Solar Jetman

Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship
European cover art with the subtitle misspelled as "Warship"
Developer(s)Zippo Games
Rare
Publisher(s)
Designer(s)Ste and John Pickford
Artist(s)Lyndon Brooke
Ste Pickford
Composer(s)David Wise
Platform(s)Nintendo Entertainment System, Arcade
ReleaseNES
Arcade
Genre(s)Multidirectional shooter
Mode(s)Single-player
Arcade systemPlayChoice-10

Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship is a multidirectional shooter video game developed by Zippo Games and Rare and published by Tradewest for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in North America in September 1990 and in Europe by Nintendo on 26 September 1991. The game is the third installment of the Jetman series and was later re-released by Nintendo for their NES-based PlayChoice-10 arcade system in the United States in 1990.[3]

In the game, series protagonist Jetman must manoeuvre his small craft through caverns of various planets whilst searching for pieces of the Golden Warpship. The game is presented in a horizontal side-view environment and has ranging gravitational pulls for each planet, which subjects Jetman's craft to various forms of inertia. Similar to its predecessors, Jetman must keep his craft topped up with fuel in order to progress through levels.

The game was developed mostly by Mancunian developer Zippo Games under the name of Iota before being ordered to change the game into a Jetman title by Rare. Ports of the game for the Amiga, Commodore 64 and Atari ST were completed but not released due to poor sales of the NES version. The game received mostly positive reviews upon release, with critics praising the game's presentation and graphics, however criticism was directed at the game's difficulty. It is included in Rare's 2015 Rare Replay compilation for Xbox One, and was re-released on the Nintendo Switch Online service on July 4, 2024.

  1. ^ "Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship Release Information for NES". GameFAQs. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  2. ^ "NES Games" (PDF). Nintendo of America. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2014. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference pickford was invoked but never defined (see the help page).