Jak II

THE BAD:
There is hardly anything bad about this game. At all. A few of the missions might get on your nerves, such as helping the Lurkers escape to their underground cities or protecting the Kid and escorting him to the Power Station.

The size of the city may be a bit too big. Several fans of the game complained about there not being enough to do in the large city.

The game's difficulty has been slightly adjusted. It is now twice as hard as Jak and Daxter : The Precursor Legacy.

SUMMARY:
The Jak series is one of my favorite series of games on the Playstation 2. It is also among the best games the black box has to offer. I strongly advise everyone whose a fan of adventure games to buy this game. The amount of freedom the city has to offer is enormous. I hope you buy this game and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

THE BAD:
- Too traditional.. again
- Story just sucks
- Some missions get on your nerves
- Some missions get REALLY boring
- Too much like GTA, should be unique in its own way

SUMMARY:
First of all, I would like to say that I enjoyed the first one more than I did Jak 2. I thought hey, it was pretty good, but now its going too much in a totally different side of gaming. The first one was a game for everyone where you can just sit and have fun with it, but now the second one is just basically another adventure + GTA game. You have the guns, the swearing, the vehicles, basically everything you have in a regular GTA game. I think J&D has really lost its touch now, because the game isn't unique in its own way anymore, but now its on the direction of going totally wrong, into an entire different genre of gaming, which sucks.

On the other hand, there are some good elements to the game itself, since there are new weapons that you can use. The story sucks though, because its nothing really like the first, which did have an okay story at least. I still say its just an okay game, so I would say rent it or play it at a friends house if you must try it out.

THE BAD:
- stupid mini-games
- gets boring
- story

SUMMARY:
In every set of game reviews, you see one that says it is bad while the others say it is good, well that is mine. I found the game boring and lame. I played half way through, and just drpooed my conroller and never awoked the game again.
Sure in Jak 2, they introduce vehicles and guns, but what are thos if they are stupid? I found it to be little copies form differnt games, just put together to form a copy game. I'll admit, iit is pretty fun at the start, but I find it to be a bit dumb later on.
It gets repetive and boring. You must steal a behicle and drive to certain locations sevrile times, and when they do it, they can't pull it off. they could have improved it if they wanted to, put they didn't.
All-in-all, I thought it wasn't a very good game. You may disagree, but this is my thoughts. It was boring and repetive.

THE BAD:
The Cameramen use the camera like a bunch of monkeys, or Daxters as I should say.
Difficulty keeps changing. Did monkeys do that?
It's sometimes all over too quick.

SUMMARY:
Lastability: 6/10.
It's all over too quick I say. You could be doing this for a few days and it's all finished. You want kids to drop their drinks and pick up the pad and play this. It's supposed to last for months not days.
Sound: 8/10.
Man, all those sounds. Sorta lifelike. The guns, cars and voices. Jak even talks. YEAH!!!!!
Graphics: 6/10.
Bit lifelike. The punches, guns and other crap I've probably mentioned. Dark Jak probably had the most effort put into him, next to Daxter and Jak.
Gameplay: 6/10.
Could use some sidequests. Same gameplay besides the bits where you steal cars, Dark Jak and have guns.
Overall: 3.8/5.0.
It's over pretty quick, but luckily swearing, killing, Jak talking and Dark Jak saves this game.

THE BAD:
camera, Haven city, Jak's aim, characters, story...

SUMMARY:
Back in the very early days of the PS2 platform games were in short supply. This was a concern, I mean the platform game is an age old genre that has been on the frontline for every console generation. Ever since the early days of Pitfall Harry stars such as Sonic, Mario and Crash have been the mascots for their respective companies. Then gaming had to go and get all grown up and any game that favored reflexes over puzzles seemed to become frowned upon. That's where Naughty Dog came in. The former developers of Crash Bandicoot sold their fading hero and started work on a fresh series. Jak And Daxter: The Precursor Legacy introduced the world to comedy duo Jak, a strong but mute hero whose personality was whatever you imagined it to be, and Daxter, his wise cracking but inept best friend who had fallen into a vat of the mystical substance Dark Eco and been transformed into a furry orange rodent. Their quest to restore Daxter's original form remains one of my favorite PS2 games thanks to the way it finally brought the reflex based fun of a 2D platformer into a vast 3D world without the control issues you'd normally find. With the news that Jak II: Renegade would be darker than the original I was understandably concerned, but when Super Mario Sunshine failed to grip me and Jak II went platinum I figured it was finally time to play the game. Boy was I in for a disappointment!

The game starts right where the original left off. Jak and Daxter open the precursor portal that unleashes a wave of monsters into their world and traps the pair in a dystopian city where the leaders instantly have Jak arrested for unknown reasons. It takes 2 years; 2 years of torture and dark eco experiments that leave Jak Hulking out whenever he gets angry, but eventually Daxter is able to free him and the scene is set for a new tougher Jak to emerge. A Jak who cares for no-one, who fights not to free the city, nor to help cure Daxter, but simply to find his vengeance.

