Jet Grind Radio

The Good
Jet Grind Radio is a wonderfully original game lets list what the many things is the first to do first to use Cel Shading, first to have a game about Spraying Graffiti and one of the first games to have licensed music. In the game you play as a gang called the GG’S which compete with other gangs like the Poison Jam from the city of dusk, Noise Tanks from the city of the night, and your gang is from the city of the day in a futuristic Tokyo where it is illegal for youths to express themselves the game begins when a newcomer gang hits you’re home turf and you have to get it back and in no surprise the cops try to stop you at first its just beat cops then slowly escalates to dogs, SWAT, Paratroopers, helicopters, and tanks. Once you take a territory you have to do a sort of “battle” in which you spray the backs of the gang members sort of silly which brings another point to mind I’ve seen reviews trashing this game one of their complaints being its too overblown but that is intentional to parody how overblown other Japanese entertainment can get. The music is one of the best game soundtracks ever except for Super Brother and you’ll hear a song end and it gets mixed with the beginning of the next song like a real DJ would do Perfection.

The Bad
Now the Bad the camera can be sloppy and the controls take some getting used to specially the spraying technique of course now I have mastered it playing it since it first came out and have beaten it about 100 times now I can get a jet rating on every level.

The Bottom Line
Overall I think the good out weighs the bad this is my favorite Dreamcast game and favorite game of all time.

The Good
The game itself is quite lengthy and extremely fresh. There is just enough emphasis placed on the skating aspect of the game without distracting from the graffiti. Unlike other skating style games, there isn't too much pressure on the player to pull off tricks - points are awarded for those who do though. As for the graffiti aspect of the game, it is quite unique. Whenever "tagging" on a wall or object, you are prompted with a control stick movement that you need to execute. This almost makes the game feel like a rhythm game. Overall, the levels are well designed and the characters are comical. I strongly recommend this title to any Dreamcast owner and to anyone looking for a wonderfully fun romp.

The Bad
At times the controls can be incredibly frustrating. Jumping from place to place can feel unnatural and speeding up doesn't always feel the same. Also - some frustrating, repetitive jumping challenges await you on the levels where you go against new characters.

The Bottom Line
A hyper-stylized, visual treat with some of the most fun bits to be found in any game from this era.

The Good
The graphics and overall style of the game is very good and unique and all that stuff. Certainly it was refreshing to see when it first came out. The music gets boring pretty fast but it well made and fits the game nicely. Even though I'm not much into "hip kids owning the streets" or whatever, the story and presentation works fine.
It is a very fun game, in fact I think it's one of the best games for the Dreamcast. And it's still almost unique, the sequel for the Xbox is pretty much the same game.
The level design is mostly wonderful, even if there really are just five different areas to skate around in. The individual stages of the game are smaller or bigger parts of these areas, and upon finishing the game you can choose to play individual levels, or skate around the areas as you wish.
There are three different challenges you can take on upon completion of the game, and these can be done as many times as you want, in any order, or not at all. They are JET Graffiti, JET Technique, and JET Crush. In other words, the graffiti challenge, the trick challenge, and the race challenge. Unfortunately there is no two-player mode, which is a real bummer.
The music is good, the tracks are very skillfully mixed into each other throughout the game, and there is much variation.

The Bad
The controls. Oh man, the controls seriously ruin the experience for me, and indeed for anyone I know who has played this game.
Simple things like running up a set of stairs or wallskating to tag something can get very frustrating and often requires many replays. And the worst part is that I don't know if it's Sega's fault for designing the Dreamcast's abomination of a controller, or if it's just poor programming. Which brings us to the trick system. As far as I have been able to figure out, all tricks are random, the manual doesn't really mention them, and that's a big bummer. Something more like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater would have been preferable. As it is now, you only have to use three buttons (A, L and R) to play the game. Would it not have been a good idea to use B, X and Y to perform tricks? Getting a high score on all levels certainly would have been more fun and challenging if there were actual tricks to perform, not just jumping and grinding, hoping that the character will do some nice tricks along the way.
And the fact that there's always a time limit makes me so stressed out that I almost don't want to play it. But I paid for it so I have to. Also, the game's menus are extremely annoying, think Medal of Honor x10.
There should have been a two-player mode, I do however think that it would require two Dreamcasts linked in some way, since the graphics can slow down quite a bit in the single player mode, and I shudder to think what would happen in split screen mode.
The system for designing one's own graffiti tags is quite simple, and could have been better, perhaps utilizing a system similar to Animal Crossing's system for designing patterns for use in the game. There used to be downloadable graffiti tags and other goodies, but I have no idea if there are any official servers left, since the Dreamcast's untimely demise.

The Bottom Line
Great eyecandy, ok music, pretty fun game hampered by extremely frustrating controls, overly simplistic trick system and a long, boring loading/warning-don't-do-this-at-home sequence in the beginning...it is however worth the small amount of money you'd spend on it. It is a fun game, but be prepared for some extremely frustrating moments, and it's all because of the controls.
However, I seriously feel that not even the controls can spoil the fact that this is, in my opinion, one of the top three games for the Dreamcast, and if you don't own this, you suck.