Ahh, The Great Giana Sisters. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the these siblings, they are pretty much the Commodore 64 reply to the Super Mario Brothers. Gameplay is pretty much identical to that of the the plumbers from the Nintendo. Although a joystick that has only one button gets a hell of a lot more damage when you try to jump as far as you can in the game. The old top right hand corner of the joystick would be the first to snap!
Anyway, Giana is the default player one choice of character when you start the game.
If you happen to press the number 2 key on you C64 keyboard, you will play as the second player, Maria. You’d need two joysticks for this to happen, and having a turn alternates between characters when you die.
Now for the fun part, playing the game. Very much like the Mario guys from Nintendo, you start off being little Giana or Maria. Headbutting the flashing yellow orangy bricks will either give you a diamond bonus, or a special power up. The power ups work in stages. For example, the first power up will give you a very hard hair style, capable of smashing bricks. The next power up will give you firepower. The next power up will make your fireballs bounce off objects
other than an enemy, and the most lethal power up for your enemies is the Strawberry power up! Sounds scary? Well it’s the most damaging because it auto aims to kill an enemy. Whoo hoo. Careful though, if you die before getting to the strawberry, you’ll have to start all over at the beginning power up. As for the diamond bonus, every 100 will give you an extra life.
The graphics in Giana sisters are excellent, for their time, of course. Beautiful colours in the background, nicely drawn bricks and pipe like objects really give a wonderful atmosphere to the game. It’s the music that really captures your imagination though. Much like the Super Mario Bros, every fourth stage has a boss to kill or avoid. It’s the music in these levels that I always enjoyed the most. It really gives you a panic kind of feel.
As for the challenge, it is a fairly difficult game to finish. I must admit, when I found out about the ANMI cheat to pass a level, I definitely took advantage of it. I remember always getting stuck on level 22, with a very dangerous, not much room for error jump over a hungry shark! Man that was hard to pass!
The Great Giana Sisters is truly a legendary Commodore 64 classic title, playable even in these days of X-boxes and Playstations. A game for all ages; I’m sure the sisters will be enjoyed by generations to come.
