Play Jackal Online

Summary

Jackal (sometimes called Top Gunner) drops you into a hostile landscape where you pilot an armed jeep to scoop up POWs and haul them to a waiting helicopter. The arcade version lets two players jump in at any moment, each jeep marked with a number, and you juggle a rapid‑fire machine gun that shoots straight up with a grenade launcher that can be upgraded into a three‑stage missile system. Grenades and missiles can be boosted to fire shrapnel in multiple directions, letting you blast enemy vehicles, artillery, gates and even buildings.

On the NES the action shifts to a horizontal screen and is broken into six checkpoints—Alpha through Zulu—each ending with a unique boss like a missile‑spitting statue or a flamethrower‑armed tank. Player 2’s jeep is brown instead of green, and the missile launcher only needs three upgrades to max out, though losing a jeep resets it to the basic grenade. Hidden stars add an extra jeep, clear the screen, or instantly max the missile power, but you have to discover them by firing into secret spots.

The game rewards chaining rescues with weapon upgrades, and even if your jeep is destroyed the surviving POWs scatter for you to pick up again, keeping the rescue mission alive until you either succeed or run out of jeeps.

Storyline

In the NES game Jackal, you control an elite four‑person unit known as the Jackal. The squad—Colonel Decker, Lieutenant Bob, Sergeant Quint and Corporal Grey—has endured a brutal training program that lets them survive in any environment. Their objective is to plunge deep into enemy‑held territory behind hostile lines. Using two armed jeeps, the team must locate, rescue and extract captured prisoners of war. The mission blends fast‑paced driving with on‑the‑fly combat as the Jackal soldiers fight their way back to safety.