Jetpac

The ‘Acme Interstellar Transport Company’ is delivering SPACESHIP KITS to various planets in the solar systems throughout the Galaxy; and as chief test pilot, all you have to do is assemble the Rockets, and thrust onto your next destination.

The instructions go on some length, and there’s attention to detail on every millimeter of the cassette inlay.  It doesn”t stop there, from the moment the game starts it oozes the quality alien blasting, rocket building goodness of it’s bigger Spectrum cousin.  If you’ve never played Jetpac then where have you been?

You are said chief test pilot, or otherwise later known as Jetman who likes dressing up in spacesuits and flying around hostile planets with a big jet-pack on your back blasting the local inhabitants with your quad photon laser phaser.  Better I suppose that trying to blast the local inhabitants dressed as a drag queen with pom-poms and a tutu.

So with Jetpac on back you start the game next to the bottom stage of your rocket.  The other two pieces are scattered around the screen on floating platforms.  Fly up to the middle stage of your rocket to pick it up and drop it on top of the bottom stage.  To complete your rocket get the top stage and drop it on top.

Your rocket has no fuel, but luckily fuel pods will start to fall to the ground ready for you to pick up like you did with the stages and drop over the completed rocket.  Collect enough fuel (six are needed in the Vic-20 version) and the spaceship will flash ready for you get on board and take off to the next planet.

Sounds pretty simple huh?  It would be but for the local inhabitants who swarm around the screen in various patterns.  Contact with these will result in the loss of a life but fortunately your QPLP (Quad Photon Laser Phaser) dispatches them quickly.  It fires a lot like the lasers in Defender and Nemesis/Gradius and is very satisfying in its reach.

The inhabitants of the first planet, a kind of fury fireballs, drift in one general direction and explode when they touch the platforms or ground.  While they don’t pose much of a threat they can crowd the screen and cause you plenty of headaches.  The second planet has these molecule type aliens that are a little more robust and bounce around rather than self destruct.  Each planet gets a little harder, for example the fourth planet has UFO like aliens whom swarm in to your general direction and are a pain to avoid.  Best advice here is to get them under a platform while you are safely above and shoot any stragglers.

The aliens are relentless and are replaced by another when once is destroyed.  So once your rocket is refuelled it is best to get in it and launch off to the next planet.  Once you arrive your rocket needs refueling again to proceed to the next planet.  When all planets have been cleared you return to the first, which is a little harder and your rocket is back in pieces needing reassembly. 

The graphics are similar to the Spectrum and move pixel smoothly around the screen.  There’s no music but the sound effects are decent and help give some atmosphere to what would be a pretty quiet world.  The gameplay is where Vic’s Jetpac shines through in equal portions to the Speccy, giving plenty of challenge and that one more go appeal.

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2 Responses to “Jetpac”

1. theSmiths says:

   Friday 11th September 2009 at 9:47 am

   A lovely game that use to keep
   me busy for hours…
   Lovely review…nice game capture!

   Reply
2. SparkyNZ says:

   Tuesday 3rd November 2009 at 7:53 am

   This game was truly awesome. I paid (or Dad paid!) 5.95 UK pounds at Boots and it was very first bought computer game experience, along with another called Skyhawk. I spent hours on Jetpac and one fine day I managed to get past the flying saucers and along came U2 looking like a space shuttle! WOW!! I wanted to save or pause my game to show Dad who was away that weekend. Well years went by and I found there were no more ships after the space shuttle. Still.. as a kid I dreamt that there were.

   Reply