Jet Force Gemini

N64, Jet Force Gemini (1999) game

By this time in the console's lifespan, Rare had long cracked the N64 code and were at the height of their powers, evidenced by the excellence in craftsmanship of this game's visuals, sound, music and technical ability: they did it all without the aid of the 4MB Expansion Pak that doubled the N64's memory, and which other games such as 'Donkey Kong 64,' 'Perfect Dark,' 'Banjo-Tooie' and 'Majora's Mask' would require in order to work. An example of how far they'd come is in the simple fact you have space for six save slots where the majority of games had room for three, or four at the most, and even more by the visuals which, even through the debilitating conversion of a VGA adaptor which I had to use to play the game, it still looked beautiful, the varied environments distinct and attractive enough that they still pop to this day. Sure, I'd have preferred it if it had used the Expansion Pak and a higher resolution so I could have played it this time without the VGA, but it also shows just how accomplished the gameplay was that I always wanted to keep going and (almost) never got discouraged - the only time I had any problem was when there was direct sunlight or bright white-out such as on the Walkway or inside Mizar's asteroid, but these were only minor inconveniences far from a serious issue as I've had with '1080' or 'Snowboard Kids' which are so bright (VGA ramping up the contrast far too much).

It's not quite true that I never had any problems, because I did find myself dismayed for a good chunk of time when I started playing it. I didn't have strong memories of the game overall, I thought I liked it well enough, and it was a Rare game, so I knew it was going to be above the average N64 software. But beyond the occasional memories of traversing purple moon-like expanses (Cerulean), travelling along some high up mountain road (Walkway), or finding a bug disco (Ichor), as well as trying out the multiplayer with family members and it not being one of the better deathmatch experiences in comparison to first person shooters, I had little to go on. Researching back I found that I first played it in June 2001, bought secondhand for £14.99 from a little Virtual Games shop on my high street which closed down long, long ago, along with 'Turok 2' for £4.99. I played it until October of that year, then put it down and didn't complete it until May 2003, which shows how tough I found it, how many other games took my attention, and/or I just wasn't thrilled with it. I even began another file in June 2004, but didn't stick with it for very long, and a couple of other people started files on the cartridge and never played it for more than an hour or so. This does show the flaws in the game, because even on this occasion it took me a good six or seven hours to break into it, which is a long time to persevere with a game that wasn't thrilling me.

It wasn't that it was particularly bad, it was just that I went in with the wrong mindset, planning to whip through and move on to my next N64 game since I was going through a few titles in celebration of my twenty years together with the machine. So I wasn't planning on picking up all the Tribals or discovering all the secrets, it was just a bash through as quickly as possible - the way I play games has certainly changed in twenty years as I used to carefully pry each and every game apart to the best of my ability, sucked into these 3D worlds that were so amazing, but over time I became disillusioned with gaming in that it was the same old genres in which I was performing the same old tasks, with little enough innovation to make the experience anywhere near as thrilling as it had been when I started. So I practically gave up playing in the style of searching out every last bit and squeezing as much time and value out of the experience as I could. But I had less money then, and in the last decade I've been able to find games cheaply on the internet instead of roaming games stores for deals (weirdly, £15 seems a lot more to pay for an old game now than it did in 2001 - I don't really like paying more than a tenner, and many games can be had for under a fiver!), so I've had a surfeit of retrogames to enjoy, and less time to devote to them with so many other options for entertainment, becoming more open to playing in a way that I imagine the majority do, which is to race through without fear of not getting the full 'money's worth.'

'JFG' isn't the game for that manner of approach, and indeed, as I came towards the end I even wished there were more levels to revisit, and more collectables to hunt. But at the start it was almost a chore: the controls were the first irritant, the camera not available to direct as in other third person adventures like the 'Banjo' games or 'DK64,' leading to a sense of frustration that I couldn't look where I wanted to and had to resort to circle strafing with the C buttons to be able to peer round corners. It was doubly frustrating when you go into aiming mode and your character phases out to become semi-transparent so you can see through them to shoot at the enemies, but then the controls are fouled up and you find yourself manoeuvring in the wrong direction, upsetting your aim, annoying in the extreme. Add to that the horror of imprecise movement in a game with platform elements, where you have slight inertia, so when you stop your character they'll keep going half a pace or so, and it could get to teeth-gnashing levels. This all added to my desire to get through the game quickly so I really wondered what I had seen in the game originally and was feeling likely I'd be awarding the two stars of an average game, rather than the expected three stars I'd mentally predicted. I think when I found out I'd have to retrace my steps and go through all the old levels multiple times in order to track down every last Tribal, the cute Ewok-like victims of villain Mizar's tyranny, it was with a heavy heart that I set out on my quest.

