Download Jonny Quest - Curse of the Mayan Warriors

Back in the mid sixties a cartoon entitled Jonny Quest appeared on TV. It was a show well before its time. It had many great qualities the sci-fi series of the time had, with the advantage of being animated, so when the show aired again in the 90s it didn’t look really dated.

Now before you there is a computerized adventure of Jonny Quest. This game was made for DOS only and it has nothing to do with the Jonny Quest game made for other computers (C64, Spectrum ZX, Amstrad…).

The game has nicely drawn VGA graphics that really capture the spirit of the cartoon the game’s based on. The sound leaves one somewhat unsatisfied though. There’s also a bug connected with the joystick control, so don’t try to calibrate it – it won’t work properly. But then again, the game is easily played with the keyboard so that’s not really a problem.

And what’s the story about?

You’re Jonny Quest (naturally). Accompanied by your friend and adoptive brother Hadji and your dog Bandit, you go along with your father and his jack-of-all-trades-man Race Bennon, on a mission to the Guatemalan jungle. Several ancient Mayan objects have disappeared without a trace and your father has been called in to investigate. Among all the artifacts missing five are of crucial importance. They have been removed from the hidden temple of Tikal and their removal has awoken the spirits of Mayan Warriors. At least that’s what the superstitious villagers in the near are afraid of. You need to search around jungle in order to get to the bottom of things and on the way you’ll meet different people with whom you’ll be able to talk, but are more likely to be fighting them.

The fights may seem a bit tricky, before you get used to the keys. You’ll need the numeric part of the keyboard and the SHIFT and CONTROL keys. Holding shift and moving toward the opponent you’ll be throwing kicks at him. Holding control and moving toward the opponent you’ll be throwing punches at him. Simply pressing the directional keys you’ll be walking and jumping around the screen. Also during the fight you may get some mystic help from your friend Hadji, who will levitate your opponent for a while, leaving him helpless in the air. You can also use a weapon. Pressing G will let you activate it, so whenever you press F you’ll fire in the direction Jonny is facing. The opponents do get tougher though, so if you can, try to talk your way out of a fight.

Otherwise pressing escape will give you an explanation of what different keys do. Just remember that after pressing F3 (inventory), you switch through it with the direction keys, you pick up stuff with the F1 and drop them with F2, but you use them with ENTER.

Your goal is to return the missing artifacts, so you’ll need to talk to the natives of the area. There will also be a lot of searching, especially since your movement is not restricted to clearings. You can walk through the forests (not always though) which means you won’t be able to see Jonny or other people on occasion, because the game has a top down view and if you move through the forest, all you see are the tree tops.

You can also communicate with Race and Jonny’s father over the wristwatch and get a few tips from them, or call them for help if you are in a real jam.

All in all, this is a solid action adventure game, where you need to find and use stuff, while doing a more then average number of fights (at least more then average of any real life archeological expeditions I’ve ever read about). It’s good entertainment and because of the fights you won’t even mind replaying it every now and again.

You will need to slow the DOSBox down to some 1000 cycles, as the game does run a bit too fast on modern computers.