Jazz Jackrabbit hops back to life on GOG

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The digital game store GOG announced today that Jazz Jackrabbit and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 are now available. They cost $10 each, but they are one sale now for $9.

Jazz Jackrabbit came out for MS-DOS in 1994. It helped launched Cliff Bleszinski and Epic Games (then Epic MegaGames), and both would become major players in the game industry from the mid-1990s to today. It’s a 2D side-scroller that parodies mascot games of the ’90s. Its title star isn’t cute, instead looking like a rabbit version of John Rambo. And rather than jumping on his enemies, Jazz uses a gun.

Epic and Bleszinski would go on to create notable shooter series like Unreal and Gears of War, but Jazz Jackrabbit played a major role as a precursor to those franchises.

The GOG version of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 comes with JJ2+ mod. It includes game modes and adjustments added by the game’s fan community. GOG is also now selling Epic Pinball, another early MS-DOS game from the studio.