Ever wondered what a graffiti sim for a computer game would look like? Ever been to Berlin? Imagine a hip-hop skating freak with street cred and style. It's your turf, and it's your duty to protect it.

Starting with the humble beginnings in Tokyo-to, your skating/graffiti group called the GG's has burst their way onto the scene. After securing a patch, a rival group known only as the 'Love Shockers' (because people broke their hearts and they're now full of rage) have invaded. It's your task as Beat, Gum or Tab, to drive them away and re-spray paint your words with extra style and panache.

The game in a sense takes the fun from Perfect Dark and Final Fantasy and combines it with pure originality - a mixture that can be certain to bring in the cash flow. Due to the Dreamcast's dilapidated fan base, you can now pick this game up for only £5, and those who have played the sequel on the X-box (Jet Set Radio Future) will notice the difference.

For those of you who don't know what cel-shading is, it's a new way of easily rendering game animation, and it looks like a cartoon. Take a look at the new Zelda game, The Windmaker. That's cel-shaded. This cartoon style look and the perfect gameplay makes Jet Set Radio a smash, as I have mentioned before.

Taking the game from the top - there's a practise mode. It'll teach everyone the basics - sprint skating, dodging bullets, grinding and spray painting. At the end of the practise mode comes some very hard challenges, like get 50 tricks in a row, but they aren't compulsory. It's all good fun! After the practise mode, there's the story mode. I've said the beginning story line up above, with the Love Shockers. The game plays over 5 huge maps, each more deadly that the last. The goal in each map is to spray paint all the particular areas, by collecting spray cans and doing the appropriate movement with the analog st
ick to complete the spray painting. Sometimes the target is a wall, something on the floor, or someone's back! If it's someone's back, the person sprints away, and the idea is that you have to go catch them, as they only move when you get near. It gets hard from time to time, but that's the game. I had to work with it, not against it. After each part of story mode, Professor K, the owner and only DJ of Tokyo-to's private radio station 'Jet Set Radio', informs us of the present situation, and what goes on next. But for the next level, you might have more than the choice of your gang members. Others will challenge you and its up to the best of your skills to beat them. And then they join you. Each character possesses different abilities - either they have a larger life bar, or the can turn quicker. Maybe they just score more points or can hold more cans of spray paint. It's up to you to make the best decision.

Not only that, but in each level the police will chase after you. You have to sprint to escape the bullets or jump over tanks. In the later stages, specialist snipers or flame-thrower people might be called in to give you some sort of toasting. Yummy - fried skater. You also choose the graffiti you spray - by collecting special power-ups, you can gain more and more pictures that you can spray paint around the towns 5 huge areas.

The story line is brilliant and highly original, just like the game. The soundtrack caters for a variety of tastes, so don't get put off thinking its all going to be skater music. The limitations to only one player mode makes this game worth playing once through, but those few hours you spend will make live worth living.

Happy spray-skating!

Advantages:

Highly Original
Brilliantly Fun
Cheap and an essential part of any Dreamcast owners collection

Disadvantages:

No 2 player mode

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