Juggernaut

by Jaleco

Product Details

• ASIN: B00001ZWUE
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,904 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

Product Description

GameSpot Review

Freeway veterans know the kiss of death: a slow-moving car in the passing lane. When boxed in, speedy drivers are forced to suffer slowly behind these traffic-jam instigators. That frustrating feeling of moving slow and being powerless to do anything about it encapsulates the experience of playing through Juggernaut, a point-and-click puzzle adventure that, to paraphrase Austin Powers, puts the "ger" in meager gameplay, baby.

This three-CD game starts with a fairly unconventional plot: A girlfriend possessed by an evil spirit needs the player to warp into her twisted soul to save her. However, the gameplay is strictly cookie cutter: Move, gather items, then use intellect and/or items to solve puzzles that will ultimately rid the evil from the player's gal pal.

The main problem with this first-person point-and-click game is that there's not much to point and click at. Game screens have only one or two items to select, at most - a drawer or an object - and the rest is eye candy. Gameplay would've been more exciting if players could interact with the game screens and explore them in greater detail. That shortfall in both detail and animation makes players feel as though they're walking from one painted game screen to another, which dulls the excitement level immensely. Compounding the dullness are transition FMV screens that shuttle players from one screen to the next. These slow the game's pace to boredom-inducing levels.

That's not the only complaint. Frankly, most puzzles are too easy. A few ask youto memorize and repeat sound or visual patterns - those aren't too bad. Worse are the mindless puzzles that get "solved" after you visit different areas randomly. For example, a character will give you a password only after you have visited a nearby area twice. You're only going to solve that puzzle after wandering from screen to screen - hardly the definition of challenging fun.

In addition, many of the puzzles are made difficult not by being challenging intellectually, but by the fact that you must backtrack repeatedly to solve them. For instance, in the mansion stage, you must switch between small and large bodies to explore different areas. Every time you have to make a body switch to solve a puzzle, you must run back to the nearest switching station. This task gets tedious after time, especially if the switching stations are far away.

Juggernaut lacks the presentation savvy found in other video games. Most conversations are text-only, with sparse audio effects for background music and sound effects - painfully vanilla for a three-disc game. Despite extensive full-motion video sequences, the prerendered screens seem more suited to a first-generation title.

This game has a few redeeming qualities that should be noted. The idea of using different "bodies" to explore the game's mansion stage is indeed unique for a puzzle game - meaning that you need a certain body type to enter a given area of the mansion. The game's surreal plot, while convoluted and often hard to follow, makes for unique exploration stages, such as one where you surf the Internet in the year 2250, or another where you visit a village where all the murdered residents lack their eyeballs.... now if that's not the definition of a convoluted plot, what is? Finally, the game's storyline does get better once the second disc is popped in, but the puzzles remain woefully unchallenging.

Juggernaut's slow-paced gameplay and bare-bones interactivity make for a lackluster game - one that only patient puzzle fanatics could embrace. For the rest, switch lanes and pass this title up. --Nelson Taruc
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This game is very hard and VERY disturbing, December 4, 1999

By A Customer

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

The plot behind this game is you bought a bottle with a weird substance for your girlfriend and she has now possedesed by something in it. A priest calles you and tells you that only you can save her. You have to enter her body and save her. Then the adventure begins with you inside her body. When I first played this game, it seemed to have a couple of easy puzzles, WRONG! This game has puzzles that no one can solve. It has very gory sequences and is NOT for the average player. I found it to be very hard to play. The graphics are poor, but it still is a good game for people that can solve VERY HARD puzzles. I had nightmares after the first day I played this game. Trust me, you WILL have nightmares after you play this game also.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mind Blowing!, December 16, 2004

By	Lspirit "L" (USA) - See all my reviews

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Anyone who plays this game and cannot feel the mind altering effects must already be dead! It took me 12 days to complete the entire game and it was worth every suspense filled moment. Throuthout the entire time I was playing the Juggernaut I felt as if I was racing against time to save not only my demonically possessed girlfriend, but the entire world.

The Juggernaut had its erie, mysterious, and sad moments as I moved from one story to another in anticipation of piecing together a puzzle that would release the world from a timeless evil. True the graphics are not all that great and I would have loved to have been able to hear myself and the other characters speak, but the erie music compensated highly for that.

The Juggernaut is a very old game for playstation, but it is in my opinion a classic.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If you like crap. you'll like this, August 13, 2002

By	Bryan Guarino (California City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Ohhhh Jaleco why have you forsaken yourself? Premise of the game is you have to save your girlfriend (ooo originality). This game wouldn't be so bad if it actually had action in it. But unfortunatly this game has none, you don't even get to walk around. Which wouldn't be so bad if it had good graphics, but it doesn't. If your hoping for good puzzles this game isn't for you, because the puzzles often make no sense at all! After ten minutes of the game I wanted to hunt down the creators of this game and beat them with a golf club. This game would of gotten two stars if it's name was thuggernaut. And the people that said this was good were high as a cloud. If you buy this not only will you waste your money and time, but also your life because this may ruin video games for you.