quote

After you've sold 7.5 million copies in a trilogy that tells an epic story that takes place in an imaginary war-torn city with some beautiful graphics and smooth controls, what do you do next? Hit the freakin' road! That's what Naughty Dog is doing with their upcoming Jak X: Combat Racing, taking the driving parts of Jak 3 and wildly expanding upon them to create a completely different new game. It may sound crazy, but the folks at Naughty Dog have got some skills and if they're willing to put some time into it it should be something good, and with plenty of explosions.



While a Jak racing game may be a departure for the franchise, it's nothing new for Naughty Dog. After making three Crash Bandicoot titles on the PSone, it changed directions and made a kart-racer with Crash Team Racing. It may have been a couple of years after Mario Kart 64, but it still packed in some gameplay and p more than its fair share of fun and thrills. If Jak X can do the same, then we're in for a hell of a ride.

All of this racing in the land of Jak starts with the reading of Krew's will. Jak killed Krew in Jak II and an invite to a reading is more than a little odd. When Jak and Daxter arrive in Kras City they find that Ashelin, Keira, Samos and Torn have also been invited. And it all takes a turn for the worse when Krew reveals in a recording that everyone at the reading, even his daughter Rayn, has been poisoned. The only way to get the antidote is that they must race for him in the Kras City Grand Championship.

After Jak saved the world in Jak 3 the world has flourished as cities were built and new sports emerged. One of these was combat racing, a sport where drivers raced and attacked each other to thrill the crowds. Kras City has emerged as the premiere racing spot and the Kras City Grand Championship is the biggest event on the planet. All of the deadliest and fastest racers are here and Jak is right in the middle of all of it.

All this sets up Jak and his friends for some racing that takes place in 20 different tracks and eight open combat arenas that have a total of more than a 100 events between them. The racing takes place in jungles, along cliffs, and even over ice and snow. But these aren't little kart racers. Instead, the vehicles are burly cars that are more developed versions of the stripped-down vehicles seen in Jak 3. While driving, the cars feel solid and when they come crashing back down to the ground they have some definite weight to them. The world may still be cartoonish, but the feeling is more serious this time.


Who needs Eco when you have a big-ass cannon?




While driving along the tracks, the cars can pick up weapons, turbos, and health along the way. These are represented by colored blocks. Blue is for the turbo and the green is for the health while the yellow is for the forward-facing weapons and the red is for the backward-facing weapons. After hitting the yellow or red blocks, the different possible weapons will quickly cycle before settling on a selection at random. If the weapon is what the player wants, then it can be stored for use. If not, it's just a matter of shooting it off to clear up space for another since only one can be held at a time.

The forward-facing weapons include a variety of missiles of the homing and non-homing variety. We're sure that more will be added later, but it was the selection of backward-facing weapons that were more interesting for the tracks. These could be oil slicks or sentry turrets to shoot at anyone who comes next or even mines to spice up the road a little. Placing a mine right after a tight turn is sure to take out an enemy or two. But it's important to be careful since these stick around until they get used. So if the other drivers avoid the traps, it's possible that the player can be responsible for his own explosion when he comes around the lap again.

All of the weapons have two different levels of intensity. There is the standard version and the boosted version that appears when drivers have collected enough dark eco while driving. The boosted versions do an extra level of damage and have a different look to them. For example, the oil slick turns into a burning oil slick so that anyone who runs into it loses control and catches fire. Nice.



The vehicles themselves can be tricked out between races with a variety of options. The engine, steering, chassis, and braking can all be altered to be in tune with the style of racing of the driver. Players can also attach new body parts to make the car look just the way they want it to. They can even hang some fluffy dice or put up a bobble head if they want to.

All this is better with a friend and so there is both split-screen multiplayer for offline and online play for up to six players. There will also be split-screen online action for those who want to play with a friend and online at the same time. In the multiplayer mode there will be clans to join, a buddy list, and a ranking system. Just going online is not enough and so Naughty Dog is going to be providing all the extra treats to keep players bashing into each other and trash-talking. With open channels for voice chat there will always be an opportunity to gloat.

And while the online sounds good, it plays smoothly, too. We had a chance to jump into an online match with other journalists in the same room and some testers elsewhere and all of the action ran at a solid framerate with no noticeable lag at all. After completing a few rounds of beating up other writers and getting taken down by the professionals with dozens of hours of Jak X experience already under their belts we were pretty convinced that team Naughty Dog has another graphically stunning and fun game on their hands.

So Jak is off and going in a new direction and the world may yet be a better place for it. With E3 coming right around the corner we'll learn even more about Jak X: Combat Racing and why we'll yet again be looking forward to the fall for another videogame release.

quote Purple bogies

i have a few questions:

1.will the same actors be in it (if not it might be a bit tacky )

2.will their be a proper storyline throughout or just a reason for them to race

please and thank you for finding out
this is going to be awesome!!

quote

April 26, 2005 - Jak X feels surprisingly good. That was the first thing that sprung to mind when I settled in to give the newest version of Jak X: Combat Racing a playthrough at Sony's pre-E3 event yesterday in Santa Monica. Though not as different in comparison to the previous version as much as the new build of Ratchet standing beside it, Jak still had a couple of subtle differences that fans might find interesting.



Perhaps the most obvious difference was the improvement in the framerate and speed. Much faster at this point than I thought it would be, Combat Racing is surprisingly quick for a game that got its inspiration from a more deliberate predecessor (Jak 3). More importantly, though, Naughty Dog has already begun making a number of noticeable improvements to the handling. Taking turns, passing competitors, and avoiding your opponent's weaponry is a hell of lot easier than expected. Nice!

