Jet Grind Radio

Sega has led one of the most tumultuous lives of any game company to date. It rose to prominence throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s thanks to creative arcade games and popular consoles like the Master System and Genesis/Mega Drive, but then slowly lost that lead to Nintendo and Sony as the decade wore on. After a series of unrecoverable missteps, Sega was out of the hardware business altogether by 2001, forced to create software for its former competitors.

Since then, Sega’s annual lineups have been hit or miss. Sonic the Hedgehog lurches right along, Total War has made some nice cash over the years and Platinum Games is kicking all kinds of ass, but other than that it seems like most of Sega’s efforts are spent re-releasing compilations of its ‘90s hits instead of finding ways to re-invent them for today’s appetites. Those original titles were successful for a reason, and we think there’s still something to cull from their neglected corpses – so here we’d like to dredge up some of Sega’s brightest stars that skipped the supernova and went straight to inert ashy matter...

Few consoles define having a cult following as well as the Dreamcast has, and few Dreamcast games define it as well as Jet Grind Radio (aka Jet Set Radio everywhere outside of North America). It sold like crap, with new copies widely marked down to $10 within a few months of its release, but its fans will passionately defend it to this day as one of the greatest games Sega's beleaguered system ever saw. It's not too hard to see why: JGR was a pioneer of cel-shaded graphics, and its gravity-defying, rail-grinding in-line skating/graffitti action was wildly enjoyable (even if it doesn't hold up quite as well today). The game's rebel-delinquent attitude painted skate punks as heroes and cops as the buffoonish tools of evil corporations, something that was almost unheard of back then.

And its soundtrack was one of the most memorably eclectic of its time, with an assortment of rock, J-Pop, hip-hop and dance tunes that conspired to make the experience of high-speed vandalism and police-dodging even more awesome than it already was...

There’s a widespread notion in the videogame industry that game reviews can have a profound impact on game sales, and for the most part the evidence bears that out. But as tempting as it is to gloat about the supposed power that we, the videogame press, hold over the livelihoods of publishers and developers, it’s not always true. In fact, history is littered with countless examples of megahit games that had originally been ripped to shreds by reviewers

This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the launch of Sega’s Dreamcast, possibly the most beloved failed console of all time. Following a thunderous, record-breaking launch on Sept. 9, 1999, the Dreamcast died a quiet death less than two years later, when Sega opted to pull the plug rather than compete head-on with Sony’s PlayStation 2 juggernaut. In that time, however, it built up an impressive library that included some of

Unsung, underrated and unbelievably good. Sit back, relax, and enjoy.