When I first played Jet Grind Radio on the Dreamcast a couple of years back, I found it hard to believe that they could create another game in the same series and make it just as interesting. With the X-Box release of Jet Set Radio Future, you’re placed back in the same theme of tagging targets throughout the city, but with different goals that you have to maintain throughout. Exceptional cell-shading visuals and some pretty cool music give way to frustrating controls and difficult game play making for an above average title for those who are into the hard to play games! Once you get into the game however, you’ll find that there is plenty of depth and reason to play, well after you’ve defeated the game and collected all of the secrets.

Gameplay:
Jet Set is based on the theme of tagging targets throughout several different zones with multiple sized images located on walls, the ground, pillars and otherwise. Once you get into the game though, you’ll find that there are other objectives that you have to undertake in order to open up other options within the game. Where in one stage you might have to clear out simple graffiti throughout the city in order to proceed, you might have to race and beat another character in order to have them join you for future missions. Now, throughout your little adventure, you’ll have a wide variety of characters that you can choose from in order to complete the different goals. Once you’ve learned how to perform most of the available tricks and maneuvers, you’ll find that it’s easy enough to beat.

However, in order to truly master the game, you’ll have to find different missions that force you to perform different types of actions, which will unlock Graffiti Souls. These Souls give you more tags to use throughout the game in a variety of different patterns and colors. While you don’t have to get them all your first time through, in order to get deeper into the game and be able to use some of the more interesting characters, you have to collect all of them {100+} and open up a special option on the menu. The replay value that you find here is pretty high until you’ve defeated the game and found everything that you can, unlocking all of the secrets.

Control is another feature here that gives you a bit of a problem if you’re not good enough with the timing of some of the jumps. For the most part, you’ll find that the game allows you to hit the easier tags with little or no effort, but the further you get into the game, the more thinking and timing you’ll need in order to get where you need to be. A prime example of this is the spray and grind technique, in which you have to grind down an edge and spray the targets, but in the midst of all of this, you have to jump in-between the grinds. This can lead to some serious frustration, especially with novice gamers who have a hard time using the X-Box controller to perform some of the more intricate moves!

Graphics:
Cell shading is prominent throughout the game, in which most of what you’ll see is like something out of a cartoon. Though the stages are all definitive in what the themes are, there are points to the game that seem to need more shadow effects and just don’t have them. After a couple of hours of playing through the game, you might find that the worlds and stages are all completely and totally devoid of true to life detailing, and that might lead to a little disappointment. However, the smaller effects that you find in the game just as the spray cloud of paint, the sparks of your skates on metal and even the overall detailing of the characters is simply beautiful and gives a little more clarity to the characters that you play as!

Sound:
The audio that you find here is strictly for those who like House music. While most of what you hear really isn’t all that bad, it does have a tendency to get on your nerves after a while and with no ability to burn your own music for the game, you’ll be stuck listening to it for quite some time. With a good stereo hookup, you’ll be able to hear the smaller details in the audio such as the echoing of skates on concrete and even the roll of bearings in the skates. Voice effects and sound effects themselves are done extremely well and sound excellent on a surround sound system. The only down point that I can find here is that the game just doesn’t have enough variety on the music!

Round Up:
Jet Set Radio Future is a good game for those of you who enjoyed the first one on the Dreamcast. While there isn’t much more to the game other than some frustrating goals to achieve and some interesting characters to unlock, there is a bit of uniqueness that you’ll find here. For those of you who are looking for a straight forward inline skating game, you might want to take a look at Aggressive Inline for the Play Station 2 and leave this one for the Jet Set fans. Worthy of a rental for any X-Box owner, this is a game best played over the weekend and your money saved for a more realistic game!