Small touches in the animations, like the back wheel lifting off the ground after slamming the breaks, or the way the rider eases into his/her most streamlined position on straight-aways is great. The riders and bikes, on the other hand, look great. Everything from the road to the buildings, cars to sky looks like it was dithered down to about a 64-color palette (and in the age of Crash and Spyro, we all know that simple textures can look good, even flat shaded polys can suffice in some cases). Now I understand that the graphic style of the Road Rash games is meant to be gritty and a little dark, but EVERYTHING looks like sandpaper. The in-game visuals so closely resemble the old 16-bit game that I had to actually whip out the old Genesis version to make sure they were any better (they were, but not by much).

Unfortunately, the interface is about the only graphical area that will garner any positive comments. Graphics Jailbreak's interface is simple, and uncumbersome, offering all the info you need on-screen without any real hunting. There's even an option to have a buddy ride shotgun in a sidecar, dealing the smack down while you handle the driving. What's more, Jailbreak offers the option of combos and multiple styles of attack with which to unload your choice of 9 weapons (including a super weapon that delivers a one-hit knockoff). Nothing beats the feeling you get after watching your best friend (or roommate, as the case may be) meet first your fist/chain/club/crowbar/whatever, then the pavement. The real beauty of this series, however, has always been the multiplayer. Sure, the scenery changes at the start and finish, but the open road in between can usually be categorized as desert, city streets, or open country roads. For instance, you might travel from downtown to the lighthouse, or from the lighthouse to the dockyards, but the overall track still feels the same. While it appears there are quite a few tracks, they're actually just various locales on a map linked by a stretch of road. The single player game offers the chance to either stick to your roots as a hog- or crotch rocket-riding biker (Jail Break mode), or take to the streets as the nightstick wielding long arm of the law (Five-O mode). The new bikes you earn as you rise through the ranks do feel different (this can range from tighter control to faster acceleration to higher top speed), especially after you've spent a fair amount of time on your old bike.

As you race, you'll earn better bikes and weapons, but the competition gets the same benefits. Now depending on the gang you pick at the start of the game, you will either control a bad ass hog, or a slick, speedy crotch rocket. The whole goal behind Jailbreak is to rise in rank through one of 2 gangs you pick until you can finally lead the charge to break the king of all bikers, Spaz out of jail, hence the title Road Rash: Jailbreak. Road Rash wouldn't work if not for the perfect balance of racing and combat, and I'm proud to say that Jailbreak delivers, with the small addition of combos to the combat side and upgradeable bikes to boot.

Neither element is all that good by itself, but it's when they're brought together, like that prodigious moment when peanut butter met chocolate, that they become something truly greater than the sum of their parts. Gameplay Road Rash is, at its heart, just a simple beat-em-up and a racer. Road Rash: Jailbreak is fun, but not in the same way it used to be. Everything that makes up Road Rash is here, but it's somehow lost its soul along the way. It's all there, but with little in the way of innovation or originality. The control is there, the fighting is there, the speed is there, the crappy framerates are there, and the gritty graphics are there. It's as if the game was ripped directly from the cart I spent so many years neigh-umbilically attached to, and plopped onto a CD.

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