Jet Rocket

From Sega Retro

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JetRocket logo.png
JetRocket EM JP.png
Jet Rocket
System(s): Electro-mechanical arcade
Publisher: Sega
Developer:
Genre: Simulation

















Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code
Arcade (Electro-Mechanical)
JP
¥200,000[1] ?
Arcade (Electro-Mechanical)
US
$795[4] ?
Arcade (Electro-Mechanical)
World
? ?




































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Jet Rocket (ジェット・ロケット) is a 1970 electro-mechanical arcade flight simulator manufactured by Sega. The player aircraft is viewed from a first-person perspective, and the landscape and targets are displayed on a screen, using a projection display system similar to Duck Hunt, Grand Prix, Missile and Killer Shark.

It features free-roaming, first-person flight shooting gameplay. It was the first flight simulator game, a genre that it introduced to the arcade industry, where it inspired a flood of clones as soon as it released in 1970, which in turn inspired flight simulator video games. Jet Rocket was also the earliest first-person shooter (predating Maze War and Spasim), and an ancestor of open-world sandbox games (which have flight sim roots) and action-adventures.

Sega later released Heli-Shooter (1977), a similar combat flight simulator that improved on Jet Rocket with the use of a CPU processor and more sophisticated projection technology, featuring a colorful, realistic, free-roaming 3D landscape.

Gameplay

Using controls which look like that of a cockpit, the player controls the jet by joystick handle and aims rockets to intercept target areas such as fuel dumps, missile sites, island fortresses and air strips in a night mission. Pushing the firing button fires the rocket. When a target is hit, the rocket explodes and score (5 points per hit) is indicated. Ground impact explosions are marked by light and sound effects.

The cockpit controls move the player aircraft around the 3D landscape displayed on a screen and shoot missiles onto targets that explode when hit.

Specifications

Dimensions

800.1 mm (31.5")
1.816 m (71.5")
1.207 m (47.5")


History

Development and release

Sega Production and Engineering Department, led by Hisashi Suzuki, developed Jet Rocket in the late 1960s.[5] In 1970, it was showcased at various arcade expos in Japan and the United States. At Japan's 9th Coin Machine Show, Jet Rocket was selected as the best game of the show, out of more than 300 games showcased there.[6]

It began mass production for the Japanese market in July 1970, before receiving a worldwide release in August 1970, with Sega shipping several dozen units overseas that month due to high demand.[2] Within two months, by October, Jet Rocket was declared a "sales sensation" by Cash Box magazine.[7]

Before its wide American release in August 1970, Sega had previously sent out prototypes for testing, after which it was cloned by three Chicago manufacturers.[5] The clones included Bally's Target Zero and Williams' Flotilla, both released in December 1970. This negatively affected the game's performance in America, and temporarily put a halt to Sega's export business, before recovering later.[8]

Legacy

Jet Rocket was the earliest first-person flight simulator game, a genre that the game introduced to the arcade game industry, and in turn the video game industry. Jet Rocket inspired a flood of clones as soon as it released in 1970, including popular clones from three Chicago manufacturers[9] (such as Target Zero and Flotilla).

It featured shooting and flight movement in a 3D environment from a first-person perspective, like first-person vehicle combat video games such as Battlezone (1980) and Hovertank 3D (1991). This makes Jet Rocket the earliest first-person shooter, predating by many years the mid-1970s computer games Maze War and Spasim,[10] the latter a flight simulator influenced by Jet Rocket.

The game had free-roaming flight movement over an open-ended 3D landscape, for the first time in an electronic game. It could thus be considered the first example of an open-world sandbox game in a rudimentary form. Jet Rocket, along with its clones Target Zero and Flotilla, influenced the development of free-roaming flight simulator video games such as Flight Simulator (1980), which in turn influenced open-world space flight simulators such as Elite (1984), and which in turn influenced Grand Theft Auto (1997).

Jet Rocket could also be considered the first action-adventure game in a rudimentary form, as it combines action gameplay with a certain amount of open-world adventure exploration.

Jet Rocket was featured in a scene from the 1980 film Midnight Madness.[11]

Promotional material

Jetrocket flyer1.jpg
Flyer (front)
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Flyer (back)
Jetrocket flyer2.jpg
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Print advert in Cash Box (US) #1970-07-04: "July 4, 1970" (1970-07-04)
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Physical scans

US
JetRocket PartsCatalog.pdf
Parts catalog

Photo gallery

External links

References