Review: Jazzpunk

I desperately want to tell you every single thing that happens in Jazzpunk, because the greatest way to sell it would be to list off the events of just a five minute chunk of the action. Not even just the best five minute slice. The game’s variety is such that any given moment is its own greatest advertisement.

I’m going to spoil only a few things. Some of them you’ll see right away, the first, you might never even know is there. I’m good like that.

Before I delve into the game proper, I want to let you know about something that pops up after completing Jazzpunk: an option appears in the Extras subsection of the main menu. It’s called “Wedding Qake”. It’s a mode entirely separate from the main narrative and at no point are you ever made aware of its existence. It just shows up.

This mode is a stylised version of the 1996 id Software shooter. It’s set in a chapel and instead of weaponry you pick up assorted matrimonial accoutrements. There’s a slow firing bottle of champagne which allows you to wed someone in a single hit with the cork. All of the AI players populating the map have names and provide dialogue in a chatbox at the top of the screen. It’s all bespoke content you wouldn’t find unless you knew it was there. The main story component of the game contains none of the content you’ll find in here.

That’s the kind of game Jazzpunk is. I mean; that’s nothing to do with the type of game Jazzpunk is. It’s a first person narrative adventure game. The Wedding Qake mode is absolutely indicative of what else you can expect during the short, eventful and utterly intense experience that meshes cold-war detective fiction with the kind of quick-fire non-sequitur found in the best Adult Swim shows.

It’s tough to tell you too much about what goes on in the game. It’d be like telling you to go see a comedy by spoiling all the punchlines. Jazzpunk is a series of excellent gags loosely tied together by a loose plot of espionage in a world unfamiliar to our own. You’ve seen the movie Airplane, right? Jazzpunk is about being a spy in the same way that movie is about a plane which is about to crash-land.

Your initial mission is to invade the Soviet Consulate to recover a data cartridge, but the level is open-ended and filled with a bunch of side missions (read: other stuff) to crack on with instead. The first NPC you encounter has a draw string on his back and pulling it will reward you with weird dialogue. Opposite him is a man who asks you to shake crumbs off his face, whereupon you’re treated to a WarioWare-Like segment where a cartoon hand appears suddenly in the lower right third of the screen with which you’re charged to jostle the croutons free from their jowly prison.

That’s what Jazzpunk is. It’s the sort of game where you’re simply asked to absorb the world around you. What Proteus was to enjoying a calming wander, what Dear Esther was to gradual narrative drips, what 30 Flights of Loving was to context-devoid vignettes: Jazzpunk is to simply having a great time and laughing a whole bunch.

Jazzpunk is about two hours long. There’s a joke crammed into every single second of that runtime. You’ll never quite feel like you know what to expect, other than knowing you can’t expect anything.

Tags: Adult Swim, Jazzpunk