The two new tracks available were pretty cool too. Set around the infamous Haven City, both courses had a familiar look but were completely new at the same time. Fans of videogame routes that twist and turn will probably love both of these areas, because they zigzag all over the place and have plenty of peaks and valleys along the way. My only real concern at this point is that the tracks themselves didn't seem to be as much of a danger as my opponents were. Don't get me wrong, aggressive AI is always fine and good, but I'm of the ideal that challenging track design is the most important aspect of any competitive racer. But who knows? There's still plenty of time, plenty of game, and plenty of room for improvement left before judgment is really necessary.

The remaining improvements were pretty much of the presentational variety. Special effects were a little more obvious, the clipping was noticeably less so, and the sound packed a bit more punch. We got a glimpse of a few more vehicles too, including those of Kiera and a few others we didn't recognize before.

We were told that a more refined E3 build of Jak X: Combat Racing will be available for play at E3 in a couple of weeks. New tracks, more drivers, and a couple of other little secrets are expected along with it. Check back with us then to find out what they are.

quote

May 18, 2005 - We just played Jak X and it looks great. Right away we noticed that not even the poorly connected and terribly setup LCD monitors at Sony's E3 camp could make this title gem look bad, even if they did busily pump out pixilated messes that are supposed to be video signals.


In keeping with all things Jak, the slick graphics include nicely detailed cars and characters, large environments, vivid colors and ultra smoothed out animation. Not in keeping with other Jak games, X Combat Racing is all about driving cars...all about driving cars.
Obviously when you take Jak and make a racer out of his adventures you're not going to get Gran Turismo. What you will get, however, is an off-road title that heavily emphasizes boosting and weapon use. In fact, the turbo button is used so frequently that it somewhat reminded us of Burnout and F-Zero, which both also focus almost exclusively on rapid boost use.

Unlike those titles, however, Jak X encourages its players to break boundaries and not bother with streets or curbs. Even in a strictly lap per lap racing environment like the first lush jungle setting we played, the game provided plenty of leeway when we "accidentally" drove up on the walls skirting the course. There were times when we figured we wrecked hard, but Jak X considerately provided us plenty of buffer space so that we didn't immediately grind to a halt after every nick and scrape.

Even though this particular component of the game played out nicely, X Combat Racing still needs some work in the balancing and tweaking department. Specifically, the physics need to be touched up a bit. For instance, a car that begins from a standstill on an incline will move way too sluggishly, but we were assured that all minor problems like that would soon be fixed. And honestly, we believe.

In addition to simple racing, the game also features several other modes. Of them, we participated in Turbo Dash, Artifact Race and Deathmatch.

Deathmatch is the gameplay type that lets Jak essentially become Twisted Metal. The level we played was called Haven Cliffs. It contained rolling hills, treacherous half completed bridges, lots of jumps, and a surprisingly complex assortment of interconnected tunnels. Along its edge ran a handful of nicely animating waterfalls. And at some points in the map the ground had given way to a deep and deadly pitfall.

In deathmatch, success depends entirely on how quickly and effectively a player can pick up certain powerups. Unlike other games that offer distinctly different advantages and disadvantages attached to specific weapon types, the powerups in Jak have a cumulative effect. So, if I quickly grab a lot of red powerups I'll have greatly increased the effectiveness of my defensive shields, whereas a lot of yellow will turn my standard machinegun into a more powerful one and then eventually into a series of vicious homing missiles. When you add computer controlled bots to a field of four players, the action can get pretty hectic.

We spent less time with Artifact Race, which starts players at different locations and then asks them to pass through a series of checkpoints to progress. What we did see a bit more of, though, was Turbo Dash through a snowy wonderland with softly falling flakes -- a mode that features a cool points system. Basically you need to keep using your turbo boost to charge a power cell, which you can then use to kill other racers. So, it's pretty much combat mixed with constant turbo craziness. Really cool, actually.

For reference, the basic controls look like:


L2 - Jump
L1 - Defensive weapon
R2 - Turbo
R1 - Offensive weapon
R3 - First-person perspective
X - Accelerate
Circle - Emergency brake
Square - Brake
Triangle - Look back
With cool graphics, loveable characters, fast racing, lots of boosting, weapons, a variety of modes and a wicked multiplayer component, Jak X should make quite a splash when it's released this fall.

quote

Gamers looking to show off their own style can customize their cars to their liking with "snap on" parts, decorative decals, and other accessories. Once the car is outfitted, it can be shown off in online races with other players from around the world. Each car can be equipped with a variety of weapons, including smart bombs, mines, and several projectile weapons.

quote

Instead of your standard racer, Jak X is more of a racing adventure game. There are over 100 missions to complete as you follow Jak's story to become the top racer. These missions will have multiple play modes like standard racing, death matches, time trials, and more. There will also be special events and bonus tasks to discover. The action takes place within ten tracks with 20 configurations (like different paths to take and whatnot). There are even reverse and mirrored versions of each track, so expect a lot of diversity.

quote

To compete in these races, you need a vehicle, and X has plenty of options there. There are 12 classes of cars to choose from, and they each handle differently. They can all be customized with new parts, decals, paint jobs, and even goofy accessories like fuzzy dice and booble heads. Each vehicle can be upgraded as well, allowing you to enhance their engines, steering, brakes, chassis, and weapons.