Jak 3

November 17,2004 -

Jak II was a very well received game when it hit store shelves last year. Jak 3 now looks to take the series to the next level by expanding the game's scope even further than its predecessor's huge free roaming environment. Jak 3 accomplishes what it sets out to do and establishes itself as another solid, fun platformer.

The story picks up right where the last game leaves off. Jak has been banished to the wastelands because the people of Haven City are suspicious of his dark eco powers. His faithful sidekick Daxter, and slightly annoying chum Pecker, follow Jak into the desert where their latest adventure begins and Jak is again thrown into the war for Haven City. Overall the story flows well and in the end almost everything you could ask about is tidied up. Finally finding out what the precursors are is worth the price of admission alone.

The gameplay department hasn't changed a whole lot since the last installment; it still relies on a mix of genres to keep the game fresh. There is plenty of variety in the missions, but the game relies way too heavily on driving. While this isn't horrible, it is where the game falters the most. The airborne vehicles control great but the ground vehicles and leapers are squirrelly at best. The leapers are the better of the two; they turn sharply and responsively but are almost too responsive. It is easy to get caught steering the leaper in a zigzag line because the controls are too sensitive. There is a wide variety of ground vehicles available and each car is different in its type of guns and its top speed that it can reach. However, all of the cars have one thing in common, and that is poor control. Even though all of the car missions take place in the desert where less traction is expected, the cars should have a little more traction than they do. Cars will slide out of control going around the easiest of corners, making turns around tough corners all but impossible. Nothing is as annoying as coming to the final stretch of a race and turning just slightly around an easy turn only to spin out of control. Even with these shoddy controls, the driving missions were still enjoyable for the most part.

The rest of the game plays just as you would expect it to. The running and jumping feel great and the shooting is fun, with the exception of some minor camera problems. Every once in awhile the camera swings into an odd place and seeing what you are shooting at becomes difficult. This is a very minor flaw and does not occur very often, but it is worth noting. Also to be noted is that the eco powers didn't come in handy too often. The addition of the light eco powers was nice and the most helpful. The healing power, one of the light eco powers, is the one that comes in handy more often than any other. There are a few of the powers you get, like slow motion, which you will only use immediately after learning the power. Even in situations where the power seems like the logical choice, you are forced to use a different method to reach your destination. While it is a shame the powers are not more useful, it doesn't detract from the overall experience too much.

Previous Jak games have received plenty of attention for being too hard, but Jak 3 is not nearly as difficult. Some players are probably ecstatic about this, but for hardcore platformer fans, disappointment is definitely in store. Hardcore players will breeze through most of the missions in Jak 3; nearly all of them could be completed in one or two tries. The most difficult of all the missions is one where you have to maneuver a ship being trailed by heat-seeking missiles through Haven City. While this was the most difficult mission, it is still easy to complete in about'three tries.

Jak 3 tries really hard to keep the replay value high. There are tons of precursor orbs to collect, although finding them can be a real challenge. The orbs are used to unlock a wide variety of cheats and other things. The most useful of these are the weapon upgrades you can buy; increased ammo capacity and increased efficiency being two of the best. Other unlockables include your standard big head mode and things of that nature. People that must collect everything in the game will be kept busy for quite awhile.

Graphics wise Jak 3 is stellar. The backgrounds are fantastic and they seem to go on forever. The player models look grand as well; the game looks more like a Saturday morning cartoon than a PS2 game. One of the greatest things to note is facial animations; characters look very good when speaking and their mouths move realistically. Jak's running and jumping animations look absolutely awesome; they are very fluid and do not stutter at all. Even though the whole game looks great, the best looking aspect by far is the gun effects. There are nice trails on the bullets, good looking explosions from the grenade launcher, and the electric charge shot by the arc wielder looks marvelous. There are absolutely no complaints in the graphics department; Jak 3 looks fabulous and deserves a lot of praise based solely on how beautiful it is.

The sound is another fantastic aspect of Jak 3. For starters, the weapons sound awesome. The guns fire with power and some of the more explosive ones really pack a wallop. The scatter gun lets out a nice satisfying boom with every round you squeeze off. The vehicle engines rumble realistically as well, and really capture the essence of a dune buggy cruising through the desert. The voice acting is the summit of this game, and every character speaks extremely well. While the writing is a little lackluster at times, the cheesy one-liners and strange sexual innuendos are spoken with pizzazz and they give the characters more depth.

Jak 3 really delivers a solid game on pretty much all fronts. The game is actually fun to play and it will keep the casual gamer busy for quite some time. Sound and graphics alone are enough to warrant people to notice this game. Fortunately for you, the game not only looks and sounds fantastic, it also plays pretty darn well too.

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