Once a hit success on the SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, 3DO and other platforms, Electronic Arts' Road Rash series has taken sort of a nose-dive ever since it went from 2D to polygonal-based 3D. Road Rash 3D was nothing special, Road Rash 64 was just plain bad, but now the designers have gone back to the drawing board and have come up with a brand new incarnation of Road Rash for the PlayStation. Road Rash: Jailbreak is what Electronic Arts has come up with, and it sticks to the idea that the previous games in the series started, while incorporating new ideas to further the game into new, uncharted territories. Despite their efforts, though, we have still come away feeling disappointed by the final product.
There are a few distinct qualities of Road Rash that separate it from the other racers on the market (these are its trademarks; otherwise it wouldn't be different from the glut of generic racers available). One, is that all the action takes places strictly on motorcycles, another is the warped type of artistic style. Take one look at the cover artwork (which is butt ugly, by the way) and you have a clue as to what is awaiting you within the game CD. Otherwise, the attraction to Road Rash is that the game lets you senselessly beat people up while riding at insane speeds down the highway, with weapons like chains and baseball bats. Smashing a rival biker in the face a couple times and watching him hit the pavement (forcing him to loose numerous position spots) has never been so much fun.
As series evolve, sometimes they will loose sight of what made them successful and enjoyable in the first place, though thankfully Road Rash has been able to avoid that fate, even in Road Rash: Jailbreak. Rolling through the turbulent city streets and near barren country sides, pulling out a friendly fist or metal bar and making it collide against a nice hunk of human flesh makes trudging through the game's yawn-filled gameplay worthwhile. The problem with Road Rash: Jailbreak's central attraction, is that a lot of the time I found it was difficult to even hit the other motorcyclists. Racing past them, swinging my fist or weapon did not get the job done most of the time. I had to adjust to the same speed as the other racer and maintain that while I get as close as possible.
The PlayStation is continuing to show it's age, and it obviously can't handle what was attempted to be done in Road Rash: Jailbreak. The frame rate itself is able to stay fairly consistent throughout the races, but on the flip side the frame rate is not all that fast to begin with. It's fast enough that gameplay is comprehensible, but it would be nice to see it running at a smoother rate. A little optimization on the game's engine, or perhaps scaling down the game's models (having sixteen racers at once is part of the problem) and environments' polygon counts. Other than the frame rate, the models are fine when they're riding on the bikes, but watching them hunch around when knocked off their bike is humorous.
Like I mentioned, when your character or the other bikers are knocked off their vehicle, the camera switches to a 3rd person perspective view where you have to guide your character back to the bike. This whole idea is utterly frustrating, aggravating and poorly executed. If you are lucky, you'll be able to spot where your bike lands as you fall, but more often than not, I was unable to find out where my bike had crashed. And since the game gives no indication (no arrows, no nothing) of where the bike is located, you are left walking blindly about the track in the hopes that your bike will show up in the distance. Losing races or numerous precious positions pots happened far too many times due to this far compared to any other of the game's quirks.
For gamers who are looking for something in the single player department, Road Rash: Jailbreak offers three different modes: Jailbreak, Five-O and Time Trial. Jailbreak is the normal campaign where you pick a gang you want to join and complete races that will earn you new weapons, bikes, credits and other assorted nifty things. Five-O is a bit more entertaining. You take control of a cop and have a few missions where it is your job to apprehend the criminals by all means necessary. This is probably one of the more entertaining modes, though compared to the time spent in the normal campaign; it would have been nice to have some more to do. Time Trial is fairly self-explanatory.
On the multiplayer side, there are few more interesting modes that can be looked into. Skull-to-skull is basically you against another human competitor in a race to the finish, and Cops and Robbers has one of the players being a robber on the run and the other as an officer of the law trying to track him down. Side Car comes in either cooperation or versus form, and has a small attachment being added onto the motorcycles so two characters can play at once on one vehicle. Time Trials is the same as in the single player mode.
Chances are this will be the last time that we see the Road Rash series make an appearance on the current generation of consoles, and that should be a good thing. Road Rash: Jailbreak improves on what was lacking in Road Rash 3D and Road Rash 64, but there is still much work to be done. Hopefully the more powerful consoles on the horizon (and the one already here, Dreamcast, that EA refuses to support) will provide a rejuvenation of sorts for the currently lacking series.
-- Patrick Klepek
