Spectrum Analyzer: Jetpac and Sons

[Phillyman]

From the Atari 2600 to the NES to the Sega Genesis, you thought you've experienced everything there is to know about retro. Don't get too cocky though, Americans! There's a whole other chapter of classic gaming you've likely missed. Pack your bags... 1UP is taking an extended trip to England to discover:

Rare isn’t doing so hot these days… after the acquisition by Microsoft and the departure of the Stamper brothers, the company has fought an uphill battle for relevance for years. Grabbed by the Ghoulies was a disaster of Hindenburg proportions, the polished Xbox remake of Conker’s Bad Fur Day was met with indifference from the very audience for which it was created, and Perfect Dark Zero has aged badly next to the dozens of other first person shooters on the Xbox 360. Now, what’s left of Rare is stuck working on projects intended to reproduce the success of its former owner Nintendo… with questionable results.

That’s now, though. In the 1980s and 1990s, it would be incredibly hard to overestimate the importance of Rare as a game developer. When the NES made its American debut in October 1985, Rare was on the ground floor, supplying it with the whimsical winter-themed racing game Slalom. (Ooh, nice curves! And I don't mean the ones on the slopes!) The company went on to make dozens of NES titles for the system… not all of them were classics, but they all demonstrated a mastery of the hardware and a level of creativity unmatched by other Western developers. Rare was also critical in turning the tide for Nintendo during the 16-bit console wars… while Capcom’s exceptional port of Street Fighter II put the Super NES neck and neck with the competing Genesis, Rare's Donkey Kong Country gave it the edge that ultimately led to its victory in the United States.

But let’s turn the clock back a little further… before the Super NES, before the NES, and even before the crash of 1984 that threatened to snuff out the video game industry. In the early 1980s, the Stamper brothers’ studio was known as Ashby Computer and Graphics, and the ZX Spectrum was its domain. One of the company’s first successes was a side-view shooter called Jetpac. This early Spectrum release combined elements of the hit arcade games Defender and Joust, then threw in a handful of fresh ideas to give itself its own unique identity. As a tiny astronaut, it’s your mission to collect and assemble the pieces of a rocket ship, then top off its tank with fuel and escape the planet before you’re swarmed by hostile aliens.

The Defender influence can be seen in Jetpac’s merciless onslaught of enemies and the player’s laser beams, which stretch across the screen in long, thin strands after they’re fired. However, like Joust, the player is in a constant tug-of-war with gravity and must use just the right amount of thrust to safely land on platforms. The two styles of gameplay work surprisingly well together; so much so that Archer MacLean (best known to today's gamers as the creator of the early PSP title Mercury, if known at all) nicked the idea for his own, even more Defender-y game

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Sadly, the official sequel to Jetpac, Lunar Jetman, muddied the waters with complicated gameplay that doesn’t mesh well with the frantic arcade-style action of the original. There’s a moon buggy and bridging units and missile installations and… ugh, it’s exhausting just thinking about it! A second sequel, Solar Jetman, was made exclusively for the NES after the bottom dropped out of the Spectrum market. Despite Rare’s insistence to the contrary, it has little to do with the previous two games, more closely resembling Atari’s Gravitar and Lunar Lander. Solar Jetman’s a fun game, but in keeping with Rare tradition, it’s also viciously hard. Don’t play this around friends if you don’t want them to see you cry bitter tears of anguish.

Normally, this is where I would talk about the remake on Xbox Live,

, but without a working Xbox 360 that’s just not going to happen. I’ll just leave you with a clip of the game in action and spend the rest of the week cursing Bill Gates’ name for selling me a ticking time bomb set to go off just after the warranty expired. My Sega Saturn has worked for nearly fifteen years now, you turbo nerd! What's your friggin' excuse?! Why if I had my way, I'd take that slide rule of yours and shove it so far up your Windows ME that-

(Editor's Note: Jess has been properly medicated and returned to his padded room. We apologize for the inconvenience.)

Special thanks to Wikipedia and Rareshooters.com for some historical data.

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