The Easter Bunny’s Eggcellent Games!

Springer – Atari 8-bit

Springer is actually a conversion of a really obscure arcade game by an even more obscure company called Orca, who were around for just a couple of years in the early eighties. It was also translated to several other systems too including the Atari 2600 and Commodore VIC-20.

It’s a one screen platformer starring a rabbit (of course) where your ultimate objective is to reach the sun at the top of the screen with as much time remaining as possible. You do this by jumping on clouds to make your way up the screen and kicking the eggs out the way before they hatch into dinosaurs. Springer has elements of many other classic platformers of the time such as Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. and Mr. Do’s Castle. It’s attractive graphics and great sound quickly draw you in and leave you very expecting. Unfortunately the game isn’t quite as good as it first promises due to a rather difficult to master jumping mechanic.

If you can get the hang of the jumping and learn the game’s quirks then you’ll find a pretty good arcade-style platformer in here. Springer is far from the best rabbit-themed platformer out there but it’s something a bit different that many people probably won’t even be aware of.

Jazz Jackrabbit – PC DOS

Forget Zool, Super Frog, Bubsy or anything else for that matter as Jazz Jackrabbit is the best Sonic-style game you’ll ever play on a home computer. Well, barring the actual Sonic ports for more modern versions of the PC of course but we’re not counting those!

As the rabbit mercenary Jazz, it’s up to you to rescue the princess from the turtle terrorist Devan Shell and his army of reptiles. So you’ve got a fast moving animal, you’ve got springs, and you’ve got monitors that give you power ups when destroyed. The big difference between Jazz and Sonic, however, is that instead of jumping on things, Jazz just shoots the crap out of them. Besides his unlimited type of standard ammo, there are also four other types of ammo to collect, including double missiles and a TNT smart bomb. Some levels also have a gem that’ll take you to a 3D bonus stage (again like Sonic) that has a very cool Mode 7 effect to it.

Anyone who grew up with a DOS-based PC will likely be more than aware of Jazz Jackrabbit and it was probably the first game you thought of when you read the Easter theme of this article. However, if you haven’t ever played it then you probably need to rectify that soon!

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? – Nintendo NES

Another rather famous Rabbit is Roger, star of the excellent 1988 film starring Bob Hoskins and Kathleen Turner as Jessica Rabbit. Over the years there have been a number of different games released that are based on the film for a wide variety of different systems. But for this particular Easter-themed article we are looking at LJN’s Nintendo NES game.

You play this game as Private Investigator Eddie Valliant (Bob Hoskins) while Roger himself wanders around the scenery behind you. Your job is to search the city for clues, items and punchlines to jokes which will be your only defence should the nasty Weasels catch up with poor Roger. Except for these Weasels and their friends (the birds flying overhead) Roger is more or less invincible as a toon. That means for most of the gameplay, he will sadly be ignored. Should the Weasels appear in an area with you however (with an alarm sounding as they get close), Roger will go bug-eyed and try to run away. It is then up to Eddie to keep the Weasels away from Roger or engage in knock-knock jokes should they happen to catch him.

You might be disappointed that this is a game where you don’t actually get to play as Roger (as I was) but it does capture the feel of the film pretty well and offers up a great challenge. After you’ve played this then why not check out the other Roger Rabbit games too and compare them?

Bucky O’Hare – Arcade

We all remember the amazing Konami arcade game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right? You probably remember similar games based on The Simpsons, Asterix and X-Men too, but do you remember Bucky O’Hare? It was another great arcade game using the same engine and four-player set-up.

The big difference between Bucky O’Hare and the other Konami side scrollers I mentioned is that rather than being a scrolling beat ‘em up this one is more of a run and gun. That’s obviously because it’s trying to follow the themes of the original cartoon series but many of the other themes are the same, such the level structures with endless enemies and the huge and hard to beat bosses. His friends from the animation that join him are Jenny (cat), Dead Eye Duck and Blinky the Android. All the characters, including the enemies, are voiced by the original actors, making it even more authentic to its source material.

Not only is Bucky O’Hare an arcade exclusive but I’d also argue that it’s one of the most under rated coin-ops of all-time. It’s an all-out action fest with not a single moment’s rest that is even more enjoyable if you can find three friends to play it with you. Fans of the original cartoon, or alien rabbits for that matter, will be in their element here!

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