Jet Moto 2 as a concept is the type of thing a six year old would come up with, with the exception of the inevitable space dinosaurs. Unlike the mostly repetitive and predictable tracks in the first Jet Moto, Jet Moto 2 drops all pretenses, making this game a bizarre fantasy thrill-ride. Ten people compete in a tournament consisting of floating hover bikes, while racing in locations ranging from the Grand Canyon to the pit if hell. There is almost no storyline and no cut scenes. (You do get an epilogue with each character if you beat the game on master difficulty, but that’s it.) It’s just a tournament, a multiplayer mode and the ability to select a track, which is more than anyone, could ask for from a game like this. Most game developers these days don’t seem to understand that with a racing game, a GAME is all the F%$@ you need sometimes. A B-movie storyline with retarded mainstream pop music shoe-horned in and T-Mobile ads all over the %&@-damn place is not going to hide the fact that your racing game is just a racing game. There may not be much of a plot or story structure, but that’s the way I like it in a game like this. This game isn’t trying to be something it’s not, (unlike a certain EA racing titles out there,) and instead capitalizes on what it is: a racing game.
- GAMEPLAY:
I’m going to be honest with you. I may consider myself a pretty skilled racer, but to any newcomers to this title, this game will be hard as a brick soaked and cooled in a bowl of liquefied titanium. The only way to progress in the campaign is to come in first place in every single race. There is no way around this hurtle, and you can’t get away with progressing on easy mode, either. Your difficulty has to be set on novice or higher to get all of the tracks, and if you want to get your racer’s special bonus ability, the difficulty has to be set to professional, along with having to come in first place in every single race on all 10 tracks in the season. This game may be hard, but unlike the first Jet Moto game, it isn’t damn near impossible. I’ve beaten this game’s campaign several times using all 10 riders, and I love how this game has so many things to win. To this date, I have never played a PlayStation game more often than I play this one. For this game to have been released when online multiplayer for consoles didn’t even exist yet, this game’s replay value is one of the best out there. Some of the things you can win in professional difficulty are pretty useless, however. There are features like 'upside down cam' and 'cybervision' which add nothing to the game at all while others like ‘Super Agility’ and ‘unlimited boost’ are just all kinds of awesome. - PHYSICS:
The physics of this game are every manner of awesome, even though the physics are what gives this game it’s supposedly notorious difficulty. They may get glitchy as hell sometimes, (Okay, they get glitchy a lot more than sometimes,) but the attention to detail put into the animations of the riders, the stability of each bike, and the way they balance on surfaces makes this one of the most carefully crafted physics engines in games of that generation. The flaws of the previous Jet Moto game have been completely improved, and it really shows this time around. One complaint I have with the physics is that the hang-time is way to freaking long. (Hang-time is the amount of time a rider stays in the air.) I understand what SingleTrac was trying to do, using the slow air physics to give players the opportunity to perform stunts and all, but all it does is make you slower than every other bike on the track, causing other racers to overtake you while you’re stuck in the air. Inconvenient or not, the physics are fun as hell, and that’s the way I like it.
The D-pad controls the direction your navigation, R1 & L1 control the bike’s rotation, and R2 & L2 controls which direction your bike will lean in. I have heard plenty of complaints from players that the controls are too complicated. They may be complex, but that is NOT a bad thing. In this game, the complexity works in its favor as it gives the player more detailed and specific control over the hover bike. The buttons are in all the right places, making navigation in this game a skill without making it a hindrance. The TruePhysics™ engine in this game provides a sense of complexity wherein actual skill and experience is required, and since no two bikes in this game are alike, your technique will always have to be different depending on whom you play. The control scheme of this game is the closest thing to perfection I have ever seen in a videogame, and this should have been the blueprint for how any racing game involving a jet ski should have controlled from that point on.
I have read plenty of reviews of this game, where players complain that the game sucks because the controls are “too hard”, and let me just start this rant off by saying that these people have no f%&#ing Idea what they are talking about. A video game doesn’t “suck” for being difficult, or because you suck AT IT. A game sucks when it isn’t playable, or when it is so unpolished that it becomes un-enjoyable. For crying out loud, you wouldn’t start riding a bike or a skateboard and say it sucks just because you don’t know how to ride one, would you? My point is that a game’s worth is not determined by your lack of competence or your personal ineptitude. >
A motorcycle doesn’t suck just because you don’t know how to ride one, A guitar doesn’t suck just because you don’t know how to play one, and Money doesn’t suck just because it’s hard to come by, so why would this game “suck” just because you don’t know how to f#$%ing play it?Here are just a few examples of the unfair criticism this game receives:
… Okay, so this game deserved two stars because you could fall off of a cliff? It’s unclear where the Finnish line is in a game where all you have to do is go forward? What? ???
These so-called “dumb racers” are the same f*%#ing racers from the first Jet Moto game. You know what else this game has from the first Jet-Moto? THE TRACKS, you moron!!!
So this game “sucks” because it doesn’t “live up” to the previous title? A game developed by the same company, published by the same publisher, under the same name, with the same f@%#ing racers, and even the SAME TRACKS FROM THE FIRST GAME!?!? This doesn’t live up to a game with broken physics, horrible grappling system, and was literally impossible to win on master difficulty without stunt mode turned on? ??? I mean, I know we all have our preferences, but how in the most miniscule of f@#%s does that make Jet Moto 2 suck exactly?
As apposed to a 'fake' racing game - Wait, what?!?!? That doesn't make any sense!
Wait, wait, wait…. You just f@%#ing said this game didn’t live up to the first Jet Moto, and now you are calling it recycled? If this game is “recycled”, then wouldn’t that by extension make the first game just as “generic” as this one? I would ask you to elaborate, but considering the staggering level of stupidity in your comment, I can safely assume you have no idea what the word 'elaborate' means.
Sound Design:
You know what? I’ve always wondered why the male and female riders sound like their respective sexes when they hit each other on the track or fall off a cliff, yet when they perform a stunt, the women sound about as feminine as a steroid abusing heroine addict in a maximum security prison! It’s so strange hearing such a masculine voice coming out of a female character, after performing a triple back flip off of a rollercoaster ramp! It’s like showing up at a blind date only to find out that the hot chick you are going out with is named Enrique, and has a voice that sounds like if Darth Vader’s DNA got spliced with the offspring of Dennis Haysbert, and that child had a voice that sounds like a mix between Don LaFontain, and Chuck Norris!
The sound design in this game is pretty straight foreword and pretty unremarkable. The music, however, is a different story! I may have heard better music in some other games in the past, but rarely do I come across a game where every piece of music in the first 9 tracks is amazing. I can’t quite say the same for some of the recycled music from the First Jet Moto game, but the newer music for the newer maps kick the ever-loving s#!t out of the first games, which, is pretty much an outstanding example of what I can say about the entirety of this game! Even if by some bizarre twist of common sense that I somehow didn’t like this game, I would buy this game just for the music alone!
Conclusion:
This game is the absolute s#!t. It’s one of a very short list of games I still play to this day, and after I finish writing this long, boring and time consuming review, I’m going to play it again.
9/9
The Good:
Exactly what a racing game should be; Fun. Not Over-cinematic, not needlessly sophisticated, just FUN.
The Bad:
The sound design is not the best; the women have the same stunt cheers that the men have, the hang time is like zero gravity sometimes, and some of the badges you can win on professional difficulty kind of suck.