I played with the additional machine gun patch, as the creator advised. Although my brain is still used to the original “always shoot up” mechanic, so I think that actually made it more difficult for me, hahaha… It’s tough, because while only shooting in one direction is obviously dumb, it also comes in handy, being able to intentionally position yourself to fire in two directions simultaneously is an advantage of the original. But with the aforementioned extra patch, it is required that you first “program” the direction by moving in that direction. But this takes time, and exposes your vehicle. This is most noticeable against those wild toothbrush-throwing jeeps. But again, if you’ve never played before, it’s probably a lot more intuitive.

Anyway, this is very well-made. It was clearly made by a fan who knew what made the original good. There’s lots of great segues between old and new areas, there are new jumpscares (a big hallmark of the original!) in the form of surprise tanks, planes, etc. and a clever use of tiles to even piece together some new objects. Love it!

There’s a new type of secret, and in general the powerups have been moved around. I can’t say I’ve found them all, but the ones I did find were quite helpful…although there are a few evil ones. When it is placed ON a machine gun platform, you may or may not actually damage the enemy, and this is confusing when you are navigating the bullet hell and expect that enemy to have been defeated, only to find he’s still blasting away. Of course, I am sure that was the whole idea…

Overall, there’s enough familiar scenes to prevent you from feeling overwhelmed, for those who knew the original well like myself, and the difficulty is just a bit higher than the original, but never unfair. This kicks ass, and evokes the same desire for more than six levels I felt playing the original back in the day. War Safari is a well-made refresh that does more of what made Jackal awesome.