"Jet Set Radio" Blasts PAX From The Past!
At the Sega booth at PAX East I was able to go up with a classic title from Dreamcast of old: Jet Set Radio!
This game came out back in the day when rollerblading and listening to music with massive head sets was the way to be. In it they gave you the chance to rollerblade around and get into a bit of trouble with tagging and pissing off the police. Of course this one's a bit funnier because it's the Japanese police that are in some type of riot gear running around going "Hup hup hup!", along with the sterotypical detective cop with a crappy beard and the Dirty Harry .44 magnum gun running around shooting you.
This new Jet Set Radio has be revamped greatly with beautifully redone HD graphics. In the demo they had it so you bladed along a Japanese city that had some issue with taggers, which you could run along the area and re-tag it with your art. The good news about the game is they had a special contest where they had art submitted both from United States and the United Kingdom, with each country choosing nine new art tags, meaning eighteen all together. The not so great news it only have 70% of the original music, but I guess that having a sort of three out of five ain't bad, especially since these are a lot of the older artist from back in the day.
Sega has done us a fine service with resurrecting Jet Set Radio for a new generation to enjoy. Here's hoping they truly bring back this series in the long run. Now if you excuse me, I have to dust off my blades and get ready for this massive comeback...
