Joust is very fun games where you ride around on a bird’s back and try to joust with computer generated opponents. This is truly an arcade classic that has come to the home computer. The strategy of the game is not just to kill opponents, but you also need to kill pterodactyls and collect eggs to get the maximum score. Flight is controlled by controlling the speed at which your mount flaps its wings. In order to kill the pterodactyl, you need to get your sword right in his mouth.
This takes a bit of practice as he moves up and down so you have to time it well. If you do kill that pterodactyl, though, you get a lot of points. The different opponents you fight against also have different point values. The easier opponents are not worth many points, but they do give you practice learning to joust. The farther you go in the game, the more difficult the opponents become. Moreover, failing to collect the eggs will not only be a missed opportunity for points, but it will allow the enemy to respawn when the egg hatches.
The PC version of the game is not quite as nice as the old arcade version (no fancy controls or arcade
feel), but that is true for most of the downloadable arcade games. Hope you enjoy jousting and getting to the later levels of the game where you can defeat the most challenging fighters. There is no save or continue like the old arcades, so you had best learn and learn well from the easier opponents. Once the more difficult jousters appear, there will be no room for error.
The hardest thing to do, which will be overcome nicely by defeating many easier birds, is to get a handle on the controls if you ever played the arcade version. If this is your first play, you will find the controls a snap, but for those of us that pumped a million quarters into the cabinet arcade, those controls are ingrained in our reflexes, and changing the way to fly and move was really hard to master. You can, however get a decent feel with the keyboard and gain more experience using the home version of the game. Good luck and happy jousting.
