Jet Grind Radio is the kind of game that at times can seem absolutely inspired and other times inspire you to get that old-age feeling of wanting to destroy things with your controller. Granted, with a relatively good 12 Step Program in your back pocket for handling stress, Jet Grind Radio can be one of the best games available on the Sega Dreamcast. It certainly is one of the most stylized games available with its flat styled 3D characters.
The gameplay consists of skating around the various levels spray-painting your group's (The GGs) mantra all over town and avoiding the cops. And though it eventually starts out as pretty light-hearted (a few dogs, some cops jumping on you) within a few levels they'll be pulling out the tear gas and calling in the helicopters. And while those helicopters are firing, I kid you not, missiles at you, you're still expected to grind around marking your territory by painting pretty pictures.
Throughout the course of the game, other bladders from rival gangs challenge you and once you meet their challenge they join your gang. While the differences between the characters are largely aesthetic, there are subtle differences in how difficult it is to paint their tags and how much health they have. The challenges serve, for the most part, as mini tutorials that introduce you to different ways of going about things--such as your ability to ride off walls or big dramatic jumps you might not otherwise have attempted.
Where the game runs into trouble, though, is in part the general difficulty factor and the controls. The controls are little wishy-washy and it makes it difficult to turn around quickly and the frustration mounts when the game requires you to glide on things like power lines and short rails suspended up in the air. It's when the game requires you to be this anally precise when it also becomes the least forgiving. It also has a tendency to show you a quick cinematic of whoever was chasing you (be it the cops or Captain Onishima or later in the game the mobster guys) at the time once you flee them, which tends to interrupt the flow of gameplay and cause further errors when you need to be precise.
All in all though, the positives outweigh the negatives with Jet Grind Radio and it is once again a perfect showcase of Sega attempting to redefine cool but just making it a little harder than it should perhaps be. The visuals in Jet Grind Radio are top notch and it's great to see a gaming company working to redefine visuals in such an intuitive way. Face it ... this game would have been a lot blander had its visuals been similar to the Tony Hawk franchise. Its cartoonish nature gives it a lot of spice and energy that it otherwise would not have had. Jet Grind Radio is a great game and it definitely provides a challenge, albeit at times a frustrating one.
-Jake
Editor's(Scott) Note:
Jake gives this game an 86, while I am putting this into the running for my game of the year. The Cell-Shaded graphics are such a breath of fresh air, that the whole time I am playing this game I keep wishing someone would take the engine and make us a FPS or an adventure game with it.
I have to agree that the difficulty of some of the things you are required to do is a little high at times. On the other hand, when I finally accomplish them, I do find myself pumping my fist with satisfaction.
Personally, I bought this game the day it game out and I am still playing it to this day, I love it, so I am changing his score from an 86 to a 91. Ahhh, it's good to be the king. :)
-Scott
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