By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Bitbull Limited
Now Available on the Nintendo Switch
Jetboard Joust has everything I’d expect from a reinvention of Williams Electronics’s Defender kicked up a notch. Players knock down the enemy and they drop coins so you can use them to acquire power-ups. The dedication to destroy your enemies and earn in-game currency (without ever having to spend real money) at the same time makes for a nicer product. Similar to the classic, you pilot, no skate on a flying board where you have to race from one part of a side-scrolling world to another to save humans.
The alien bosses you meet are titanic, and the gameplay includes a dungeon-crawl. Instead of rinse and repeat with the speed of these abductions getting faster, you have to deal with other foes (there’s 50 of ’em!) as you advance through levels, new planets and maybe a black hole!