Reviews

Superbly programmed, with graphics and sound that pushed the boundaries for the time, but these days the gameplay is shown up as being more than a little lacking.

The first game I ever played on a Speccy and still one of the best games on it. It is still extremely playable today, and how on earth the Stamper boys managed to fit it into 16k beggars belief (16k is a tiny JPEG nowadays).

Jetpac is arguably Ultimate's best game. Knight Lore is my favourite Speccy game of all time but if I were given a choice of only one Ultimate game to play out of their (mostly) stellar list, it would be Jetpac.

Magazine Reviews: http://zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/search.aspx?wosid=0009362

Ultimate's first game for the Spectrum arrived with a big fanfare and showed that a new company was here that really meant business, offering original games of true arcade quality for the machine.

It's a mixture of shooting, collecting and flying action with a few platforms in there to throw in a bit of extra uncertainty and offer a safe haven whilst you plan how to retrieve that trickily placed fuel tank, or just take a breather from the action.

Jetpac crams a fair amount in for a 16K game. There are eight different types of aliens to see, albeit with just five different movement patterns, and four spacecraft. This is essential in giving it that "one more level" factor. It's a game that, if you play it enough, will soon become easy enough to keep going at for as long as you want, but getting to that stage is fun enough.

Ultimate's next couple of games, Pssst and Cookie both offered variations on the theme, but the simplicity of Jetpac makes it more immediately attractive. They went on to better things with 48K to play with, but nobody ever topped this with a mere 16K.

A classic that I still like to play, Jetpac takes all the right programming options for a 16K masterpiece.
But the same fact that marks it brilliant - 16K - also limits its appeal by virtue of being too repetitious and easy to master.

Good grief , what a bloody good game - Jetpac , written in less than 16k by the amazing Stamper Brothers at a time when most bedroom programmers were knocking out average arcade rip offs or text only adventures , they tore onto the spectrum scene with a full machine coded arcade style shoot em up which still looks decent today.

The aim of the game is to collect the pieces of your spaceship , then simply refuel it , dodge or shoot the alien hordes and (once your ships refuelled )blast off to the next planet (level) , it's cleverly designed , graphically excellent and very smooth , making it instantly addictive.

Its recently been updated and relaunched on xb live arcade but for me the original is the only way to play this fabulous game.

What to say about this game that hasn't been said before? Published in 1983 at a time when most home computer 'action' titles were shameless rip-offs of popular arcade machines (with titles like "Muncher-Man" and "Centipod") Ulimate released this original shooter which not only matched popular arcade machines for looks and speed but beat many of them in gameplay. Even now, over a quarter of a century since its release, this game remains thoroughly playable and incredibly addictive. Not just a Spectrum great but one of the best videogames in the history of the medium on any platform.

Although this game doesn't have fantastic graphics, or music, or a huge variety in level design, it wins by being so entirely playable - a game I loved playing in 1982, and still play now whenever I feel the need for a fun & un-complicated game. It is a classic arcade game.

Good, nice-looking and adictive. A game that has grown up very well.

Jetpac is the quintessential 8-bit arcade action game. It features tons of shooting, dodging and collecting, along with tons of very appealing colourful sprites and some excellent arcadey sound fx.

Even though it has many levels, all of them feature one screen with 3 platforms which adds a strange element of strategy to an otherwise all out arcade game.

This is easily one of Ultimate's finest games. In fact, in my book, this *is* Ultimate's finest! :)

The first game that I played on a Spectrum - I still have very fond memories of this 16k wonder. Replaying it today proves it's aged pretty well too.
Lovely, colourful sprites, fast paced gameplay, a simple control method. Just genius.

I met jetpac at the end of my zx spectrum days. Somehow, I couldn't get a hold of a working copy of it for a long time.

I met it after I've played Moon Alert, Arkanoid, Cobra, maybe even R-type and Target Renegade. But it was good. I played it every now and then, just for a quick challange. I played it like a Flash/Office game, when I need a little bit of fun but in a limited time. It was a small game, but if you put time into it, it also rewards you with different objects and goals so it was also a big game.

