The skate punks of Sega's JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future are also concerned with the evils of corporate encroachment in government, but they are not quite angry enough to smash windows. Their weapon is the humble spray paint can, with which they plan to bring down the bad guys by covering walls with graffiti. That should show them.
Like its precursor, Jet Grind Radio, JSRF uses something called cel shading, which allows a game to render figures that look hand-drawn. Characters are stylish and hip, sparks shoot out from their skates, and if you get up enough speed, the skater becomes a blur.
With its distinctive look and a catchy set of technopop songs on the soundtrack, JSFR is the MTV video of games; if you get bored playing it, you can get up and dance to it for a while.
JSRF has a faster pace than its predecessor. The most awkward part of the previous game was its graffiti system, in which the player had to move the control stick in a specific set of patterns to spray a tag. Apparently I wasn't the only one who found this more trouble than it was worth, because in JSRF all you have to do is find a marked spot for graffiti and press the right trigger on the game controller. The trick is not writing the graffiti, but simply finding where to put it; you must seek out rival gang graffiti and cover it over.
As with real graffiti artists, your rivals manage to paint graffiti in some very hard-to-reach places. Accomplishing that is made easier by the game's disdain for the laws of physics. In JSRF you can skate straight up a telephone pole and along the wires, then leap 6m into the air and descend so slowly that the skates might as well have little wings attached.
Besides covering over graffiti, skaters must occasionally race other skaters or do battle with the local police, who are beholden to corporate interests. Graffiti turns out to be an effective weapon against the police; knock an officer down and paint him and he will vanish, doubtless mortified by the ruining of his uniform.
If you find yourself in a country run by an evil corporation, neither State of Emergency nor JSRF is likely to give you any good ideas on how to fight your oppressors. Catchy dance music, colorful graffiti and window-smashing are unlikely to topple such a government. History suggests that you would have more luck with a mix of armed struggle, protest and negotiation, although passive resistance also has had some success.
Perhaps someday a game will emerge in which the player must form a revolutionary cell and carry out a series of complicated missions to overthrow an oppressive government. But if you find yourself leading the rebels, make sure to tell them to take off their skates, turn off their radios and put down their flamethrowers. Only then can the revolution begin.
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