Jet Grind Radio

"THQ strikes again!"

Have any of you heard of Jet Set Radio? You know, I'm sure you have heard the name of the game once or twice before. If you haven't, I still remember the history of the game like it was yesterday.

Long ago (I think 2000), Sega adopted a third-party company that went by the name of Smilebit. Before you assume "It's just another ordinary third-party developer. Big deal!" You're wrong.

As it turns out, Smilebit was the first company in the world to use the cel-shading graphics technique. In fact, Smilebit started the cel-shading craze. What game did Smilebit use this graphics technique on? It was none other than Jet Grind Radio. After this, dozens of other two-bit companies and big company Nintendo (Wind Waker, anyone?) implemented this technique on countless games. Either way, Jet Grind Radio sold millions worldwide.

Eventually in late 2001, Sega announced that they went out of the hardware business for good. They figured out that third-party developing was where the money's at. Sega started out slowly with a handful of games like Rez, Chu Chu Rocket and Sonic Advance.

Soon, the Jet Grind Radio fans thought they would never see a sequel for Jet Grind Radio. As it turns out, THEY WERE WRONG AGAIN! In early 2002, Smilebit returned with the sequel (and my personal favorite), Jet Set Radio Future!

Soon, nobody ever heard from the series again until middle 2003. But something bad happened at this time. At the time, Sega dumped Smilebit in the dust and stole all the property trademarks and copyrights of Jet Grind Radio from them. Sega now turned to THQ to make a port. What a mistake that was.

My Story? I was on vacation in another town and saw this game on sale on the shelf. Wow! I had to buy it! But wait a second, I saw the THQ label on the front and remembered all the horrible games that they released and I was fooled into renting. I thought about THQ's absence from my life and thought that maybe they straightened themselves out. Who could possibly be stupid enough to screw up a JGR game? I had to buy it right? Right?

WRONG!

If you want to know the truth, I never thought a game could be this horrible. Most of the words in the English language could barely begin to describe how horrible, vile, and sinister this game was. Whoever produced the port should have been taken outside, tied up to a pillar, and shot.

How did it all go wrong? To start off was the third person camera and first person controls. You have to see this to believe it. The control was so horrible, that you have a better chance of throwing a quarter into a parking meter from 50 feet away than getting used to the bad control. Yes, it's that bad.

There was also when you finally got to play. You would go out, spray graffiti until Rokkaku policemen show up, beat up the policemen, fight Captain Onishima, continue and repeat. This could all be fun if the control wasn't abysmal. Not only that, but you can no longer tag Captain Onishima or vehicles. The graffiti tagging system was taken straight from Jet Grind Radio, but executed poorly here; the d-pad is no substitute for an analog stick. This is the bad gameplay I can easily imagine that terrorists use for torture.

Seriously, Smilebit would have ported this game correctly, but THQ swooped in instead! THQ tried to stray from the path and hit a dead end for the fifteenth time! Who knows what gave Sega the idea to dump Smilebit and work with THQ?

If you played from the beginning and looked closely at Gum when she explains things to you, you will notice that she is badly rendered. I thought Gum was a lot better looking than a twisted harpy counterpart of herself. Not enough information on how bad the graphics were there? The characters talking were an amazing 10 pixels each! They must have taken at least thirty seconds to create those graphics!

The game gets points for the graphics for when you are out playing. When you see Tab for the first time in this game, you will beg for someone to shoot you. You are jagged, hideous, too brightly colored (except the Rokkaku policemen), and just downright ugly. Yes, THQ tried to implement cel-shading in the Game Boy Advance, and failed miserably. I would rather have acupuncture performed on my eyeballs instead of looking at any screenshot of this garbage.

The music is from Jet Grind Radio. You think that sounds good, but wait! Only seven songs are in it, and the songs don't even alternate like in Jet Grind Radio or Jet Set Radio Future. The songs will loop so often to the point that you might start hating the music in this game.

The sound was real dull. There were only cheap quality voices and spray can sound effects. The voices aren't even used right. That way, when you are fighting the policemen and they strike you, your character won't say anything. So Beat and the gang turned into really tough and dedicated mimes that won't even grunt if they get struck in the face?

When it comes to the story of this game, the arrogant THQ screwed everything up. You want to see the entire story? Watch the introductory cut scenes (or really the introduction, because it's not worthy of being called a cut scene). That's basically it.

If you had the strength and courage to beat this game at least once, then I would have to say that you have my sympathy. There's absolutely nothing to do once you beat it anyway. The graffiti tags aren't worth collecting here and there are no street challenges thrown in.

So, should you buy Jet Grind Radio for Game Boy Advance? The sane person's answer is "no" and rounded closer to "No, run and save yourself. THQ is releasing another game. Dear God run for your life." This game makes Titus' Superman 64 look deserving of the hype given to Halo 2 and Final Fantasy VII. But wait, we have to take in consideration the fans of the game anyway. There's always that small group of fans that are used to getting games like this (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series for Game Boy Advance) and some of those people actually like it. Someday, the gamers will take a brick and a permanent marker, write on the brick "THQ sucks" and throw it through a window at THQ headquarters.

All this game can give us fans is a blast from the past. You will get to see all of your favorite Jet Grind Radio characters like Gum, Tab, Beat, and the others. Unfortunately, this is more of a regretful memory than a blast from the past because the characters look nearly unrecognizable. Avoid it if you don't want to face disappointment like I did. It made me sad to see all my favorite Jet Grind Radio characters watered-down and dumbed-down in this so-called "game." If Beat were real, he would cry in sadness at seeing the series end like this.

If you are not a fan, then you have freedom- freedom to buy other games. Use this freedom well and avoid this crap for your own safety. You have the freedom to buy decent games and should be proud of yourself. Reward yourself by going to the store and buying Jet Grind Radio for Dreamcast and Jet Set Radio Future for XBox. Those versions are far better than this one. We can all pretend this version of the game doesn't exist. Just pretend Jet Set Radio Future was the end.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/03, Updated 01/02/07