The police send foot soldiers that grab onto the character and bean the character with night clubs, helicopters that attempt to bomb the character, tanks, motorcycles, officers armed with tear gas, and a detective with an itchy trigger finger. During Challenge stages other skaters will challenge the gamer to a race, to mimic their movements, etc. If the user successfully completes the challenge the skater that issued the challenge is added to the GG's stable. Boss battles place the user against opposing gang members. The object of the Boss stage is to race after these gang members and tag their backs, or spray paint each gang member's back a predetermined number of times to disable them.
Victory is attained by disabling every gang member within the allotted time.
The first time the user ventures through an opposing gang's turf the levels are small neighborhoods, but once the area has been completed the user can re-enter the gang's turf and every area is connected. The reason one wants to replay the gang's turf is that the user can return to search for new graffiti. However, the user must complete the level in order to keep the graffiti. Jet Grind Radio is an ambitious and inventive game, but the game's design presents a problem. The developers sought a simple control scheme and opted to map the center camera and spray paint commands to the same button.