"Challenging, fun, and perfect."

Some of the greatest games in history have more bells and whistles than you can shake a Wiimote at. However, I don't believe that a game needs to have state-of-the-art graphics, an award-winning soundtrack, a deep and engrossing plot, 16-person online multiplayer, multiple endings, or unlockable bonus features to be great. Sometimes, all a game needs in order to be great is a simple concept, simple controls, smart design, and just enough options and complexities to keep things interesting. Case in point: Jetpack.

Released in 1993 for DOS, Jetpack is an unassuming little platformer with some puzzle game elements that gained an immense popularity that has remained remarkably strong over the years. You play as a nameless dude with a jetpack, and your mission is to run, jump, fall, climb, burrow, and fly through 100 levels of traps and monsters, collecting gems and as many golden treasures as you can. You'll face fast-moving missiles, icy floors, hidden spears that pop up out of the ground, robots that follow you doggedly, teleporters that send both you and your enemies around a level in an instant, conveyor belts, jungle vines that obscure your vision, blocks that you can walk right through that appear to be solid, spiked pinwheels that bounce off the walls, and more.

The controls are very simple: the arrow keys control your movement, holding down ALT makes you fly if you've got jetpack fuel (or else you just jump), and holding CTRL allows you to “phase,” or burrow through, certain solid objects, which is useful for accessing new areas, creating shortcuts and escape routes, and setting up traps for enemies to fall into.

The premise of each level is the same: collect all the gems in the level; once there are no more gems, you must make your way to the door to go to the next level. On paper, this sounds very simple. In practice, it can be almost impossible. Every level, consisting only of a single screen, is distinctly different from the others (even if certain elements are the same). The challenges become more difficult as the game goes on, but the learning curve is perfect. The early levels gradually introduce you to most of the level objects, enemies, and game concepts, and give you ample time to get used to them. As the levels progress, you apply the basic survival and adventuring skills you have learned in situations that are similar to, but generally more challenging than, what you had faced before.

For example, the first level gives you a sampling of some of the different enemies and level objects you will encounter. The fundamental challenge is to learn how the robot enemy behaves and to evade it through a relatively simple level layout of ladders and brick floors, some of which are covered with slippery ice or muck that slows you down, and you are given enough jetpack fuel to fly out of the way if things turn ugly. Later on, there is a level that has you climbing ladders and dodging robots, except this time you have no jetpack fuel. Later still, there is a level where you must again avoid these robots through an area of ladders and bricks floors, except there are now a few hidden spears as well as an icy section and a barrier you can activate and deactivate and some passable blocks that look deceptively solid.

The levels get harder and harder, but in cycles. Levels are broken into groups of ten; the first few levels of each group are relatively straightforward and increase in difficulty to the point where the last few levels pull in challenges from all over the place and really make you sweat. The tenth level is always a lower-stress bonus level of sorts with plenty of treasure, as well as enemies and traps that are fairly simple to avoid… as long as you're not being overly greedy in your search for treasure. Each group of levels provides a wonderful arc so that the difficulty level never stays the same for long nor jumps around erratically, and also so that you feel duly rewarded for finishing the intense levels toward the end of a set.

Allow me to reiterate: the levels are intense. Insane. Just shy of impossible, sometimes. Some levels require tremendous patience, some require absurdly quick reflexes, some require a great deal of planning, some require careful management of jetpack fuel, some require puzzle-solving skills, and some require all of the above at one point or another. Your character is made of tissue, so it only takes one brush with a mechanical bat or one slip into the edge of a spike to die in one of a few randomly-selected ways (such as exploding) and start the entire level all over again. It can be frustrating and exasperating, but--call me a glutton for punishment--it's a fun challenge.

Don't get me wrong; I don't like a game just because it's difficult. I've played games with cruel challenges I have decidedly NOT enjoyed because they were poorly planned, are tedious to overcome, rely too heavily on chance, were seemingly created with failure as the only option in mind, and are more a test of your patience with the game than of your skill (Mega Man X6 and Space Quest: The Lost Chapter immediately come to mind). Jetpack does not throw unfair challenges at you; between the gentle learning curve, the chance to save after every level, the numerous (though often tricky) opportunities to gain extra lives, the simple controls, and the intelligently-planned levels, success is purely a matter of the player's skill and ability to improve through practice and trial-and-error (and some of the errors you can make while trying things out can be really funny if you enjoy watching misfortune befall your adventurer character). If success is elusive, power-ups such as extra jetpack fuel and invincibility shielding randomly appear in each level if you wait long enough, and there's a secret keyboard command that allows you to skip any two levels of your choice, so there is always the possibility of passing even the most impossible levels.

Also ameliorating the difficulty is a touch of humor, and some creative themed levels. Some levels, such as "Woof," in which portions of the level are shaped to look like a dog and a bone and a Frisbee, and "Tribute to Houdini," where your character starts out trapped in a box and must quickly phase his way out in a short amount of time, might cause you to smile or chuckle. It's nice to sporadically see levels that show the designers have an imagination that reaches beyond just making tough levels.

Indeed, the focus of the game is on the challenge of each level. The graphics were not meant to render the player speechless over their beauty; rather, they were meant to clearly illustrate that this is a golden vase, and that is a floaty blob thing that is about to kill you, etc. The graphics are not bad, but they are downright primitive by today's standards. Yet, they do their job, and their simplicity keeps the focus on the gameplay, which is a good thing.

Along those same lines are the sound effects, which are sparse and crude, but which serve their purpose of notifying the player when something important has happened, such as trapping an enemy inside a barrier or falling onto a pointy and painful spear. Other than a few sounds here and there, the game is silent. No music. This doesn't harm the game, though, for it's easy enough to listen to one's own music while playing, and most soundtracks for games I've played that are somewhat similar to Jetpack become irritating after a while, even if they're very enjoyable at first (I'm looking at you, Adventures of Lolo).

So let's say you manage to beat all 100 levels. Is that it? Hardly. Though there aren't too many options, there are enough to guarantee Jetpack a very long shelf life. There's a high score table in case you want to challenge yourself to get as many points as possible. You can go back through every level and attempt to collect all the hard-to-get optional treasures. Many levels have multiple solutions or approaches, so you could go back and try a better (or different) way of beating them. You can play Jetpack in competitive hotseat mode with up to eight players in total. You can play through all the levels in a completely random order. You can make your own graphics and insert them into the game; one of my favorite mods is Christmas Jetpack, where you play as a jetpack-toting Santa Claus and put presents under trees instead of collecting gems. Last, and most importantly, you can create your own levels using everything present in the regular levels. It takes a few minutes to figure out exactly how to use it, but once you do, you can effortlessly slap together deviously evil levels of doom to unleash upon your unsuspecting friends, family members, and global neighbors.

It's not often I have nothing negative to say about a game. Even Jetpack's apparent weaknesses--its graphics and sound--are, in a way, strengths, or at least do not detract from the game. The levels are brilliantly crafted, the learning curve is perfect, the game mechanics are flawless, there's huge potential for replayability, and it's even a little bit funny sometimes. It is exceedingly and consistently challenging, and it is fun. Jetpack is now freeware. Get it. Play it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/08

Game Release: Jetpack (US, 1993)