For more than a year and a half, THQ was responsible for publishing many Sega-branded games for the Game Boy Advance, both developed internally by Sega as well as games THQ commissioned out to third-party developers. In this deal gamers experienced both the good (Sonic Advance 1 and 2, Puyo Pop) and the not-so-good (Sega Smash Pack, Crazy Taxi). And though the THQ/Sega GBA publishing agreement has come to an end, THQ ends the deal with one of the best non-Sega developed title of the partnership with the handheld version of Jet Grind Radio . This port puts one of the top Game Boy Advance developers on one of the Dreamcast's most noteworthy games, and even with the occasional hitch in the project the game ends up extremely faithful to the original design.

Features

Four city districts with multiple locations each

More than five different playable characters

Graffiti editor

Link cable support for four players

Cartridge save (three slots)

Only for Game Boy Advance

Jet Grind Radio for the Dreamcast was a landmark title that pretty much makes it on those system owners' top Dreamcast games list. Whether its due to its originality, unique graphic style, or just because of its fun factor, the original Jet Grind Radio was a key game in the Dreamcast library. The legacy lives on in the official Xbox sequel, Jet Set Radio Future, but it was the original game that started it all.

Jet Grind Radio takes place in a futuristic proto-Nippon hybrid called Tokyoto, where rival skate gangs express themselves through the slightly illegal art of graffiti. Your crew is the GGs, a group of too-hip-for-you youngsters whose home turf is the sunny paradise of Shibuya. But the keisatsu (read: the fuzz) aren't content with letting a bunch of rapscallions deface the city - they've deployed the pistol-packing Police Chief Onishima to disperse some leaden justice on any possible perpetrators. While the action on the street is hot, the airwaves are kept ice-cool thanks to the help of Professor K - a dredlocked DJ who runs a pirate station called Jet Set Radio. The good doctor hits the wax and gives you an update on the storyline after each level, letting you know what's up with the keisatsu and the epic clash of the skate gangs.

So, as a hell-raising gang member, it's your sworn duty to mark your territory when other gangs try to take over Tokyoto. How? Graffiti, my friend. The challenge in Jet Grind Radio is to raise hell all over the districts by skating and grinding around the areas and mark designated locations on walls and objects with your brand using cans of spraypaint. Luckily these cans are easily collected since they're scattered in strategic locations, mostly along what are known as "grind lines." That's the reason for the emphasis on the word "grind" in Jet Grind Radio (and possibly the reason for the renaming of the game's original title, Jet Set Radio), since more than half the game revolves around leaping around town and grinding along rails, ledges and building corners. So much of the level can be grinded, and this grind feature is integral in learning since many locations in a map can't be reached unless you find the grind line that will take you there.

The challenge in Jet Grind Radio's gameplay is to locate all the specific areas on the map and tag them with spraypaint before A) time runs out, or B) you take one too many hits from the keisatsu or worse, Chief Onishima during his pursuit. Some tags are simply a matter of hitting the A button at the right time, but others require a bit of spraycan manipulation; larger tag locations need players to move the control pad in time and direction, a challenge that isn't so hard to do, but it's incredibly time consuming and horrible to pull off if the cops are on your tail. And it's worse if you run out of collected spray cans during a particularly large tag, since you'll have to chase down extra cans and return to the spot...which eats away seconds off the clock. The GBA's D-pad does an OK job of recreating this "draw" control during the medium and large graffiti tags, but I found it easier to pull them off using a GameCube control stick on the Game Boy Player.

The Game Boy Advance game was pulled off by Vicarious Visions, the GBA development studio whose best known for their portable renditions of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. And if you're famliar with Tony Hawk on the GBA, it's easier to get into the GBA version of Jet Grind Radio since the game features the same isometric engine with polygonal characters and bitmap backgrounds, and all the odd perspective quirks that come from this engine. There's honestly nothing that can be done to remove the awkward look where out-of-reach rails or icons look like they're immediately accessible to the player; but the level designers do their best to reduce the confusion. If you're practiced up on Tony Hawk 2, 3 or 4 the effect is easier to grasp, otherwise the GBA game will definitely take a bit to get used to. It's this perspective that doesn't make the portable game quite as accessible as the original Dreamcast design's 3D view.

But outside of the expected "Escher-effect," Vicarious Vision's game engine pulls off the Jet Grind Radio gameplay extremely well...even without the fully 3D environments. The character models have been given an effect that mirrors the Dreamcast's "cel-shaded" look, and the background artists model the maps to mimic the same exact levels on the console. The engine also now enables the painting of tags on wall surfaces just like the Dreamcast game.

The engine also enables players to plaster set graphic tags on specific locations all over the map. While this doesn't seem like a big deal, it probably was a technological nightmare to pull off in a GBA environment. The developers even went one step further by offering an incredible custom graffiti editor. Just like the Dreamcast and Xbox games, players can customize their own graffiti tag and plaster it on walls. There are restrictions to this feature: the image is only 32x31 pixels and 7 colors large, it can only be sprayed on specific locations on the map, and the cartridge can only store one graffiti tag in its EEPROM. But the fact that the team added this function is astounding, and gives GBA players the unique ability to personally express themselves in the adventure. And then, of course, is the four player support unique to the GBA version; players can connect and battle against each other in specific gameplay modes that are not in the Dreamcast original

But all isn't roses in the conversion. The engine obviously has a few quirks handling all the action that's unique to the Jet Grind Radio design, especially when it comes to displaying all of the soldiers and Chief Onishima on-screen, or during a mission when your task is to chase down gang members over the streets. There are slight bouts of slowdown when it gets a little crowded, but nothing tremendously obvious or distracting. It's just "there." Deeper in the game players will be faced with tanks and helicopters that fire dangerous projectiles, but these missiles are a little hard to read in the isometric perspective. And, it's a little hard to tell where the enemy cops are in relation to your character without pulling up the map; it's almost a gamble to try and tag a large area since you cannot see where the opposition's coming from. On the Dreamcast's 3D engine it was a little easier to see them, but in the overhead perspective, your view is cut off at the edges of the screen.

To compliment the action, Vicarious Visions went to Shin'en to provide Jet Grind Radio's soundtrack, and the result is a stunning recreation of many of the tunes from the Dreamcast design. The cartridge format obviously doesn't have the room for elaborate and extensive pieces, which is why many of the tunes loop after about a minute. The short length of the music does get a bit repetitive but it's amazing how great this game makes the GBA sound.