It's no secret that the Xbox Live Arcade has been viewed by some as little more than a receptacle for crappy ports of twenty-year-old games. Granted some of them have been pretty decent, and the rose-tinted nostalgic joys these ‘classics' bring to some outweighs any complaints they may have had. But for the most part, retro titles on the Arcade have been fairly disappointing. That is, up until now, with Rare's re-imagined and totally re-worked version of their 1983 classic, Jetpac.

The original Jetpac game is, like most retro arcade titles, deceptively simple in its premise: take a guy in a space-suit armed with a laser, and fly around a 2D level collecting bits of a very 80s looking space-ship, and then grab enough fuel to fire that rocket off into space and escape the numerous alien hordes gunning for you. While its unlikely that more than a small minority of Xbox 360 users will even know what a ZX Spectrum was, let alone played the original Jetpac, this is one game whose simple arcade action is genetically wired into every gamer's brain.

But unlike most retro Arcade titles whose ‘enhanced graphics' usually amount to a border around the screen and a few out-of-place particle effects, Rare has made an entirely new game called Jetpac Refuelled; the retro game is tucked away more as an afterthought. Which isn't to say they've ignored the source material: retro Jetpac has its own set of Leaderboards and one of the game's 12 Achievements requires that you beat the original game in one hit. Yet clearly, Jetpac Refuelled is what its all about now, and Rare have done a fantastic job re-imagining their classic title.

Refuelled spans a massive 128 levels, but unlike the original, has an in-built casual-gaming-friendly checkpoint system that allows you to resume your adventure every time you have to rebuild your ship, i.e. every four levels. Why this poor Jet-man has to crash-land on a different alien world after four trips in a new look spaceship is never adequately explained, but it's not something many gamers will lose sleep over. There is a good chunk of Gamerscore achieving to be done in Refuelled, including reaching 250k and 500k points, reaching certain levels, not dying, and even not shooting your laser.

Speaking of the Jet-man's laser, rather than just being a simple forward-firing beam like the original, Rare have seen fit to provide a number of upgrades and power levels. There's an L-shaped blast the clears the skies in front of and above our rocket-propelled protagonist, and then a 3-way W-shaped attack that clears in front, below and diagonally in-between. Attain these two power-ups and you'll start again with the default beam, except it's more powerful now. You can repeat this process until you obtain an incredibly powerful version of the laser, which you'll need for the later enemies who take more than one shot to kill.

On paper this sounds like a fun little distraction of a game, and in practice the same is true: Jetpac Refuelled is an addictive title that has that "just one more level” quality that made the coin-chomping arcade classics of the day so popular (and profitable!). However there's not a lot of variety to the gameplay and after the first dozen or so levels, the prospect of slogging your way through 128 missions may be both daunting and depressing. There's a nice mid-point bonus from Rare in the form of an unlockable theme and set of gamerpics for your Xbox Live profile, but even reaching the 64th level will be beyond most people's pain thresholds.

Not content to simply remake Jetpac, Rare have also thrown in a multiplayer mode as well, which pits you and another rocketeer against one another on the same map. You have to assemble your ships and then duke it out over the scant reserves of fuel that inexplicably descend from the heavens. This multiplayer mode can be pretty good fun for a little while, although like the main game, the level of repetition coupled with the randomness of the fuel/power-up drops can make it pretty frustrating after awhile.

Without a doubt the highlight of Jetpac Refuelled are the new and improved high-def graphics. Still in glorious 2D, everything has been totally remastered with beautiful backdrops, geometry-wars style explosions and cascading colours, and the kind of character charm that Rare has made its career. The game fills the entirety of modern widescreen TVs at a rock-solid frame-rate, often with several dozen enemies on the screen at any one time. The sound-effects are solid too, managing to feel retro and understated while simultaneously enhancing the action. And at a mere 400 MS Points (around $8), Jetpac Refuelled is well worth a purchase. It's chaotic, it's colourful, and it's a helluva lot of fun.