Transcript
[Hi there! Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be discussing the game for those who have completed it. If you haven’t, perhaps you should stop this video now, unless of course you’re still interested in what I have to say, and don’t mind the risk of spoilers.]
When I think of my time with Jazzpunk, the word that comes to mind is ‘irreverent’. Jazzpunk is a comedy videogame. Comedy in videogames has always been tricky, and after the fall of the adventure genre in the late 90s, it’s not something that has been attempted often or with much success. To be honest, even in its heyday, the games that were truly funny and could sustain that through their runtime were rare indeed. What this comes down to is the timing problem. Comedy is timing. Even the funniest string of words can fall flat if delivered in the wrong cadence or at the wrong time. Of course the strength of videogames is in giving players the agency to do what they want when they want (within the confines of the game’s rules of course). It’s easy to see why comedy and videogames have often been at odds.
Jazzpunk addresses this issue through unexpected game mechanics. As much of the game as possible is designed to be an opportunity for a joke. It’s not just the dialogue and the objectives of your mission. Interacting with the environment, the bizarre side quests, and even how the game will change reality on you are all examples of loading Jazzpunk up with laughter. It presents so many opportunities for laughter that it's bursting at the seams trying to get the player to burst at the seams with laughter. It’s a digital manifestation of the old rule, “If you only tell one good joke every ten tries, you must be prepared to tell nine bad ones”. With so much going on, and most of it being so odd and out of left field, you might find yourself barking out a laugh in sheer surprise at the absurdity of it all.
Jazzpunk might be about perception. On one level it’s trying to change the perception of how to approach comedy in videogames, but also your character takes hallucinogens in order to travel to a mission. Often the mission will end by snapping back into “reality” from a tranquil interlude once your objectives have been accomplished. The whole thing is a spoof on the 60s spy genre, but it might also be a spoof about playing videogames. So many of your actions seem to be for the sheer ridiculousness of their outcome, and this includes cutaways to playing snippets of other videogames such as Frogger, Space Invaders, and even Quake. It seems to be making a statement that most games are pretty ridiculous in and of themselves, so as a defense mechanism, we mostly sit back and enjoy the ride, trying not to think about it.
It also helps that Jazzpunk is a short game, clocking in at about two hours if you take your time. There are a lot of achievements for interacting with the environment in ridiculous ways, and there is definitely some longevity for those who want to see just how many secrets are embedded within each stage. Jazzpunk does not overstay its welcome, and I have mixed feelings about why. Even by the end of the game, there are jokes that are reused (in some cases these are slight variations on a previous joke). Now this could be deliberate as there is indeed the potential for comedy through repetition (Sideshow Bob and the rakes for example). On the other hand, perhaps they were actually repeating themselves and it’s a good thing that the game ended when it did. I will also admit that it took me forever to find all six items to feed the ego of the editor, making me question if the game was perhaps glitched. Well played Jazzpunk, messing with my perception again.
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