I'd played this years ago when I had to as part of Donkey Kong 64, but I definitely had more fun revisiting this as part of Rare Replay. Probably in part because I'm much older now and have more respect for gaming's roots (even if I know very little about the ZX Spectrum), and probably because Jetpac feels like a lot more of a non sequitur in the context of DK64 than Arcade Donkey Kong does, as cute as it is to juxtapose early Nintendo with early Rare.
My main point of comparison for this era of gaming is the Commodore 64 (which I'm also largely unfamiliar with), so I dunno how common a takeaway this is, but man - even early on, you could do some nice things graphically with the ZX Spectrum. Colors are pretty limited (the Stampers made it a space game because the background was guaranteed to be black, I'm sure), but man getting those yellows and purples and reds on the spritework is something to see. I love the entirely superfluous detail of a cloud of exhaust steaming up whenever you jet off the ground. And the effects of the lasers, eventually trailing into dots, is a pretty neat effect.
I like how the game feels, too. There's good variety to the stage loops - 8 enemies with largely different movement patters across 16 stages makes for a good sense of flow as you learn the game. And I like how Jetman controls. Like there's a good sense of momentum in midair, freeing compared to how slow he is on the ground. And sometimes you have to make that decision of if you're gonna run away from an alien on the ground, or if you're gonna risk hopping into the air to get out of the way since, while that brings you closer to the alien, it's a lot faster, and you juuuuust might be able to time it right. A lot of games from this time are very basic in their controls, so it's always neat to see something where the character feels good to control.
It's funny, I know Sabre Wulf is the game from this era that would have more of a legacy for Ultimate Play the Game, but there's something to be said for how strong of an opening act Jetpac was. Still very much worth revisiting today.
My main point of comparison for this era of gaming is the Commodore 64 (which I'm also largely unfamiliar with), so I dunno how common a takeaway this is, but man - even early on, you could do some nice things graphically with the ZX Spectrum. Colors are pretty limited (the Stampers made it a space game because the background was guaranteed to be black, I'm sure), but man getting those yellows and purples and reds on the spritework is something to see. I love the entirely superfluous detail of a cloud of exhaust steaming up whenever you jet off the ground. And the effects of the lasers, eventually trailing into dots, is a pretty neat effect.
I like how the game feels, too. There's good variety to the stage loops - 8 enemies with largely different movement patters across 16 stages makes for a good sense of flow as you learn the game. And I like how Jetman controls. Like there's a good sense of momentum in midair, freeing compared to how slow he is on the ground. And sometimes you have to make that decision of if you're gonna run away from an alien on the ground, or if you're gonna risk hopping into the air to get out of the way since, while that brings you closer to the alien, it's a lot faster, and you juuuuust might be able to time it right. A lot of games from this time are very basic in their controls, so it's always neat to see something where the character feels good to control.
It's funny, I know Sabre Wulf is the game from this era that would have more of a legacy for Ultimate Play the Game, but there's something to be said for how strong of an opening act Jetpac was. Still very much worth revisiting today.