Jetpac

Jetpac was the first release from Ultimate Play the Game, the famously secretive Leicestershire studio founded by the Stamper brothers — and it announced them instantly as the best arcade-style developers on the ZX Spectrum. You are Jetman: your rocket lies in pieces across a hostile planet, and you must jet around collecting the stages, stacking them, fuelling up and lifting off, all while alien waves pour in from both sides of the screen.

On a 16K Spectrum, Jetpac moved like nothing else. Big colourful sprites, smooth movement, satisfying laser fire that sprayed asteroids into showers of pixels — it looked and felt like a real arcade machine, which in 1983 was the highest compliment a home computer game could earn. It won a Golden Joystick award and sold in huge numbers.

Ultimate went on to define the Spectrum era with Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf and the isometric Knight Lore, and later transformed into Rare — the studio behind Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye 007. Jetman himself has been revived several times, but the 1983 original remains a perfect five-minute arcade blast.

The browser version linked below is a third-party remake at freejetpac.org, made for web browsers on desktop computers — it fits this catalogue's mission perfectly: classic games, one click away. Note that it requires a keyboard, so it cannot be played on phones or tablets.