4.5/5 ★ – jdraco's review of Jetpack Joyride.

This game makes me rock hard And that's really not an exaggeration I absolutely cherish this game… Jetpack Joyride is another iOS game that holds insane sentimental value for me I remember playing the shit out of it on my iPad, having my older brother hack in infinite coins so that I could unlock everything, playing it on vacation when I should’ve been outside instead, enjoying the nice weather… I might’ve been a loser But regardless, again, this is a game that’s very near and dear to my heart And I’m happy to say that it holds up beautifully This game is so damn fun Just the simple concept of moving constantly to the right to try and get as far as possible while having to tap and hold the screen to hover up and down with your jetpack in order to avoid projectiles like missiles, lasers, and zappers, while the speed of the game is constantly increasing at the same time, is such a beautiful and, again, simple concept that’s executed perfectly And then that gameplay is expanded even further with the vehicles throughout this game, like the flappy bird vehicle, or the big-ass robotic dragon vehicle, or the teleporter, or all the other ones as well that all switch up the gameplay in unique ways Basically, sporadically, throughout each playthrough, you’ll get multiple of these little pickups, which, if you do pick one up, then you get to use one of the vehicles that I just mentioned until you eventually lose it by getting hit once And the vehicles are mostly all pretty fun to use, except I will say that some of them you’ll lose in probably like 2 seconds because all they can do is jump, and 99% of the time you’ll jump into a zapper while trying to jump over another zapper So that part's pretty ass Something that’s not pretty ass, though, are the gadgets, which also switch up the gameplay These are essentially little upgrades that you can give to Barry (the character that you play as in this game) to give him a little helpful buff Such as a ball that bounces Barry further after he dies, a gadget that jams some missiles that launch at you, and a nerd-repellent spray that gets rid of all the scientists that walk around the facility you’re in (that one isn’t really useful; it’s just funny to me) And then there’s my personal favorite gadget, which is this little robotic dog named “Flash” who accompanies you in each runthrough, and he’ll collect coins and tokens for you, he'll kill the scientists, and if you get a vehicle, then Flash will also get a little miniature version of that same vehicle that he gets to use as well, and it’s fucking adorable Also, a funny thing about the Flash gadget is that if you unequip it after using it, a missing poster for Flash will then pop up on the walls in all subsequent run-throughs, and it’s just such a nice little detail And there are so many more little details as well. This game just has so much heart and passion put into it, especially for a damn mobile game I mean, just look at the fact that some of the coins in this game spell things out for you Like coins will spell out the word “Coins!!!” or “Barry” And then sometimes the coins will also form a heart, which is just such a nice little touch and, again, just adds to the impression I get that the developers really do care about this game and put as much passion into it as possible Especially with the cosmetics too There are so many unlockable jetpacks and costumes and different variants for the vehicles and all kinds of shit I mean, for the jetpacks, you’ve got a beehive jetpack, a Christmas tree jetpack, and a fucking cow jetpack that shoots milk And then for the skins, you’ve got a Goku skin, a basketball player skin, and then for some reason there's a full baby skin as well… Not really sure why that one's in there, but regardless, these are all cool, and surprisingly, these cosmetics are never really that hard to afford Coins are actually pretty easy to come by in this game, and you get a large amount of them just by playing the game, doing events, or completing missions and getting your rank up, which is definitely the most fun way to do it Yeah, this game has missions in it, and if you’re like me, then completing the missions is mostly what you’ll be trying to do in all of your run-throughs Shit like high-fiving scientists, narrowly avoiding missiles, or running on the ground for 1000 m—these are the kind of missions that you see constantly throughout, as well as a plethora of other ones, and they’re all pretty fun to do Except for some of the vehicle-specific ones, but that’s because you get a random vehicle every time, so it’s hard to get a specific vehicle for whatever your mission is The good thing, though, is that you can skip any mission you want just by spending a few coins, and you still get to reap the rewards of adding to your rank and leveling that up to get even more coins So it all balances out Another thing that I mentioned earlier as well that I want to talk about, though, are the events, specifically the pirate event, which is the one that’s going on right now Basically this just changes up the gameplay in a few minor ways, like starting Barry out in a pirate ship vehicle, for example, dressing him like a pirate, having the backgrounds be more pirate-themed, and having you collect these golden skulls in order to unlock prizes in the event And I absolutely love this. I think all the little changes and details and effort that they put into this event are fantastic, and, again, it really does switch up the gameplay, if only slightly And another thing that switches up the gameplay too are the power-ups, which I don’t know how I didn’t bring up until this point, but here we are The power-ups are basically these little tokens that’ll appear sporadically multiple times throughout each runthrough that can give you either a boost that’ll send you forward a little bit or one that’ll spawn in a flying piggy bank that drops a trail of coins for you to follow. There’s a shield upgrade, a bullet time upgrade, and then two more, I think, as well that I haven’t unlocked yet But yeah, I like all of these; they feel like a genuine reward in each runthrough, and every time I see one of them, I get a genuine sigh of relief Especially whenever I get extremely far in my run-throughs and the game speed starts going 12000mph, then that’s when those power-ups are an absolute godsend But as they stand, again, the power-ups are nice little rewards that switch up the gameplay a bit and that do genuinely help you in your runs Oh, and then I also forgot to mention that there are these other tokens that you can get called “spin tokens’ that give you a spin on this little slot machine-type thing where you can win a prize of either coins, 3 more spin tokens, a “second chance” (basically just a revive), 3 different types of explosive blasts that’ll add to your distance, and then it can also give you this little power-up that you can use at the beginning of a run-through to automatically shoot you forward 750 m So yeah, I like these spin tokens overall, and what’s cool is that you can actually trade them in for coins Except I never really did that because I’m a gambler at heart, and I'm always going to take the risk, even if it means I might lose everything… And that’s probably why my wife left me… Regardless, though, I don’t think there’s much left to talk about with this game I mean, I guess I didn’t touch on the fact that one of the vehicles is a special vehicle called S.A.M. (Strong Arm Machine) Who’s this big-ass robot that you have to collect the 3 letters of his name in order to unlock him I guess I probably didn’t talk about him, though, because there’s nothing to really talk about All you really do with him is just deflect missiles that come at you until eventually they become impossible to deflect So yeah, that’s that I don’t know; I’m really not even sure if this is a good review. I feel like I haven’t even really made any jokes But I do think at least I’ve explained all the things I like about this game and properly showed why I love it so much Because I absolutely do love this game, and even all these years later, I still get that feeling of pure joy and excitement every time I pick it up and play it… Which is actually pretty sad reading that out loud back to myself, because I’m a 21-year-old grown adult… Regardless, though, I still love this game, and this is definitely my favorite mobile game that I’ve reviewed thus far So with that being said, I’m going to give Jetpack Joyride, a 4.5/5 *Actually reading this review back, I realize that I didn’t really say anything negative about the game to warrant it only being 4.5/5 But I gave it that score because while it is a near-perfect mobile game, it still is a mobile game and is just slightly lacking in that sauce that most other console games provide I still do absolutely love this game, though, and if they do eventually release a console version of the game and expand it further, then I might just have to slap it with a 5/5 Until then, though, I’m sticking with my initial score of a 4.5/5*