Reviews

A nice platformer from the indiana jones era.

You guide a treasure hunter in a pyramid. it's an easy game compared to others from 80's, and it offers pure fun.

Downside is that it is very short/small game, you can easily finish it and go back to playing chuckie egg.

PJ is a surprisingly good platformer, which although it may not match the eccentricity of Manic Miner is a entertaining romp through various levels featuring snakes, spikes, fire traps, ghosts, skulls et al that you must avoid to reach your ultimate goal - the treasure that lies buried deep within the depths of the pyramid.

Go on give it a try, you'll like it I'm sure!

Rather archaic, but good, adventurous explorative platform game.

This is a game that I'll readily admit that I never played back in the day, although I was aware of it on other formats under the guise of Montezuma's Revenge.

The Spectrum port is competent enough. It's a bit smaller, and lacking in the variety and humour of Matthew Smith's games, but it was around early enough on other formats to have perhaps been an influence on Jet Set Willy. Certainly it bridges the gap between the purely sequential platformers and those that allow you to explore at will.

On the whole, not a bad game and I'm a bit surprised that it slipped out almost completely unnoticed at the time; none of the magazines appear to have reviewed it.

I'm not really into platform games, but this is one of the exception. It was the first for me and I still come back to it nowadays. Simple graphics and gameplay, but effective.

Panama Joe is a pretty good platformer with all the features that made this genre so appealing and magical ,,,

Almost everything is correct with this game: the colors , the scenery , the movements , the graphics ,,, I don´t give this a 5 because it lacks a bit of originality ... you can almost feel you are gonna step inside "Central Cavern" at any moment . I also agree with The Dean of Games in that the variety of enemies in this game is very , very scarce ... which is a drawback if you are going to play this seriously . :(

The "cucaracha" tune comes out of the speakers whenever you grab an item , which is fun the first times but becomes tedious after a while .

The bricks inside the pyramid are very well designed as well as the red flames in movement -they really burn like hell !!!!- .

The world needs more platformers like Panama Joe . I say ,,, ;)

1984 Parker Software/Sinclair Research
by David

I'm surprised I missed this game in my younger years and had never heard about it. It seems quite popular between the Spectrum community.
Panama Joe is definitely playable but I cant consider it as addictive as some of the best platform/maze games around. It's not as well written as say Chuckie Egg, you can't jump on ladders and started climbing them, you have to position yourself bellow. Picking up objects also requires specific positioning. This takes the fluidity and consequent addictiveness other games have. Graphics and sound may be appealing to retro gamers but to the general public they are not so, but obviously that's subjective. Also I noticed the maze isn't that big and the traps aren't that difficult so I'm guessing it's fairly easy to complete.
The high point of the game is its straightforward playability. Basically you have to collect keys to open doors that lead you to your final destination: Montezuma's Treasure Room.
Jump around and avoid enemies. All in all an in-your-face easy to get into game.

Cute game with the charm of the Indiana Jones films.

An intrepid explorer, Panama Joe, is inside Montezuma's pyramid to find his legendary treasure.

In his way to success he'll come across snakes, skulls, torches, ropes, swords, hammers, fires and jewells.

In spite of its crappy UDG graphics and simple & boring sounds, the game has, at least, the joy of exploring, collecting keys to open rooms, ... not bad.

It's amazing how little it takes sometimes to design a game that will satisfy almost everyone.

I would give it a 6, even a 7 (out of 10) if you take into account the time and the trends when it came out.
One thing that I didn't like when I was a little boy was the final enemy, built from solid 8x8 grids that I thought could be done perfectly with the predefined graphics consisting of a grid with 4 4x4 Squares and that would give it more resolution (not a lot more but it's something).