Brian the Lion (Computer Combat)
Brian the Lion Starring In: Rumble in the Jungle (AGA), developed by Reflections and published by Psygnosis in 1994. This version was included in the Commodore A1200 Computer Combat pack.
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Player's Review
"IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT, STAY OUT OF THE JUNGLE
Meet the funkiest feline on two legs, Brian the Lion, starring in the wildest adventure ever to hit the Amiga! Brian's rumble in the jungle boasts hundreds of frames of character animation, megabytes of infectious music and a magnificent menagerie of console-style FX-including zooming, sprite scaling, de-resolution and rotation The scariest sight in Bermuda Shorts this side of Baywatch, Brian The Lion pounces into action in a roaring romp that's so hoe it's positively tropical."
Brian the lion was released as separate versions for A500 class machines as well as A1200 (AGA) and CD32. The version played here was bundles with the commodore Amiga 1200 Computer Combat pack. The A500 and A1200 versions are mostly the same apart from an extra playfield in the AGA version providing more detailed backgrounds. Disk loading has you sitting on blank screens for an extended time which isn't great (mostly cut out in this video) but it can be installed to HD to sped things up which is a rare thing. The CD32 release however offers some extra levels as well as a CD soundtrack. The game is designed to mimic console gaming of the same era like snes and mega-drive and the games manual states as much:-
"Brian the Lion features full multi-layered parallax scrolling running at 50 frames per second. In some stages in the game, clever programming techniques have 'tricked' the Amiga's processor into putting 182 colours )count 'em) on screen simultaneously. There are 50 original tunes within the game occupying a massive 1.3 Megabytes of sound. The Brian sprite has 218 frames of animation! This game is the first to introduce the console-style effects onto the Amiga - including zooming, de-res, curved perspectives and even full-screen rotation at 50 fps."
The game is a pretty average, but well presented platformer requiring you to travers many short levels, defeating any enemies for score if you wish, progressing through the levels to the inevitable boss fights before progressing to the next area. Gems and power-ups are spread about and you can spend those gems at a cloud for more power ups. The power ups allow you to roar, run or jump higher as well as allowing you to take more hits. Some levels feature alternate tornado exits that take you to short secret levels containing more gems. If you beat a level within the bonus time limit, you can attempt one of three challenge levels and beating all three awards an inventory full of power-ups.
Of course being a euro platformer it's not all fun, you have maze like levels, death traps, off camera platforms, leaps of faith sometimes requiring multiple plays to properly map the levels and correct routes and some really sketchy collision detection. The longplay is a full run through the game showing all main levels and secret levels. This results in quite a messy run as levels are repeated to access additional secret exits. There is an oddity or bug where the gems do not appear when revisiting a stage so i mostly run around all accessible areas on the first entry. The game is played on Hard difficulty which results in having no lives or hit point collectables in the levels.
Overall, it's a nice Amiga game but not a great game. It is well presented, looks and sounds good and there are a couple of different gameplay styles to keep things interesting. But the main levels can feel a bit repetitive and with the movement feeling quite slippy it's all to easy to miss jumps, fall off ledges and even walk into enemies. And with multiple routes, it's all to easy to miss something important.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:02:05 The Steamy Jungle
00:05:49 The Steamy Jungle
00:06:21 Jungle Secret
00:07:35 Liquid Land (Challenge 1)
00:08:43 Bonus Paradise
00:09:20 The Rocky Mountain
00:12:37 Rocky Secret
00:13:34 Sky High World (Challenge 2)
00:14:23 Fountain Secret
00:16:35 Gosh!
00:18:10 The Rocky Mountain
00:19:20 Crystal Kingdom (Challenge 3)
00:20:45 Pleasant Plains
00:23:35 The Rocky Mountain
00:24:28 The Fountain of Life
00:29:36 Rocky Secret
00:30:10 Barry the Bear
00:31:55 The Spooky Ruins
00:35:55 The Spooky Ruins
00:37:00 Ruined Secret
00:38:56 Ruined Paradise
00:39:28 Tribal Trouble
00:40:28 Tribal Secret
00:41:18 The Spooky Ruins
00:42:45 The Ocean
00:45:32 Run!
00:46:20 The Deserted Ruins
00:47:58 Mechanical Nightmare
00:49:53 The Deserted Ruins
00:50:47 Crumbling Terror
00:52:12 Tribal Secret 2
00:52:58 Graeme The Gorilla
00:54:44 The Way Forward
00:59:41 The Graveyard
01:02:11 Lava Lake
01:04:17 The Undead
01:05:52 The Graveyard
01:06:28 The Crypt
01:07:40 The Graveyard
01:08:26 Spooky Secret
01:09:05 Lava Lake 2
01:11:02 Panic in the Woods
01:12:32 The Undead
01:13:45 I Knew there was an Easier Way
01:16:30 The Volcano
01:19:55 EEEK!
01:20:54 The Volcano
01:21:52 Volcano Secret
01:22:50 Thank You Very Much!
01:23:42 Bit Nippy!
