YMMV / Jetpack Joyride

Barry Steakfries
Age of Zombies | Monster Dash | Jetpack Joyride | Jetpack Joyride 2

• Alternate Character Interpretation: How innocent are the scientists? The promotional material occasionally mentions that they are indeed evil, with a bio for Jetpack Joyride 2 revealing that they are all clones of Brains' deceased friend, all to make sure you don't feel too bad for them. The game itself never explicitly says that, however, and it's very easy to view them as a well-meaning employees who just want to protect their laboratory from a sudden intruder. The fact that they never try to fight back and tend to run away doesn't help.
• Common Knowledge: Golden skins for vehicles are believed by some to slightly increase the value of collected coins. There is a Gemology gadget that replaces some coins with red gems of higher value, and you can win coin doubler from the Final Spin, but none of the vehicle skins are more beneficial than the others. So far the only skin that isn't cosmetic is an Afterlife Ecto-1, which unlike the original features a gunner seat sliding out of its back with Phoebe sitting in it and using Proton Pack against the passing scientists, which is more of a cool detail than something helpful.
• Game-Breaker:
  • The Strong Arm Machine (or S.A.M. for short). It makes missiles the only hazard, not a single coin will be dodged, and it has three hit points. If it's used skillfully, it could make you top the leaderboard by covering a lot of distance. Alternatively, pairing it with the Gemology + Ezy-Dodge Missiles should earn you tons of cash.
  • DeLorean Time Machine. After reaching 88 mph, it teleports 800 meters forward, which is very usefull if you're going for distance.
  • Ecto-1 and Voyager Shuttlecraft are even more so. Much like DeLorean, they travel forward after a short amount of time. The difference? Not only they cover just as much distance, their boost has an unlimited usage. While it's compensated by the cooldown and the vehicles being slightly harder to control, skilled player can use it to cover a lot of distance in a rather short period of time.
• Good Bad Bugs: It's possible to collect a power-up right after using the S.A.M. revive. And since some power-ups allow to get a free vehicle (Rocket Time or Boost with Free Ride gadget equipped), you can have both S.A.M. and any other vehicle at the same time. This removes all the obstacles, which means that you can't end the run without resetting the game, but you can have fun endlessly riding on two vehicles, especially since they speed up.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The gameplay mechanic for Profit Bird is very similar to Flappy Bird, predating it by 2 years. This would later be lampshaded with the Zappy Bird Event.
  • The original Sleigh of Awesome theme from 2014 is the Jetpack Joyride Main Theme mashed up with a bunch of traditional Christmas songs. In other words, Halfbrick made a high quality video game rip few years before SiIvaGunner would make this type of remixes popular.
• Minimalist Run: Some challenges will require the player to get to a certain distance without collecting any coins (between 400 and 500 meters is a common one). This is much harder than it sounds, not least because the lasers and electric zappers often block the screen, with the only good route being where coins are.
• Most Wonderful Sound: After making any In-App Purchase, a text informing you that a purchase was successful and thanking for the support is accompanied by a satisfying guitar riff.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Nerd Repellent does Exactly What It Says on the Tin, but the tin doesn't say that the lab looks like it's been empty for years. It's pretty unsettling when you aren't expecting it.
  • Speaking of, this trailer depicts Legititimate Research as an Abandoned Laboratory. Then it cuts to Barry in a Jester's Jumpsuit Laughing Mad in a padded cell.
  • When you remove Flash from your gadget set, a slowly fading Lost Dog poster appears, implying that each run through is possibly weeks apart.
• Ron the Death Eater: Barry gets some of this from those who see the scientists as more sympathetic than they really are. For them, Barry is a Villain Protagonist, whose break-ins and and usage of the jetpack to kill dozens or more scientists are completely unwarranted. While he sure loves causing chaos and has some questionable morals, he's canonically a heroic character, which is made much more clear in the other games he appears in.
• Sequel Displacement: This is is a third game to star Barry Steakfries, predated by Age of Zombies and Monster Dash. The first one is a Shoot 'Em Up that doesn't even feature any jetpacks, and the second one is an Endless Running Game with enough differences in gameplay comparing to its successor. While both would reach a solid number of downloads and be Un-Cancelled few times each, as far as mainstream recognition is concerned, people are most likely to have memories about Jetpack Joyride and not so much of its predecessors. The fact that Jetpack was one of the few games from Halfbrick Studios not to be delisted in 2018 after GDPR laws became active, and eventually got a sequel of its own goes to show how much has it surpassed its older brothers in popularity.
• Signature Scene: Barry's Dynamic Entry at the start of the run that has him enters Legitimate Research by breaking the entire wall to steal the jetpack as the nearby scientists get knocked out while the music switches from old-school gramophone tune into the series' iconic main theme.
• Squick: The Bleeding Heart jetpack is exactly that — a giant human heart strapped to Barry's back, which squirts out endless gushes of blood in order to fly. The Flavor Text's claim that the jetpack was made out of cornstarch and red dye and the relatively simplistic art style do nothing to diminish the squelching heartbeat sound effects, nor the way the heart splats and squishes hitting the ground if you die while wearing it.
• That One Achievement: The Germaphobe achievement requires you to reach 2000m... without touching anything except the floor and the ceiling, which is surprisingly difficult to do. Remember, a single coin can mess up the whole run.
• That One Attack: With S.A.M., there's probably two rare missile patterns that's literally impossible to deflect every single one without making S.A.M. lose one Hit Point. The other pattern, known as the middle, top, and bottom missiles in quick succession is this to some; it's more common, but at least it's possible to deflect every single one of them successfully.

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