Jak 3 Review

Jak is back for the third and purportedly final time in Jak 3, the conclusion to Naughty Dog's best-selling platforming franchise. Last year's Jak II turned the series right on its ear, replacing the original Jak & Daxter's verdant hills and lighthearted whimsy with a dystopian future cityscape and gameplay sensibilities reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto. The final entry in the Jak trilogy makes no such ambitious changes. This game simply builds on Jak II's winning formula by adding more weapons and abilities, varied kinds of action, and an interesting and well-told story; in short, all the stuff that made its predecessor a great game. Jak 3 offers something for any fan of action games, and despite some extreme similarities to Jak II, it's a fitting end to the series.

Jak and Daxter must save the world from evildoers--yes, again--in Jak 3, the conclusion of the Jak series.

The last time we saw Jak and Daxter, they were fresh from a valiant turn that saw them liberating the futuristic Haven City from the tyrannical Baron Praxis and defeating Kor, the vile leader of those loathsome metalheads, in the process. Considering the heroes' welcome the pair received at the end of Jak II, you might be surprised to see that Jak and Daxter have been banished to the harsh wastelands outside of Haven City by the very citizenry they saved from certain doom. What a bunch of ungrateful snots. Apparently, a multitude of equally despicable factions moved to fill the power vacuum left in Praxis' wake. Haven City has become a battleground contested by such players as an endless army of war robots, led by Jak's old nemesis Errol (who has himself undergone a considerable cyborg retrofit); the newly regrouped metalheads, who have expanded into the city proper; and Count Veger, ostensibly a friend of the people who plans to achieve absolute peace, even if he has to destroy the entire world to get it.

Jak and Daxter are made scapegoats for this sad state of affairs, and they are summarily left to die in the desert. Luckily, they're picked up by a group of hardened but benevolent outlanders led by the wise warrior Damas, who take the pair in and allow them to stage a comeback from their own desert town. Over the course of the game, you'll run into and work with (or against) just about every character you saw in the past game--such as Samos, Keira, Ashelin, and even Pecker--and you'll make plenty of new friends and enemies, too. Before the game is over, the fate of the whole world will hang in the balance, with an impending extraterrestrial threat summoning the might of the very precursors themselves. Your journey will take you from the protective walls of Damas' wasteland stronghold back to the war-torn Haven City, out into the barren desert and even into the center of the planet. Jak 3's story does a great job of keeping the game moving along at a snappy pace. Also, the story maintains the trademark humor of the series with frequent, well-animated cutscenes and one hilarious plot twist toward the end that fans of the entire series will definitely appreciate.

Like the previous game, Jak 3 uses a sandbox-style hub system that has you operating inside a teeming city environment, accepting missions from various important characters in a mostly linear fashion to access new action levels and to drive the plot forward. Jak II took place entirely inside Haven City, but in this game, you'll move frequently between the outland citadel and Haven, first at certain story junctures and later at will. The new city is sparsely decorated, as you'd expect a beleaguered desert town to be, with nimble lizards as the preferred method of transportation and a few hardy citizens milling around their modest dwellings. Meanwhile, Haven City is being torn apart by the ongoing conflict; everywhere you go, the city's guard is clashing with the metalheads or the robot army (and sometimes both), giving you a good feeling that things truly aren't going that well for the poor people of the city. As is expected with games that use this sort of hub system these days, a small minimap marked with various icons makes it easy to figure out how to get to the next waiting character and receive your next mission to keep things moving along.

There are more weapons and special powers than ever to use in the game's myriad platforming levels.

The missions themselves are where the real action comes into play, and anyone who played Jak II will feel instantly at home here. In fact, the action is essentially identical to that in the previous game. Jak still has the same assortment of basic moves, such as the spin, the dash punch, the double jump, and the ever-present butt-stomp. You've still got the same four categories of guns--shotgun, rifle, Gatling gun, and the heavy-duty peacemaker--although this time around, each gun has two upgrades that radically alter their functions. One of the rifle upgrades produces a spinning disc that sprays bullets rapidly in every direction, for instance, while the Gatling gun can be altered to spit out a potent arc of electricity. Between the standard melee attacks and the whopping 12 different guns, there are plenty of ways for you to deal with your endless stream of enemies.

That's not nearly the end of the things you can do in Jak 3's platforming levels, though. You can still transform into dark Jak, which grants you increased melee combat capabilities and a number of potent attack powers that you can pull out when the going gets especially rough. This time around, Jak will meet up with some powerful monks who grant him the ability to become light Jak, a form that specializes in defensive abilities such as slowing down time, regenerating health, utilizing a protective shield, and even using an ethereal pair of wings to achieve limited flight ability. Finally, the trusty hoverboard returns from Jak II, allowing you to zip around from place to place quickly (it also comes in quite handy in a couple of levels). At times it's actually a little tough to keep up with all of your abilities, but they're introduced evenly throughout the game and most of them can be used interchangeably, so you can pick your favorite weapons or other attack moves and switch things up whenever you want. You won't spend all of your time in regular platforming scenarios in Jak 3; not even close, in fact.