The 'Acme Interstellar Transport Company' is delivering spaceship kits to various planets in the solar system throughout the Galaxy; and as chief test pilot, all you have to do is assemble the Rockets, and thrust on to your next destination. As you don't often get the chance of a free trip across the Galaxy, this is a great opportunity to get rich! Stop off on several planets on your journey, collect the odd sack of precious gems, elements or gold, and take them back with you. Sounds simple doesn't it! But before you make yourself the richest person in the whole Universe, remember to refuel your Spaceship - with 6 fuel pods - every time you land on a planet. Any other goodies you collect are yours to keep. Upon landing, you will find yourself equipped with the very latest Hydrovac Jet Pac, which can automatically air lift almost any rocket stage, fuel pod or valuables that you care to land upon, and release them over the rocket ship base. Don't forget your mega-powerful, Quad Photon Laser Phasers can blast any nasty, mean aliens who might object to your visit.
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Jetpac involves collecting ship parts and fuel while avoiding enemies. Your shot is really long, covering a whole screen and even wraps around, so constantly shooing left and right usually has you covered, but you're still vulnerable from above. The enemies range from simple to unpredictable, and will always spawn from the edges (making wrapping around the screen always a risk). Shoutouts to the UFOs that are small, unpredictable, and fast. Screw U-FO.
It's fun floating around the middle top of the level swinging left to right like a boss from a more modern game, but I do wish there were more level layouts, in kind of like a Balloon Fight fashion. Then I'd have more to think about as I charge on.
My native no cheating high score is 30,000 so if I become "Grown ass man who plays the banana cartridge what are you doing with your life" guy, that Rareware coin is as good as mine.
Playing it through Rare Replay, and I’ve realised that Jetpac is probably among my favourite classic score-based arcade games. Your goal is simple to understand without needing further instructions: collect parts of the rocket, fill it with fuel, and avoid being hit by enemies. Once you fill the rocket up, you step inside and move to the next screen and repeat (although for the next three levels you just fuel your rocket, then get a new one to build every 4th screen).
The player movement is incredibly smooth, which helps to make it really good fun. Each screen will also have a different enemy type which move in different ways, but you only get one type per screen which makes predicting how enemies will move something fairly easy.
Jetpac is a classic which is overlooked. I think it’s especially impressive that this was limited to home computer restraints, and not the beefier arcade cabinets at the time.
My “completion” of this was to complete all four stages of rockets (the suggested milestone in the game) and completing all the Rare Replay snapshots. The snapshots has some interesting challenges and felt quite fair, I quite liked the simplicity of completing 5 “laps” of the screen.
Honestly, an absolute Banger, especially considering it's a 1983 home release. Jetpac never garnered much attention it seems. It's not in any top sellers list from 1983 and with garbage like Atari Pac-Man as competition this is just unfortunate. Being only available on the Commodore VIC-20, BBC Microcomputer System and the ZX Spectrum probably didn't help much.
This is a bummer, because I really think the game's a little gem. Tight controls, simple and rewarding gameplay, very charming visuals and fantastic enemy variety for the time. There are like 6 different enemy types, with different behavioral patterns and individual sprites. That shit must have blown some 1983 minds. You even have four different spaceships to assemble, all looking unique. I know this sounds almost comical today. But back in the day, this was the kind of stuff that kept people hooked. To find out if there is a fifth spaceship to assemble. There isn't, but that's not the point.
My main gripes are the lack of music (which is probably due to hardware limitations, but I can't be sure since I'm not a ZX Spectrum nerd) and the busted scoring system. Scoring in Jetpac is essentially a non factor since any stage can be played indefinitely, there is no time limit. The respawn pattern of some enemies can be easily exploited, and they can be easily killed for an infinite amount of points.
Now I still tried my hand at an honest high score, I reached 168,845 points, in case anybody want to see me in Jetpac.
Give it a go, it's a fun little diversion for a few minutes of free time.