🎮 Play Jackson Online (Arcade)

Jackson is a 1982 arcade bootleg — sold under a false name to dodge licensing — of Sega’s Zaxxon, one of the most acclaimed shooters of its era. It runs on modified Zaxxon hardware and reproduces the same gameplay that made the original a top-five arcade earner in the US that year: an isometric, axonometric-projection shooter where you pilot a spacecraft through two heavily defended space fortresses, with an empty stretch of space in between.

How to Play

The goal is to fly through each fortress without crashing into walls or getting shot down, then defeat the Zaxxon robot boss waiting at the end of the second fortress. Your ship moves at a constant forward speed; the joystick shifts it left and right and changes altitude (forward lowers you, back raises you), while a fire button takes out gun turrets, fuel tanks, and other targets. In the browser, that maps to Arrow Keys to move and change altitude, Z to fire, Enter to start, and Shift to insert a coin.

Tips

• Watch your ship’s shadow, not just the altimeter — it’s the clearest way to judge the exact height you need to clear a gap in a wall.
• Fuel drains constantly, so shoot fuel tanks on sight rather than saving them; running dry ends your run immediately.
• Walls at the entrance and exit of each fortress only open at specific altitudes, so line up your height early instead of adjusting at the last second.