Solar Jetman is a clever combination of shoot 'em up and adventure. It appeared on the NES first, and was going to be released on several platforms, including the Commodore 64. Unfortunately, Storm pulled the plug, but thanks to the guys at GTW (Games That Weren't), the (completed!) Commodore 64 game is available for download at several places, including your favourite C64 website, www.c64hq.com!
Jetman, who appeared on the ZX Spectrum in Jetpac and Lunar Jetman, is back for a sequel, and this time (being the mercenary he is) it's all about the lucre. You know... dough, green, ducats, wad, wampum, gravy... money.
The main game involves Jetman in a new small ship called a Jetpod. The aim is to thrust around in the Jetpod, picking up items. This is done automatically by flying near the item – a tractor-beam is activated. Then you thrust back to your mothership. Beware, though – items add to the overall weight of your Jetpod, so you'll be heavily ladened, making your thrusting a lot more difficult.
Your Jetpod has a limited amount of fuel, and (to begin with) next to no shielding. Colliding with the landscape will scrape an amount off your fuel level. Enemy fire will almost always destroy your Jetpod with one shot. If your Jetpod is destroyed – either with enemy fire, or running out of fuel – Jetman will bail out just in time, in his spacesuit. He can thrust around, too – but he has limited abilities. For a start, he can't pick up items, including Fuel Packs for the mothership. The only thing to do is fly back to the mothership, to pick up another Jetpod.
As previously mentioned, the main mission is to pick up Items. These include Fuel Packs, which are needed for your mothership so that you can fly to the next planet; Jetpod add-ons and Jewels. There are also Wormholes – a Small Warmhole takes any item you are tractoring back to your mothership; and a Large Wormhole which takes you to another part of the landscape.
Jetpod add-ons are essential to survival in the game. On level 1, for instance, the first add-on is a shield. Switch this on and you can withstand several enemy hits and landscape collisions. The downside is that you can't have the shield on while tractoring something. Other add-ons, which you get as you go through the game, include Boosters (making your thrust more powerful), better weapons, etc.
Each planet also has a piece of the legendary Golden Warpship, which was dismantled into 12 pieces. Make sure you grab all the pieces!
Once you have enough fuel, you can take off and go to another planet. Before you land on the new planet, however, you can buy special items from the Interstellar Marketing Co., a kind of galactic Wal-Mart. From here, you can buy better weapons like homing missiles, more efficient engines, mapping systems and so on. Unfortunately, if you lose a Jetpod, you'll lose the items you bought for it, so be careful! Items that you buy do not necessarily have to be immediately added to your Jetpod, however, so you can save them until neeeded. Or you can just save your money. Money, by the way, is made from picking up items or killing aliens.
Enemies come in various forms. You have laser turrets that are stationary on the landscape, and have heavy armoury so you can only destroy them when their turrets are showing. There are also a number of airborne nasties that can fire at you, or cause damage by colliding with you.
Solar Jetman is a great little exploration game, but it might not be everyone's cup of tea. It requires some time to get into, and it's not always "blast everything in sight". Thrusting around takes a little practise, especially when the gravity changes. Plus, there's artifical-gravity machines on the planet that affect you when you get too near to them, which doesn't help!
It's a shame that the Commodore 64 version never made it out as a commercial product, because it works really well. The graphics are gorgeous, with excellent use of multicolour techniques, and the scrolling playfield is nice and smooth. There is some title music by Geoff Follin which is quite atmospheric. The in-game sound is quite sparse, but does the job of warning you if there's enemy fire or something to look out for. Controls are easy to get on with – left and right rotate your Jetpod. Fire actually thrusts the ship and Up is for firing. That can be confusing for the first few seconds, but you get used to it.
Overall, Solar Jetman is a good, solid shoot-em-up-cum-adventure game; although fans of fast-action shooting may find it too slow-going, it still has enough arcade-style precision firing and thrusting which couples well with the exploration concept.
