Having completed Jet Grind Radio for the first time, nearly twenty years after its original release and in spite of my awareness of its cult popularity, I’m nonetheless impressed by how fresh it remains. The team at Smilebit encapsulated a period of pop culture history so well: tonally, stylistically, and with such zest, that the game has eluded a potential fate of mere time capsule and is instead, timeless. It’s not without fault, however. In contrast to the vivacity of its aesthetics, the act of playing was oftentimes tormenting. An inadequate method of camera control compounded grievances I had with skaters’ rigid movement, momentum, and their flippant adverseness to grinding. With adaptation, I was able to compensate for these shortcomings and enjoy the otherwise exciting combination of skating and graffiti tagging gameplay. Continue reading Jet Grind Radio [Dreamcast] – Review
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Random Game #32 – Panzer Dragoon Orta [Xbox]
When you have a video game collection like mine, it can be hard to play all of the games. This is especially true when additions are made on an almost weekly basis. Still, I appreciate nearly every game I’ve accumulated for this reason or that. In the hopes of improving my writing through continuous effort and promoting ongoing learning of these games, I’m going to compose brief, descriptive articles.
My experience with the Panzer Dragoon series is limited. When my friend purchased a Saturn a year or two ago, Panzer Dragoon was one of the first games he got. We played a small chunk of it and enjoyed it. Other than that, I’ve fawned over Panzer Dragoon Saga on eBay and daydreamed about finding a copy at a garage sale. I’ve always been interested in the series, and when I purchased this game early last year, I finally granted myself the best opportunity to play one of the games. What I remember most about this game was reading the strategy guide in a period Tips & Tricks magazine. It seemed like there was a lot of unlockables and a lot of various requirements. A game I’ll need to check out.
Panzer Dragoon Orta was developed by Smilebit and released exclusively on the Xbox. It was published by Sega; originally on December 19, 2002 in Japan with the North American released happening January 14, 2003. All previous games had been developed by Team Andromeda, which was folded together with a few other companies to form Smilebit. Despite this, it was the first (and last, I suppose) game to feature no involvement from Yukio Futatsugi, the director for the previous games. He has since made Crimson Dragon on the Xbox One.