Popeye 2

Popeye the sailor was everywhere in the nineties — cartoons, t-shirts, mugs. And where there's a commercial mascot, there's a video game. Alternative Software released Popeye 2 for PC in 1992, and I remember sitting in front of that screen with a slightly skeptical expression. I have pretty much the same feeling today.

The game is a platformer set in the world of the iconic spinach-loving sailor. The goal is exactly what you'd expect — Popeye jumps, bashes enemies, collects stuff, and rescuing Olive is somewhere in the background of the whole carousel. Genre-wise, nothing surprising; 1992 on PC was absolutely stuffed with platformers.

The controls work as they should. You jump, you attack, you try to survive. The problem isn't in the mechanics themselves — those are solid and the game holds together reasonably well. The problem is elsewhere. DOSBox and that weird non-standard 320x400 pixel resolution make the image look squeezed and oddly stretched, especially at the bottom of the screen. It's not an emulation flaw as such; the game just uses this resolution, and on a modern monitor it hits your eyes in a way that original CRT displays somewhat masked. The graphics themselves aren't bad, but this effect mars both first and tenth impressions simultaneously.

The Commodore 64 version had a better reputation at the time of release, and that's a bit of a knock on the PC port — you can feel that PC wasn't the primary platform this title was made for. Still, the game isn't a total dud. Anyone who loves classic licensed character platformers and doesn't mind minor visual quirks will find a functional, decently playable action game without grand ambitions.

Today Popeye 2 mainly appeals to nostalgics who grew up with Popeye and want to refresh their memory, or collectors of DOS curiosities. You can fire it up in your browser via emulation without installation in five minutes. Just don't be caught off guard by those pixels at the bottom of the screen — it's not your monitor, it's just Popeye 2.