You'll need to play this one using DOSBox:
Vinyl Goddess From Mars:
Ever played Jill of the Jungle? If you have, whatever you thought of it will more or less be this review right there. In fact, Vinyl Goddess From Mars was at one point very, very close to actually being the sequel to the original Jill. The game was eventually given to another company, and names were changed around a bit. If you took a look at somebody playing the game without knowing any better, you'd never be able to tell the difference.
The story is that you are the Vinyl Goddess From Mars, known as one of the biggest B-movie fans in the entire galaxy. On your way to a convention, your ship is damaged by a meteor storm and crash lands on an uncharted planet. It's up to Vinyl to collect the things she needs to repair her ship, all while avoiding all the traps and monsters she'll encounter on her journey. While the story you'll find in the main menu makes the game sound like some kind of space-related game, you'll spend pretty much the entire game throwing knives and fireballs at frog monsters. I guess they really didn't have that much time to 'un-Jillify' the game at all.
The game is split into three episodes, each of which begins with an overworld map screen where Vinyl can travel and access new levels to open up the way for her. In each level, all Vinyl needs to do is reach the exit sign at the end of the stage, although there's always a ton of monsters, traps, and other problems like locked doors in the way. She has the standard move set of any platformer hero, meaning she can jump, climb vines and ladders, crouch, and... well, that's it. While the game's very easy to pick up and learn, you'll be wishing that you could at least aim your weapons up or down a little more. Speaking of which, there's a variety of weapons Vinyl will find and use during the game, such as throwing knives, shurikens, fireballs, and exploding bottles. The problem is that Vinyl is simply unable to throw any of the weapons straight, leaving you tossing away ammo until enough of your projectiles manage to arc into the monsters.
Even that doesn't stop the game being pretty easy for its genre, however, since Vinyl has an unlimited supply of lives, and dying won't make the vanquished monsters re-spawn. There's also more ammo and health lying around than you'll ever need, no matter what difficulty setting you're playing on. Of course, the lack of difficultly isn't necessarily a total fault with the game, but anybody looking for a real platform challenge will breeze right through with no problems. The levels tend to blend together a bit as well. Even when they start to include elements like keys, locked doors, and swinging spike balls, you'll be wishing there were a few more surprises along the way. Something like the sequences in the original Jill where she transformed into an animal to make it through a tricky area would have been nice.
The game looks quite a bit better than the original Jill did with the jump to VGA, though. Vinyl herself is fairly well animated and isn't a bad character to have stare at for the hour or two you'll spend playing the game. Deborah Dutch, the model who portrays Vinyl on the game's title screen is pretty nice to look at as well, although the main menu is sadly the only time in the game you'll get to see her. While there's a distinct lack of enemies, especially in the first episode, the levels and their backgrounds tend to be fairly colorful.
Overall, Vinyl Goddess isn't a bad game at all. It does feel like it's missing a lot from what was supposed to be a sequel to the classic Jill of the Jungle, however, so maybe that's why Epic chose to send it off to somebody else to finish up. There's no real outstanding flaws with the game, it just tends to have a feeling of generic-ness. The lack of difficulty doesn't really make it any more exciting, either. Still, if you enjoyed the original Jill, or enjoy platformers, or scantily-clad women in general, this might be your game.
Reference accessed HERE May 2011
Tip:
When climbing vines, ladders, or other things, be sure to hold down the jump key and THEN hit the direction you want to jump. Don't hit them at the same time, or you'll just fall off.
Download:
You can download Vinyl Goddess From Mars HERE
