Jumper for Sony Playstation 2
Despite the ongoing growth of the latest consoles, the Sony Playstation 2 continues to move onward by releasing new games. Some of the games that are released in the higher end consoles still manage to have a Playstation 2 version and Jumper: Griffin's Story is among those games. Jumper: Griffin's Story is best on the movie Jumper that made lots of sales, but poor reception by critics overall. The game shares this criticism with subpar visuals and poor control schemes. The majority of the game elements are poorly polished, but the game still remains to be playable and while there are virtually no game cheats present in this game, there is a bit of general strategy to get through the levels of this beat'em up style game.
Gameplay
Jumper: Griffin's Story has an action feel to it with a little bit of puzzle elements involved. Gameplay is all about combat and the 4 face buttons control where you teleport to in reference of your targeted opponent. Once you beaten them to the pulp, you can finish the enemy off by using a jump finisher which haves your protagonist take the enemy to a drop zone through teleportation where a death scene takes place. There are 10 drop zones in all and are displayed in full motion video. The location is random and cannot be performed on bosses.
Game Strategy
Combating your opponents is all about by passing their defenses using your jumping abilities. The game helps you visually by showing colored reticules. Avoid jumping to the direction where the reticule is red because the enemy will most likely block the attack and may give you an opening to be knocked out. Green ones are the ones to look for, but may also be blocked as well so don't get too confident when you keep seeing it. However, hitting them in the green side increases your power bar. Knowing that, you may find yourself mashing buttons and teleporting at random directions and trying to luck in blows. It starts to get frustrating though when all of those random button mashing are getting blocked and you find yourself at a disadvantage.
It starts to get very confusing when you fight multiple enemies because you easily lose control as you teleport multiple times. Random button mashing is nearly impossible avoid, but slide attacks serve as a good way to change the red reticules to amber or green since they usually disorient the enemy.
To perform finisher moves, you need to find different comic book covers scattered across the levels. There are four to collect and each one can be found in the first four stages. The first stage has it in an obvious location and when you meet the stage boss, always attack on the sides with no reticule as green reticules never appear. The second comic book cover can be found in the second mission near the large red doors where you battle with three enemies. Most likely, you will pick this up by accident. Keep up with the strategy to plow through the waves of enemies and the boss. Once you reach level 3, you should be pretty familiar with the controls and find yourself building your power bar rapidly. You can find the third comic book cover on the corner of the table in the third level and by then you should have seen around half of the finishers. The final comic book cover can be found in the fourth mission by going up the stairs near the open create and requires your teleport ability to be used when you reach the top.
Once you collected them all, you just need to finish the remaining two missions with mission six being a real pain to beat. The final mission takes place in two missions and really requires you to use your technical skills as you can battle up to 5 people and button mashing won't do you justice. Once you beaten the game, you unlock three different options: the ability to replay chapters, play the different cut scenes, and be granted access to the war trophy room.
With its very poor replay value and lack of game cheats, you will find yourself letting go of this game right after you beat it because the controls and poor presentation aren't worth a second look.