01:26:00 Frozen Terror
01:27:16 Bit Nippy
01:28:11 Frozen Secret
01:29:00 Geeza
01:31:25 Ending
Meet the funkiest feline on two legs, Brian the Lion, starring in the wildest adventure ever to hit the Amiga! Brian's rumble in the jungle boasts hundreds of frames of character animation, megabytes of infectious music and a magnificent menagerie of console-style FX-including zooming, sprite scaling, de-resolution and rotation The scariest sight in Bermuda Shorts this side of Baywatch, Brian The Lion pounces into action in a roaring romp that's so hoe it's positively tropical."
Brian the lion was released as separate versions for A500 class machines as well as A1200 (AGA) and CD32. The version played here was bundles with the commodore Amiga 1200 Computer Combat pack. The A500 and A1200 versions are mostly the same apart from an extra playfield in the AGA version providing more detailed backgrounds. Disk loading has you sitting on blank screens for an extended time which isn't great (mostly cut out in this video) but it can be installed to HD to sped things up which is a rare thing. The CD32 release however offers some extra levels as well as a CD soundtrack. The game is designed to mimic console gaming of the same era like snes and mega-drive and the games manual states as much:-
"Brian the Lion features full multi-layered parallax scrolling running at 50 frames per second. In some stages in the game, clever programming techniques have 'tricked' the Amiga's processor into putting 182 colours )count 'em) on screen simultaneously. There are 50 original tunes within the game occupying a massive 1.3 Megabytes of sound. The Brian sprite has 218 frames of animation! This game is the first to introduce the console-style effects onto the Amiga - including zooming, de-res, curved perspectives and even full-screen rotation at 50 fps."
The game is a pretty average, but well presented platformer requiring you to travers many short levels, defeating any enemies for score if you wish, progressing through the levels to the inevitable boss fights before progressing to the next area. Gems and power-ups are spread about and you can spend those gems at a cloud for more power ups. The power ups allow you to roar, run or jump higher as well as allowing you to take more hits. Some levels feature alternate tornado exits that take you to short secret levels containing more gems. If you beat a level within the bonus time limit, you can attempt one of three challenge levels and beating all three awards an inventory full of power-ups.
Of course being a euro platformer it's not all fun, you have maze like levels, death traps, off camera platforms, leaps of faith sometimes requiring multiple plays to properly map the levels and correct routes and some really sketchy collision detection. The longplay is a full run through the game showing all main levels and secret levels. This results in quite a messy run as levels are repeated to access additional secret exits. There is an oddity or bug where the gems do not appear when revisiting a stage so i mostly run around all accessible areas on the first entry. The game is played on Hard difficulty which results in having no lives or hit point collectables in the levels.
Overall, it's a nice Amiga game but not a great game. It is well presented, looks and sounds good and there are a couple of different gameplay styles to keep things interesting. But the main levels can feel a bit repetitive and with the movement feeling quite slippy it's all to easy to miss jumps, fall off ledges and even walk into enemies. And with multiple routes, it's all to easy to miss something important.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:02:05 The Steamy Jungle
00:05:49 The Steamy Jungle
00:06:21 Jungle Secret
00:07:35 Liquid Land (Challenge 1)
00:08:43 Bonus Paradise
00:09:20 The Rocky Mountain
00:12:37 Rocky Secret
00:13:34 Sky High World (Challenge 2)
00:14:23 Fountain Secret
00:16:35 Gosh!
00:18:10 The Rocky Mountain
00:19:20 Crystal Kingdom (Challenge 3)
00:20:45 Pleasant Plains
00:23:35 The Rocky Mountain
00:24:28 The Fountain of Life
00:29:36 Rocky Secret
00:30:10 Barry the Bear
00:31:55 The Spooky Ruins
00:35:55 The Spooky Ruins
00:37:00 Ruined Secret
00:38:56 Ruined Paradise
00:39:28 Tribal Trouble
00:40:28 Tribal Secret
00:41:18 The Spooky Ruins
00:42:45 The Ocean
00:45:32 Run!
00:46:20 The Deserted Ruins
00:47:58 Mechanical Nightmare
00:49:53 The Deserted Ruins
00:50:47 Crumbling Terror
00:52:12 Tribal Secret 2
00:52:58 Graeme The Gorilla
00:54:44 The Way Forward
00:59:41 The Graveyard
01:02:11 Lava Lake
01:04:17 The Undead
01:05:52 The Graveyard
01:06:28 The Crypt
01:07:40 The Graveyard
01:08:26 Spooky Secret
01:09:05 Lava Lake 2
01:11:02 Panic in the Woods
01:12:32 The Undead
01:13:45 I Knew there was an Easier Way
01:16:30 The Volcano
01:19:55 EEEK!
01:20:54 The Volcano
01:21:52 Volcano Secret
01:22:50 Thank You Very Much!
01:23:42 Bit Nippy!
01:26:00 Frozen Terror
01:27:16 Bit Nippy
01:28:11 Frozen Secret
01:29:00 Geeza
01:31:25 Ending
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