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The original Jetpac from1983 is without a doubt one of the great titles from the transitional period that heralded the end of the golden age of arcade gaming. By the mid-eighties, crowded arcades packed with spotty kids and the smell of chips were a thing of the past, and games like Jetpac on the Sinclair Spectrum, which offered arcade gaming at home, were partly to blame.
The classic little arcade-style shooter was a resounding success at the time, and has seen endless clones and copies across the vast majority of formats. On the Xbox LIVE Arcade the original makes one of its first proper and high profile returns in years, this time as Jetpac Refuelled.
The basic premise is a simple one, typical of the era from which the game evolved. Using a basic weapon set and an intentionally jittery Jetpac, you must fly about various levels, dodging enemies, unleashing your firepower and collecting the parts or fuel for your ship, which will take you to the next series of levels.
A rather flimsy plot sees you as some kind of violent space-aged salesman, delivering ships with ferociously uneconomical fuel-consumption to various planets, who seem happy to purchase craft from a man who revels in destroying the local populous of aliens and stealing their artefacts.
The aforementioned gas guzzling means that on route to dropping off a ship you have to land it to collect fuel at the various stages that make the game’s levels. Each of these levels is realised as a giant wrap-around play area a few screens in size, that fills with increasing numbers of local wildlife that scroll from side to side with various patterns and ferocity.
As you dodge and weave, some unnamed aide to your mission drops pods of fuel from above, along with smart bombs and tiny golden statues that are the apparent motivation for the protagonist’s career in space vehicle delivery.
Using the analogue stick to control your jetpack, which takes some skill to make hover in one place thanks to the effect of gravity, you must scoop up the various bonuses, returning the fuel to your ship to top up the tanks to the point where you can fly on to the next level. Every few levels you reach the point where you can deliver your ship, meaning that instead of collecting fuel you must gather and assemble the parts of your next delivery.
Pulling together the various components of your ship in order rather than collecting random fuel pods adds little tactical variation or depth to the gameplay, but does mark the point where you move on to newly styled terrain, facing new foes, more obstacles, and ultimately far larger playing areas.
The camera in the game pulls out as you move away from your ship around the centre of the start screen, meaning that as you reach the edge of the larger levels you become a tiny miniature of your full sized self, resulting in a game that adapts in style as you play.
The enemies seem to pour onto the screen at a greater rate than the original, meaning the defining retro-game feel of impending doom and overwhelming odds is actually a little more exaggerated than the original release. The difficulty can certainly become trying as you progress, but however frustrating the experience gets, it is always difficult to resist having just one more go.
The weapon upgrades, absent in 1983, make for one of the more curious updates to the game. Two upgrades to your basic weapon are available, with the first being the most useful, but what is unusual is that if you are already equipped with the highest grade weapon and pick up an additional upgrade bonus, you return to the basic weapon. Although including this dynamic adds a small tactical angle, too often it simply serves to frustrate, when you accidentally pick-up a bonus only to have your firepower depleted just as you are swarmed by alien fiends.
Of course, the instant leaderboards add a great deal to the game, but the most significant online element is the multiplayer (there’s offline and online play for up to four players), which sees you racing with other players to collect ship parts and escape the planet’s surface. Though it makes for some highly-strung, nail-biting action, all too quickly it becomes a little samey and soon your realise that as the ship components appear randomly, the winner is usually dictated by who happens to be nearest to the pieces as they materialise.
The original game is thrown into the package too, and though it is great, it serves mainly to remind how hard games on the Spectrum were and how much of an improvement Refuelled has made.
This remake has been handled with an unusual level of respect and a commitment to the original, and the graphical overhaul strikes a happy balance between old and new. After a while the huge number of levels do start to get a little repetitive, but in general Jetpac Refuelled makes for a delightful and brief return to a bygone era of video games. And at only 400 Microsoft points it’s great value too.
