Jet Set Radio Future

Unless you had your head in a god d*** barrel between 1999 and 2001, you heard about the Dreamcast. Yep, the Dreamcast was Sega's attempt at cornering the gamers market once again, after losing tons of cash on the flop Sega CD. Sega did EVERYTHING in their power to make the Dreamcast perfect, from refining the programming language to giving it an inbuilt modem, the first console to ever have one. Though the Dreamcast took over the N64 (The N64's later years were good, but in no way as impressive as the Dreamcast's new games), the PS2 eventually took over the Dreamcast, and that was the end of Sega consoles. However, one thing can be said about the Dreamcast: It had great games, like the Jet Set Radio series.

Anyway, Jet Set Radio Future is Sega's second installment in the series, an and exclusive to the XBOX. The game is Cell-shaded, which could be considered a plus or minus, depending on how much you care about electric-colored backgrounds.



The big aspect of this game is the music, believe it or not. Of course, to many people, this brings back bad memories of DDR, so I'll have to explain. The whole game is based around a pirate radio group, thus your soundtrack in the game is techno-funk mixes. This is one of the games you can crank up in your house and not be embarassed- the mix of techno and funk is actually very very good.

So good, in fact, that I bought the Soundtrack CD. Yep, Sega got an extra $25 out of my pocket because I liked the soundtrack THAT MUCH. While 99.9% of you may hate the soundtrack with a passion, the few of you who like it will REALLY like it.



As for the game, its a lot like playing any given Tony Hawk game on skates. However, that may not be a good explanation- this game is extremely easy to move, use, and combo. For example, a good part of the game is jumping from one place to another on rails, or doing specific tricks to get yourself across cliffs, ledges, and anything else in your path. While games like Tony Hawk profess realism, games like this profess extreme jumping and flipping and the like.

The big game mechanic behind all this is the graffiti. By a simple tap of either trigger button on the XBOX, you can spray paint anything around you. While it won't show up unless you are near a "Spray Target" or a person, it still allows for an outstanding amount of detail- to the point where you can make your own spray to use in-game.



Again, while running, spraying, dancing, fighting off the cops, and doing more spraying, this game still could be considered a big time niche game. There's going to be your group of people who think this game is awesome, and there's gonna be your group of people who think this game sucks ass. I suppose the easiest way to tell if you are going to like this game is to go play it as a demo somewhere. However, I got this game for free with my XBOX when I bought it, so you might find it the perfect free game. Hell, both it and Sega GT come with all new XBOXes, so if you don't like one, you're probably gonna like the other.

Go pick it up if you like music and funky stuff. Remember, though, this is japanese funk- don't expect mainstream stuff- but its still good.

4 star(s) out of 5

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