only kill opponents while jumping and there are a series of mini games every time you come into contact with the man dressed with the greatcoat (which looks like Gargamel from the Smurfs). My advise is not to touch this man often, unless you perfectly control the sub games, because they are very hard to play and once you lose against the clock, you lose the game.
The game always reminds of Death Wish 3, but a little bit more straight forward. It can became very addictive if you like this sort of games, where mapping, shooting, collecting and making puzzles (I'm not sure if the prequel had any), is all around.
Oh, and by the way, what a great loading screen... the best I've seen.
