Jetpack Christmas Special

Whether it's just an excuse or a genuine attempt — building a Christmas tunnel full of obstacles and flying creatures in your computer in December has its own logic. Jetpack Christmas Special harkens back to a humorous attempt from 1993, when practically every game tried to offer a holiday variant.

It's a classic platformer where you control a character equipped with a rocket backpack and try to navigate through several levels full of obstacles, enemies, and collectibles. The ambitions are clear: nice Christmas graphics, something to collect, a couple of levels for fun. The setting is spot-on — snow, decorations, it's surprising they actually tried to make it thematic.

It plays similarly to the original Jetpack — you have to hover using a parachute or rocket propulsion and avoid electric wire hazards. The problem is that there's nothing particularly fun in this foundation to begin with. The controls are stiff, the flying physics unintuitive. When they try to add puzzle elements, something just doesn't click — I can't clearly figure out what it expects from me. The obstacles feel more frustrating than enjoyable.

What I remember most is that it was exactly that kind of game: it exists, it has a Christmas-flavored name, and when you look at it, you know roughly what to expect. There's nothing there to make you remember it. It's a mediocre attempt at a seasonal game that got lost alongside hundreds of others.

Today it would just be a case where you want to recall how Christmas specials were made in the nineties — without thought, without care, purely as marketing. In an emulator you'll play it for fifteen minutes, then a nagging boredom sets in and you'd rather pull up something else.