Sega is back and taking over

the world!

Publisher: Sega Developer: Smilebits

Graphics

This game is a visual masterpiece. All of the models in JGR have cell shading effects which are well implemented. This technique succeeds in giving the game a light-hearted and cartoon-like feel. The streets are always abussle with pedestrians and moderate traffic. There are plenty of objects like fire hydrants, flags, and mailboxes for you to avoid. The textures are top notch, and every niche and corner has a unique feel. The game maintains a high framerate a majority of the time, slowing only slightly to polygon-intensive chaos. 

Sound

Jet Grind Radio features over thirty original songs. The soundtrack boasts a genre-crunching array of house, industrial, surf, and retro funk. During gameplay, the songs are mixed into each other, adding the aesthetic of a local radiostation for background music. The game's sound effects range from hissing spray paint noises to car crashes. Some of the effects are sufficiently meaty: Cube's scream as she falls five stories and Beat's grunt while being run over by a semi come to mind. There is plenty of intentionally humorous voice acting, namely from the police chief's radio transmitions. This is one of those games worth leaving the volume up for.

Gameplay

For those who are expecting a skating engine like Tony Hawk Pro Skater's, you will either rejoice or condemn JGR's simplified gameplay. To grind, you merely land on the rail (this can take some getting used to). To do tricks, you just gather speed and jump. The game only uses three buttons, one to jump, one to speed up, and one to graffiti. Unfortunately, the button used to graffiti is the same button that adjusts the camera angle. This makes on-the-run painting a pain in the ass. Everytime you want to paint something, the camera will jump behind you, and this can hinder your movement, even causing you to stop. This problem can be worked around by adjusting your analog stick accordingly. Avoiding the cops is a relatively simple affair, since they cannot shoot you while you are grinding, and they cannot follow you up to elevated areas. Now the helecoptors, on the other hand...

Longevity

Even after you have beaten the game's fifteen levels, you will still want to come back for the free-skate mode. There are plenty of secrets, including tons of graffities and playable characters. You can create your own spray art in graffiti mode, and even download jpegs off the net and use them in-game. Although there is no two player mode, you and friends will have fun trying to beat each other's hi-scores.

Overall

This game is very rewarding and addictive, despite its simple nature. It is immediately gratifying, even though it takes a while to get the hang of painting and grinding. The main thing that this game boasts is style. Jet Grind Radio is one of the most stylish games to ever come out on any system. The huge environments and charismatic protagonists will envelope you, and you will find yourself wishing you still had those old rollerblades from five years ago.

-Caustik Fix