What a relief then to find that I began to really enjoy the experience. Suddenly, the fetters were off, there was purpose to collecting the Tribals and retreading old ground, no longer only the dull goal of getting to the end of a level as fast as I could - the freedom and empowerment you experience after having to follow this linear route through each level for the three characters, who start at different places before making their way to Mizar's Palace at the centre of the map, was immense. You find new weapons, keys to unlock previously barred doors, new abilities such as jet pack flying, and then reach new mini levels that you'd not accessed before. I went from finding the game a trifle boring and average, to thinking it was up there with the greatest games on the system and wondering if I might end up awarding the game the full five stars of excellence! What a turnaround. Reason prevailed, and I did find myself revising that score to a very good four stars before the end, but it was an amazing comeback for something I'd almost written off as a real trudge. It wasn't just the control issues that prevented a top score, I did also experience some of that 'stuckness' that is a problem in large games where just when everything is going so well, you've got everything you know how to get (all the Tribals in this case), you realise you still haven't finished the game. I had the majority of the twelve Ship Parts (technically eleven as you're given the final piece by King Jeff on finding the others), required to get the Tribals' special spaceship off the ground and intercept Mizar's attack on Earth, but there was still one outstanding and it was a slight pain to have to backtrack again, wandering and searching desperately for the last elusive piece.

I'd been good at noticing the spots I'd been unable to explore before and didn't have trouble with the other Ship Parts, so I went down the misguided, but understandable reasoning that I'd have to achieve a Gold Rating in all of the Floyd Missions, these first person flying challenges where you took control of one of Mizar's reformed drones who accompanies you once you've fixed him earlier in the game. These missions really could be challenging, at least in getting a Gold award, and I spent many an hour repeating the same missions over and over to knock a few more seconds off the time, and I never got bored with it, it was definitely an old-skool addictive pull of just-one-more-go's, with a rush of pride when you succeed. Even after I'd won Gold on most of them, found the last Ship Part by accident, and beaten tough, tough Mizar for the second time, I still wanted to go back and make sure I got all the Golds. My satisfaction with achieving this was tempered somewhat when I was checking up online checking that the fifth Floyd mission was the one at the Palace which you couldn't replay, when I found out it was possible to get Expert Ratings beyond Gold! I didn't quite have the stomach to go back and get my times below 55 seconds… But it was a bit of a concern that I'd only found the last Ship Part by stumbling upon the pyramid at the Palace when searching for a Floyd mission I remembered from first reaching that level, and realising I could now jet pack up the central column, turn into an ant and go on to race in a 3D version of Jeff and Barry Racing you play in 2D on an arcade machine at the Big Bug Fun Club on Ichor.

If it hadn't been for random chance I might well have been wandering the worlds for hours. All the other Parts had been found because I made a mental note of any underwater passages (only Vela could swim), lava rooms (only Juno could walk on lava), or hard to reach areas that Lupus the dog could boost to without the aid of a jet pack fuel pad, so I did feel as if stumbling on the last piece wasn't the best design or gameplay. It was also up to me to realise what the difference between the characters was. It's easy to learn Lupus' speciality since you use it from the start, and Vela's swimming becomes apparent as soon as she hits water, but I didn't know what Juno's unique ability was until I accidentally discovered he wasn't hurt by lava. It's a bit clumsy, and isn't even referenced in the manual, so I assumed all three were modified to withstand the heat after their armour was upgraded once Mizar was beaten the first time, and became confused when Vela and Lupus were injured when stepping onto the lava. This also highlights another issue: despite having much information on the pause screen, from weapons and inventory, to options and Tribals counts for each level (tell me, do they still sing songs of the Great Tribal Hunt?), sometimes I wished there was a bit more detail. I wanted to be able to select each of the Floyd awards and find out what planet or ship they were located on, as well as my best time and number of items collected there, maybe even play them from the menu. I suppose I take accessibility for granted in later games, but then this was resolutely designed to be akin to old-skool gaming, hence the tough difficulty on some things, the 2D mini-games, and a level of secrets that almost encouraged you to note down anything out of reach for future reference!

