Game of the Week 18th May 1998

The Great Giana Sisters by Time Warp

"Move over brothers, the sisters are here!" or so said the September 1988 advert in ZZap. This game looks and plays very like a certain other game from Nintendo involving plumbers, which could just explain why Nintendo got it banned! It was on sale in the shops for a couple of weeks before Nintendo got wind of it and forced the game producers to withdraw the game. You don't f*ck with the big N!
Anyway, ignoring all the legal issues surrounding this game, it is a great game and I whiled away many an hour playing this game and almost completed it if I remember right. It does look very like Super Mario Bros and the first few levels are almost exact copies of the SMB map layouts but the game gets kinda different on the higher levels. I actually prefer it to SMB, it's a lot cooler! e.g. instead of getting bigger to smash blocks above you like in Mario, in Giana you get a punk haircut and headbutt everything in sight! Much more fun. Anyway, enjoy the game, it's the closest you'll ever get to SMS on the 'ol C64. See below for game instructions.

Screen Shots

Doesn't it look just a tad like Super Ma*io Brothers? ;-)

Instructions

Well, obviously I don't have a copy of the original instruction sheet, and if anybody does I'd say it's a rare thing, but if you've ever played a platform before you'll soon pick this up. The idea of the game is to pick up the diamonds which give you score and for every 100 you pick up you also get an extra life. But of course there are baddies trying to hinder you in your task so you can step on them or shot them with weapons you can pick during the game. Also you can smash the blocks by obtaining the spikey haircut. All the weapons etc. in the game can be gotten by picking up any objects which roll away from the diamond blocks when they are hit. That's about it, just try dodging all the badies and jumping over all the gaps in the ground etc.

Playing the Game

You can control Giana or Maria by the joystick in port 2 (or equivalent keys on your PC)

UP = Jump up and also headbutt any blocks above you
LEFT = Go left
RIGHT = Go right
FIRE = Fires a shot, only works if you have the weapon
SPACE BAR = If you've collected the clock or bomb object, pressing this will set it off

Now, get the file here