Jungle Hunt For The Atari VCS

I was watching an old Tarzan movie (and, yes, I do mean old, as in Johnny Weissmuller old) and as it was ending I found myself thinking that I felt like playing Jungle King, but of course I can't play Jungle King on the Atari 2600 because Taito, the company that released Jungle King into the arcades, were forced to change the name of the game to Jungle Hunt after being sued by the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs (the author who created Tarzan).

In Jungle King the main character was an obvious rip-off of Tarzan, all the way down to the famous Tarzan call. So, once Taito were met with the lawsuit, they changed the main character into a safari adventurer with a pith helmet. The game really didn't change much beyond that element, but for a Tarzan fan like me the change was enough to be a slight letdown.

When the game was ported over to the Atari Video Computer System in 1983, it was already post-lawsuit and we were stuck with our friendly pith-helmeted, safari-suited hero named Sir Dudley, vine-swinging his way through the trees, dodging crocodiles, and hopping over boulders. 

 

Minor complaint aside (and honestly, that complaint isn't really fair), the Atari VCS port of Jungle Hunt is one of the better ones from the time. You play as Sir Dudley, the first board involves swinging vine-to-vine through the jungle. Miss a vine and you hit the jungle floor, losing a life. The second board consists of Dudley attempting to make it through a river infested with crocodiles, you need to dodge the crocodiles, and regularly return to the surface of the river so as not to run out of oxygen. Hit a crocodile, you lose a life. Run out of air, you lose a life. The third stage sees Sir Dudley attempting to continue moving forward, but having to jump over rolling boulders. The fourth and final stage of the game involves avoiding cannibals and attempting to rescue Lady Penelope who is being held captive by the cannibals and is being lowered into a fiery cauldron. 

It's a highly enjoyable and fairly exciting video game. And, for 1983, it's one of the better looking games for the Atari 2600. The graphics are exceptional, the game-play is fairly slick, and it's fast-paced excitement. If you do not have this cartridge in your Atari collection already, you really do need to add it, the game really is a must.

-Jay