Jet Ion GP

The Good
For me, this is a difficult game to review. Do I report on my game play experience and what I have seen or do I report on what I should have seen? Here's the problem. Look around on the internet for reviews of this game and you'll find quite a few. Most are critical, some are scathing. From what I have gleaned from various sources this game was one of the early releases for the PS2 and the developers allegedly overestimated the console's graphics capability. Consequently when there are multiple ships on screen, all firing weapons, leaving contrails, and so on the frame-rate drops tremendously and the game becomes jerky, definitely not what you want when trying to fly a high powered craft round a twisty three dimensional course.

Now I have a couple of PS2 consoles but it is a pain setting them up which is why I play all my PS2 games on my pc via an emulator. As such I don't have any of the problems that genuine console gamers have. Perhaps I am seeing the game the way the developer's intended, I don't know, what I do know is that when played via an emulator it's not such a bad game as my research would have me believe.

There is a ridiculous back story about a shortage of fossil fuels, powerful corporations and a need to make a new power source available to the world by competing in high speed races. I don't see how this makes any sense, unless by competing in enough races uses all the remaining fossil fuels so that a new power source becomes inevitable. It doesn't fit with the game at all but it's kinda cute that they tried. So story aside what is there to like about this game? Well straight off the music is good. It starts as soon as the disc is recognised and it's just so 'right'. It's a sort of techno-synth sound with a good base beat that adds to the game's atmosphere without distracting from or competing with it.

The next thing that struck me about the game is the course design. The first course is sort of a tutorial and around twenty percent of it is in a tube but it's still a decent course taking just under one minute per lap. After that the courses get tougher and more spectacular. There are drops that go straight into swooping turns, sections that run through buildings, nasty places where the power ribbon runs through some obstacles, canyon runs, threading the craft between pipes in an industrial setting and more. These later courses take two minutes per lap and are much tougher but they are not boring or impossible, when a geriatric like me believes that they do better with 'just one more run' and end up with a cold cup of coffee after playing for three hours straight you know the designer's done a good job.

The artwork isn't bad either. When I played the game I noticed little details such as half a dozen hot air balloons over the city in the first level, rotating arms of the windmills in the desert, and the flashing lights along the edge of the power ribbon. Flying over the city of Twinkeloplis at night was great, just a shame that there was no time to properly admire it while flying. So far the standout level has been 'Black Pudding', the final level of the Standard Grand Prix. It's long, it's devious, it's got deserts that stretch into the distance, and a big industrial complex that seems to be built into a mountain. The craft are well done too. In many games I've noticed that what the player sees in the vehicle selection screen seems better than the thing they actually compete in. During a race this isn't noticeable unless a screenshot is taken, however the craft in the screenshots I captured looked really good.

The Bad
Despite liking this game I'm not actually that good at it. In some places where I missed a turn, or didn't make it between the dreaded pipes on the 'Black Pudding' level, I bounced off something and ended up either going the wrong way or somewhere underneath the road. This is a problem because there doesn't seem to be any way to turn around and rectify the situation.

The Bottom Line
I like this game on my computer and using an emulator it plays very well with just the occasional sound stutter. It plays so well that it's become my new PS2 favourite and I have scored it as such. However it was intended for a PS2 and a game that does not play on the hardware it was designed for, especially a console game. Based on the reviews I have read and the videos I have seen this game does not play well on a PS2 and therefore it deserves all the bad reviews it has received.