Paint the town red (and green, and blue, etc) (Jet Set Radio (DC))

Member Name: triplecthegame

Product:	Jet Set Radio (DC)
Date:	24/12/00 (75 review reads)
Rating:

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Right from the streets of Tokyo-to straight to your home, ladies and gentlemen here we have triplecthegame's review of jet set radio!!

O.K. I went a little overboard with the opening but, if theres one phrase that sums this game up perfectly its 'In your face', if you didn't know by now Jet Set Radio is a skating(-ish) game where instead of trying to land tricks a'la Mr.Hawks you have to paint the town in your own special style whilst avoiding any unwanted attention from the local law enforcement.

You start off with just the one character and are thrown straight into two of the 'Rival Challenge's' - meaning another skater approaches you challenging you to be able to copy their tricks move for move - successfully complete 3 of these challenges and the character will join your gang, so you've got yourself a gang of 3 skaters and what are you going to do with yourself new eh? well of course you're going to get out there and paint!

The first level that you have to do is protecting your own turf from a rival gang whos decided to place their tag all over your local bus station - this is a good level to get you into the feel and controls of Jet Set Radio as this is certainly a game that throws you quickly into its high-set madness, anyway after a few minutes of playing this level you find yourself grinding along handrails, spray-painting cars like you'd been doing it all your life!

But don't expect this level to prepare you for what you have coming in the very near future, because before long you find yourself having to grind along cabling high above the darkened streets before jumping from one roof to another and all to get that illustrious tag-spot.

Anyway the game is split into 3 different gangs to take on, and once you claim each gangs turf you get given a 'boss-level' to attempt, this is usually a chase-the-opposition type level where you have to.... wait for it - chas
e the opposition of course! when you catch them you've got to spray-paint their backs 10 times, sound easy? well it isn't - the opposition are very fast and although they follow the same route each time, they don't 'mess up' an important jump like you'll almost always do and find yourself playing catch up again.

But thats not all and this is where the underlying problem is, the same button is used for both painting and positioning the camera angle directly behind you, now most people wouldn't see a problem here but, theres only 3 buttons and the analogue joystick being used by this game, how hard would it have been for the production team to use a different button to paint? The reason this is a problem is mainly shown on the 'boss-levels' when the opposing gang stops to catch breath you end up skating towards them and frantically hitting the paint button, when they move off paint automatically becomes the camera button and you're left with a very jerky screen.

However that problem aside we have a very good thing here - a unique game, when I originally played it I got the same feeling that I did when I first played Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation - this is unlike any game I've ever played before, go out and buy this you know you want to!

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