In that context, it was better than knightlore and atic atac. I still play it a lot, and it deserves a good score just because of replayability.

1983 Ultimate (UK)
by Tim and Chris Stamper

A very nice game, very well programmed and very addictive. I would say it is a bit overrated, but then I remember this was just a 16K game.

The object of the game is to assemble pieces of Rocket Ships, fuel them and travel to a new destination.
I think it lacks variety in the screens, the only changes are in the type of aliens attacking you and the ship you have to build. So after a while it can became repetitive. This put me off the game several times. Something that never happened with games such as Manic Miner.
But after all its only a 16k game.

I for that only I rise my rating to a round 4.

What a glorious game this is! Beautiful graphics, simple and effective gameplay, hours of fun. Just a wonderful game to play! Brilliant!

Excellent game !! Nice graphics, lots of fun. A legendary speccy game often imitated but never equalled. 5 stars out of 5. Delicious !

Controversially, I think that Jetpac is somewhat overrated. I'd say that it is OK - but in my final analysis, it's nothing special.

Originally, I played it on the VIC-20 (which was the machine I owned back then) and I was at the time incredibly impressed that a blindingly fast-paced, action-packed game of video arcade standard was possible on that rather limited home system. Yes, back in the early '80s it was for a brief moment quite simply breathtaking.

As for the speccy version, it's certainly just as good, but truthfully not really significantly better, thus therein lies the problem. I've always considered the speccy as one level up from the VIC-20, i.e. more in competition with the C-64. So in that respect, the game really is fast-paced but with hindsight essentially mediocre. Undoubtedly, it's notable for a 16K effort.

Yes the implementation is technically superb, but I personally find the game just doesn't hold much replay value for me. Loosely speaking, it's not unlike a mixture between Joust (flying), Bomb Jack (jumping), Burger Time (building) and Asteroids (shooting). Four games which quite honestly I prefer over this one. The reason being - I find those games immediately addictive, but Jetpac to me seems more fiddly and awkward to play.

I doubt if anyone in the known universe will agree with me though, as this game is universally revered.

Any serious retro-gamer must at least play it though. It's a rite of passage!

Simple, effective though easily repetitive. Still a fun game all the same.

This game is really boring. It may have been ok in 1983 but since then there have been literally 1000's of better games released for the spectrum.

The Stamper brothers, before founding Ultimate, made a living of programming arcade machine games. So their first game for the Spectrum couldn't be other than an arcade game, the most common genre in the early Spectrum years (1982, 1983) but unlike many companies those days (say, Artic or Blaby) they didn't make an 'unofficial' conversion of a famous classic game but an original one with 'arcade quality graphics': you're an astronaut equipped with an Hydrovac Jet Pac who have to assemble a rocket and refuel it before passing to the next screen, avoiding aliens and trying to collect gems or gold to increase the score.

Good quality graphics -Ultimate style-, an enough difficulty level and a smooth control of the character make a true addictive game in only 16k, a product that stood out by the time it came out, 1983. The first succesful game from a company that released many more unforgettable Spectrum classics for the next two years.

Classic game, still fun to play after all these years.

Jetpac(1983)-Ultimate Play The Game
MY PERSONAL RATING:8 out of 10

Well, I'll try to elaborate:
Although my initial feeling (and rating) is that Jet Pac deserves 4 out of 5 points, you have to take into account the [almost] revolutionary nature of this excellent piece of software in ...1983!!!
And if that's not enough, the code fits in a 16Kb Spectrum!!!

The most playable of the 8 or so games pack that came with Spectrum + in 1985.

Plenty of remakes based on it through the years that make a well deserved homage.

A true example of what can be achieved with programming skills, talent and know-how

Funny, good looking and tested to the tiranny of time

Back in its days, it was excellent for the newcomers, an instant fav for my sister and cousins.