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| | Title:
Jak 3
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System:
Playstation 2
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Genre:
Action Platformer
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Publisher:
Sony
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Developer:
N/A
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Release:
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Online:
No
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ESRB:
T
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After a franchise in the video game industry reaches three games, people begin to wonder if the developer will be able to incorporate enough new features to make it seem logical to pick up the game. A lot of times the developers opt for minimal production cost by simply slapping on a new location, story, and protagonist hoping the game’s title will carry it off to monumental sales (Medal of Honor anyone). Jak 3 is not one of these cases. While there is a fairly good amount of repeated characters, sounds, levels, and gameplay mechanics Jak 3 offers enough new “stuff” for it to be excused.
When we last left Jak and his furry sidekick Daxter they had just saved Haven City from an impending Metal Head invasion and discovered parts of Jak’s mysterious history. So to see Jak and Daxter being banished to the wastelands for “crimes” against the city is one of the more surprising openings found in Naughty Dog’s game collection. See Haven City is not in the best of shape; Metal Heads still make attacks, the government is not very organized and general chaos would be the best term for the state of the city. Everyone blames Jak and Daxter (except their friends) and the government hoping to gain favor of the citizen’s has banished our heroic duo. From here the third game in the series takes off. Overall, the story is okay. Honestly, there are way too many clichés in this game and it hurts the experience. How many times do we have to do the hero returning to save the day story? Jak has also mellowed from his Jak 2 “bad boy” attitude. He’s come to grips with what has happened to him. The result is a more mature and likeable Jak, which I know, felt like a breath of fresh air into the series. Jak’s furry sidekick Daxter is still the typical smart-ass. It’s sad to say though his lines aren’t as funny as in Jak 2. Maybe the writers ran out of jokes, but even the Daxter and Pecker confrontations pale in comparison to the Jak 2 exchanges. In Jak 2 I laughed out loud, in Jak 3 I merely chuckled. But don’t fret; there is one hilarious plot twist in the game that almost makes up for it. I won’t say when it is or what it is but veterans of the series will feel truly rewarded by it.
Jak 3 looks great on the PS2. As each new wave of PS2 games emerge developers are showing us just how much they can squeeze out of Sony’s machine. Jak 3 is just the latest example. The outsider’s village glows from the fires around it, to contrast with the harsh neon colors of Haven City. Probably the biggest achievement is the large wasteland. Never is a loading screen seen, and for such a detailed and graphically beautiful landscape that’s quite a feat. Also Jak 3 offers up cut scenes I love to watch not just for the story information but to see how proficient the animators are at making the characters come alive on the screen.
Jak 3 controls are almost identical to the previous Jak 2’s. All that has changed from Jak 2 to Jak 3 is how tight and controllable Jak now feels while on screen. In Jak and even a little in Jak 2, Jak seemed to be walking on ice at times, not stopping when he should resulting in some very frustrating deaths or mistakes. Now at Jak 3, Jak’s controls almost as well as Ratchet did from Ratchet and Clank 2. This is a good thing. Thanks to this improvement Jak 3’s gameplay now flows much more smoothly. A big contributing factor is that the difficulty curb has been addressed. No more tossing your controller. At the core Jak 3 is a platformer. But what is so great about Jak 3 is how it incorporates other genres of games into itself without overshadowing its origin. The biggest addition of this being the racing section built into the game. Gamers will remember the terrible controls of the vehicles in Jak 2. Jak 3 has tried it’s hardest to make gamers forget by providing them with a medley of different land based vehicles to be driven around the wide-open desert. It’s a great tie into the story and setting and as a result does not feel like a gimmicky gameplay add-on. It would only make sense to drive across a desert. Who’d want to walk? There are quite a few of these land-based vehicles each one handling differently and providing a unique offensive capability. As a result only certain vehicles can be used in certain missions and gamers will find themselves gravitating towards a vehicle of there choosing when going on joy-rides in between the story missions. But nothing is perfect. First off while the vehicles handle much better than in previous Jak titles, they are nowhere near the control and response of a racing game. Too often the faster vehicles will spin out, or drift much further than anticipated. To not make driving around a boring ordeal Naughty Dog added in enemies who also drive vehicles. The idea was to at times have an intense vehicular fight across a barren but fun landscape. This doesn’t happen in Jak 3. Instead a player can’t go two seconds without being attacked by a plethora of enemies who seem to have taken driving lessons from the same school. This school also seems to only have taught one thing; drive right at the other person firing your guns off and wreck into them. Sounds annoying? It gets worse when missions require Jak to get to a certain spot under a time limit or are the dreaded escort missions.
Jak 2 introduced Dark Jak to the gaming masses; an evil version that Jak could change into if he acquired enough dark eco. Dark Jak was not only near invulnerable but also possessed uncanny fighting abilities. In Jak 2 he was a last resort, something the player changed too if he or she was completely overwhelmed and needed to kick some ass really fast. Well Dark Jak is back and he’s brought a friend along Light Jak. While not an entirely original choice the improvements when using Dark Jak and Light Jak need to be touched upon. In Jak 2 a player could transform into Dark Jak only when they collected enough eco. This severely limited the amount of time Dark Jak could be used. In Jak 3 players can now switch to Dark Jak off and on the fly. It doesn’t matter how much dark echo is collected. It’s a very welcome evolution of Jak’s powers and some could argue that Naughty Dog is showing the players how Jak has now better control of his own powers and this is felt through the controls. In addition Dark Jak now has a few more moves, all of them meant to for dealing out large amounts of pain. Complimenting Dark Jak is now Light Jak. Light Jak can also be switched on and off at a whim and offers up defensive capabilities; he can slow down time, allow Jak to fly, heal himself and even erect a shield. It’s a shame though that Dark and Light Jak were not used enough in the game. I was expecting huge dungeons where switching between the two was required. I hardly got these.
The length of Jak 3 felt shorter than Jak 2. Now this may make many gamers scratch their heads wondering how the heck a game could be bigger in world and story but still feel shorter. Well it’s mostly due to Jak 2’s failing and Jak 3’s improvements. Jak 2 required untold amounts of backtracking across the city, which severely lengthened the game. One of Jak 3’s biggest goals was to do away with the backtracking which results in a game that feels shorter than it actually is. Luckily, Naughty Dog added in extras that add in enough replay value to make gamers come back to the world of Jak 3 a little longer.
Jak 3 is a great game. It takes the safe route of not trying to introduce anything terribly new and fixing the problems Jak 2 had. With twelve guns, vehicular combat, Dark and Light Jak, and platforming galore almost any gamer should find something to like about Jak 3. A 9.3 out of 10.
| The Core Score |
Overall
9.3 |
| Fun |
|
10 |
| Gameplay |
|
9 |
| Graphics |
|
9 |
| Audio |
|
10 |
| Replay |
|
9 |
|
| | | |