At first I felt that it was a cross between a couple of Rare's other games, 'Goldeneye' and 'Banjo-Kazooie,' and that it didn't really know what it was, without either the precision control of character or camera that they exhibited. I felt there wasn't much to the game, just run-and-gun, a few simple platforming tasks, the occasional NPC to meet and greet, upgrade your weapons and play the odd mini-game, but I came to realise it was much more than that, an expertly designed gaming experience that was a real treat to rediscover - I liked it so much I wished I'd held it over to play at Christmas as it was the ideal type of game to play at that time, with both longevity, so you could spend hours at a time indulging in its worlds, and bite-size chunks - like platform games, you can visit a level and play through that particular area, or attempt a Floyd mission, fro example, achieve what you want, and leave it there. I really did look forward to coming back to it, the mark of a great game, and even with some frustrations, there was far more to reward. You didn't have to replay the level bosses after defeating them the first time, as that would have been really annoying every time you reached the end of that stage. And you would do, on more than one occasion because essentially you have to play the game three times, once with each character. It's not really fair to say that it's the same game each time, however, as you reach certain areas you couldn't previously and the feeling of power and scope is lovely.

The trouble with Tribals is they have a level of cuteness that, much like the Jinjos of the 'Banjo' games, you find yourself diverting from the path just to save them, even after you've saved the full complement in a level on a previous visit. The babies, or the ones that stumpily hurry after you instead of waiting for you to come to them, are even more delightful! It's not all sweetness and light, of course, as the game is about dismembering alien villains that splatter all over the place when you mow them down, it's encouraged to collect heads, and I must say I didn't like the emphasis on killing every enemy, even when they hold their hands up in surrender as it breeds an automatic compulsion not to even consider compassion - there are times when you actually have to execute those who've surrendered so you can pass a Life Force door, and it's all too easy to just blast away, even when you don't need to, when it would have been better to have the option to disarm and send them on their way occasionally. But most of the time there should be no compunction to blasting these varmints, and there are a multitude of weapons and gadgets with which to accomplish this, the main source of gameplay. In fact there are more than you really need and I spent most of my time with the Machine Gun, an all-purpose weapon that mows down the advancing squads nicely, though you do have to watch out whenever you're in a new area that you don't accidentally take out a Tribal, so there is strategy involved. The same goes for Tri-Rockets, my second favourite. As you'd expect from the company that brought us 'Goldeneye' and 'Perfect Dark' the weapons are varied, chunky and powerful, with ideal rumbling sound effects to complement.

It is a big game, and took me something under twenty-eight hours to get to Mizar the second time, but it took me longer this time than my original play through in 2001, which I was hoping to beat, another reason I blazed through at first, not recalling I'd be coming back multiple times anyway, or I might have paid more attention! There were times I really did wish I'd taken notes so as to systematically empty each section of everything, even though I could have referred back to the old N64 Magazine game guide, though that would have felt like cheating (after I'd completed the game I did use it to try and find the Floyd missions, and there really should have been details on the map screen so you knew where to go, as my memory wasn't up to it!). The time counter on your game file doesn't actually give a full account of time spent as it's only if you save that it records your playing time, so it would have been over thirty hours for all the failed attempts I took to defeat Mizar (you need as many missile upgrades as you can get). It's a shame Vela and Lupus don't get to play a part in the final battle, considering the game is geared to all three working separately to reach a combined goal, and you could almost have made the game Juno's story alone with him gaining upgrades and new skills as he progressed, but it extended the life of the game and makes it refreshing to switch to a different character. I'd forgotten the ending - let's just say it explains where Jeff and Barry Racing gets its name! And twenty years later it's now awkward to see the Jimmy Saville reference at the end… I must be a lesser gamer now, since it took me slightly longer to complete (and I did get the Golds even then), though I was on course to beat my time until I was plunged into running around searching. Even so, I can imagine myself, in ten or twenty years, coming back to this game once more to use up that sixth and final save slot.

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