The game follows Jetman as he attempts to rebuild his rocket in order to explore different planets, whilst simultaneously defending himself from hostile aliens.

During the development process, Rare attempted to ensure that the game did not feel too similar to the original Jetpac, while keeping the core mechanics.

Jetman has to first assemble his rocket, which spawns in separate parts that are scattered around a map, and then fills it with six fuel canisters before taking off to the next planet, where the procedure is repeated.

[4] In addition, Jetman has to defend himself from each planet's hostile aliens, and collect valuable resources such as gold and platinum, which occasionally fall from the atmosphere, for bonus points.

Details of a Jetpac remake were first leaked on a listing on the website of German rating board Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle on February 6, 2007.

Rather than simply porting the original ZX Spectrum title to the Xbox 360, the development team decided to expand upon Jetpac and experiment with new elements.

[6] In a separate interview with Next-Gen magazine, Burton stated that during initial development of Jetpac Refuelled, senior management kept away entirely from the project.

[13] Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot praised the updated graphics as the best addition to the game, heralding them as "crisp, bright and colourful" and far superior to the original 1983 version.

[4] Jonathan Miller of IGN similarly thought the graphics were the strongest aspect of the game, praising the effects as "vibrant and colourful" whilst calling the ZX Spectrum version "nostalgically bad".

[14] Reed criticised the repetitiveness of the game, stating that whilst 128 levels was good value for money, the gameplay was "merely a repeat" of what the player has already accomplished and that the multiplayer mode could prove "annoying very quickly".