ThunderJaws

When ThunderJaws fired up on my friend's Commodore 64 back in the nineties, I knew right away — these guys wanted to ride the Jaws wave, but with a serious appetite for action. The game is simply an action platformer with a rubber shark in the lead role, brawling through galleys and sewers against all kinds of enemies.

Gameplay is straightforward: you run, you jump, you punch. The shark has three attack modes — normal biting, shoving, and a special charge that costs energy. You lose energy through enemy contact too, and it's tight. The maps aren't huge, but they have layers; you find your way up and down, some places only accessible once you've leveled up, and throughout it all things evolve so you don't go nuts from boredom in the first five minutes.

Graphics are typically Commodore — sparse but readable. The shark has character, the animations are appropriately snappy. Sound? Now that's the thing — sometimes it squeaks, sometimes it rumbles, and the menu melody more or less stays in your head whether you want it to or not. Occasionally it sounds like the TV's broken down, but that's just the era we're talking about.

The game doesn't hook you like Ghosts 'n Ghouls or Ghouls 'n Ghosts might. It's more of a taste — a few levels, the feeling you've learned something, then it starts repeating mechanics and you've got the picture. It doesn't drag unnecessarily, but it won't refresh your soul either.

Today? If you love retro platformers and want to revisit the Commodore 64 without the tedium, ThunderJaws isn't a bad call. It's not Impossible Mission or Commando, but it's got the right retro charm and plays without any meanness to it. You'll finish it quickly, and that's exactly what you'll remember about old 8-bit gaming.