A lot's been made of this darker style but I have to admit that it doesn't really do anything for me. The story, while certainly more complex than the originals, is really nothing more than a series of predictable plot twists featuring uninteresting characters who send you out on mostly unrelated missions. Unrelated missions that are made all the more pointless by the unbearable stress you will encounter in merely finding the things. You see Jak 2 once again benefits from a massive pre-loaded game world, but this time that world revolves around Haven city. Haven City is a place that works as the central hub to your adventure, but unfortunately it's also a vast and overcrowded city that features no hidden extras that could have motivated exploration. Instead you are required to simply trek back and forth across the city using one of only 2 transportation methods. You can either try walking, that takes far to long, or jacking any one of the many vehicles hovering overhead. Sadly each of these vehicles have the same sluggish controls that make collisions impossible to avoid in a world where mindless A.I bots drive bumper to bumper. Of course if you must crash then you have to accept the guards who patrol Haven's over crowded streets, mostly just ignoring crime but declaring all out war on you if you happen to bump one of their vehicles. Needless to say, running away from an army of unrelenting psychos for up to 10 minutes at a time gets extremely stressful, especially when you realize that they exist purely as filler between the actual levels.

Thankfully once you do get down to the actual missions then the game is fairly enjoyable to play. There are a few badly done missions set in the city itself and usually involving a race against time on one of those sluggish vehicles, but nevertheless the majority of the levels are able to produce a fairly solid platform experience. All of the staples are at hand, crumbling ledges, timed explosions, spinning blades and whatnot are all present and correct in order to block your progress. Naughty Dog have actually managed to get the difficulty level just right too, providing just enough check points throughout each level to avoid being too difficult without leaving you breezing through the entire game in a single weekend.

There are a few major advancements that Jak II holds over the original though. The first is in Jak's use of guns this time round. Throughout the game Jak will acquire 4 different guns each of which range in terms of force, range, rate of fire, and ammo availability. Now in concept there's nothing wrong with this since it fits in with the new style, and in practice it's a lot of fun to blast away multiple guards using your futuristic shotgun. Sadly the combination of a lack of strafing, a horrible camera, and Jak's inability to use common sense in aiming ensures that whenever possible you will revert back to the tried and tested physical attacks carried over from the original.Or better yet, you'll collect the dark eco from your fallen enemies and use it to transform into the super powerful Dark Jak, a creature that is fast, powerful, and nigh on indestructible who really adds a whole new dimension to the combat portions of each level.

A far more satisfying advancement comes in the form of Jak's new hoverboard that he finds early on. In concept, and in the training level, this is nothing more than a pointless attempt to draw in the Tony Hawks crowd, but you soon find that it does add some needed variety to the proceedings. while on this board you'll travel fast enough to move over slopes that would otherwise be too steep, you'll hover safely above water and dark eco pools, grind over rails, jump longer gaps and other abilities that will test your reflexes to the max, but will be essential for traversing any areas where the terrain makes running impossible.

It's just a shame that these missions will usually end up being far too short since even though the intuitive controls made for solid platform fun (despite a poor camera and disappointing level design) it still amounted to around 2 minutes of platform action in between each of those annoying 10 minute manhunts.

However as disappointed as I was with Jak II I can not argue that it is a technical marvel. The games sound is extremely atmospheric, with the music complimenting the graphical style of each location; from broken down city slums to bright green forests, perfectly. Not that I would want to disregard the games superb voice acting. I didn't like Jak's new character but that voice, man he sounds cool, and Daxter, well despite getting a little overt with his innuendo he still remains the same old Daxter.

It's in the visuals that the game really stands out though. In terms of general graphics it still looks good, and for a Platinum budget title it looks amazing, but when you factor in the fact that the game has no loading times between sections, a draw distance that'll have you gazing in awe, and some atmospheric lighting effects, then you have to be impressed at how the game keeps running at such a silky smooth frame rate.

Sadly that really is just in those few technical areas, but as a game itself it just tries to do too much and fails. It has delusions of Grand Theft Auto but lacks the scope, spends way too much time setting up the poor story and not nearly enough time pushing the players reflexes, and then makes the mistake of using terribly sluggish controls for its big new feature. All in all a game that really should have been better.

THE BAD:
- Some of the timed missions can be hard.
- When hitting a guard on the jetboard you lose health and fall off the jet board.
- Can kinda drag on at bits.
- Annoying when you steal a guards zommer because they chase at you and shoot you for ages.

SUMMARY:
I enjoyed the 1st game alot but Jak II is way better than the J&D. The story line is really cool. The city(Haven City) that you play in is much better than the differents villiages in J&D. Plus now Jak does not just use his body to destroy enemies, you've got guns now which you can do gun courses on it get used to them. The races in the stadium are really cool, fast and harder to control than an normal zoomer. On your second race you get to play as Daxter, not to meation you play him again later on in the game. One of the best facots I really liked about this game was Jak's ability to transform in Dark Jak, the different powers you get are quite cool. I'd say the best one is dark bomb which destroys everyone around you. The Jetboard,which I get later on the game,is really cool but just too slow for my liking. Overall I really enjoyed this game and I hope who ever is reading this, it helps them.

THE BAD:
It's too ****ing hard!

SUMMARY:
Jak 2 is A LOT different than Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, but it's still cool. Both Jak and Daxter look a lot better than they did in the first game. The plot kind of confused me at first; it's weird. Now you can turn into Dark Jak. Dark Jak's really cool. In Haven City, you can steal Zoomers from people, and if you attack the Krimzon Guards, they'll shoot at you. It's cool, yet scary. 0.o The Hoverboard is cool; it lets you go across water without getting attacked by any nasty water critter and go over dark eco. There's also four different guns you can use. The best, I think, is the Vulcan Fury. It's good for shooting a lot of stupid Metal Heads. I hate Metal Heads, though. They are a lot worse than Lurkers. Some of the missions are extremely hard at times. Luckily, the game's a lot longer than the first. If you liked Jak and Daxter, you won't neccasarily like this, but you might. I did.