Story (8/10): The game takes place shortly after the events of the Precursor Legacy. Jak and Daxter end up in a new place called New Haven, a dystopia ruled by Baron Braxxis. Jak is arrest by the Crimson Guards for an unknown reason leaving Daxter behind. Two years pass and Jak is subjected to experiments of Dark Eco, and Jak swears revenge on Praxxis for what he has done to him. Jak and Daxter escape prison and they join a underground rebel movement to help overthrow Praxxis and bring peace to this dystopian city.
Gameplay (5/10): The game is completely different from the Precursor Legacy. It plays that of a Grand Theft Auto game because you're mostly doing missions for people. The controls are pretty much the same as in the previous game. There are some new features added to the game like Jak now can use guns which is very cool and when you defeat enemies they drop Metal Head pieces which are used a currency in the game. Precursor Orbs are used to unlock secrets in the game as well. Jak also can become Dark Jak for a short period of time as a side effect of being injected with Dark Eco over the past two years. One thing I will say about this game is that this game is just unforgivably hard! It's one of the hardest and unforgiving games you will ever played in your life! "Why?" you may ask? Just sit back and relax as I walk you through the reasons that make this game is so difficult. The first reason is that the difficulty goes from Normal to Hard as hell in a flash. The first few mission of the game may seem a like a walk in the park, but a few missions later, you'll see. You can't take that many hits either, you can only take up to 3-4 hits before you die and to make it worse, Naughty Dog forgot to add checkpoints in between each mission. So when you die (and this will be very often), you go all the way back to the beginning of the stage. In some missions there is a checkpoint or 2, but that doesn't change the fact that when you die you go back! So expect to get angry really quick. Another issue with this game is that you do tons of backtracking. This has nothing to do with the game's grueling difficulty, but it's still a flaw within the game. You go back to the same places in the game more than 5 times. At first you may not mind and you may not return to these parts of the game again, but you will be going back to the same over and over and over again making the game very tedious and repetitive! Here's another problem, the driving in this game is abysmal. The vehicles control like a gigantic turd! Every vehicle in the game has so much over-steer that you'll hit everything. Along with the bad driving controls, there's traffic everywhere. You can't drive fast with a heavy vehicle because you can crash into a pedestrian's vehicle and made it explode on contact and you can't drive fast with a light vehicle because if you crash into something very hard, it will explode. Sure you can switch altitudes, but the ground is bustling and crowded with people and there is a chance the you may hit one of the Crimson Guards which result in a hot pursuit chase. Unlike Grand Theft Auto's pursuits when it's done on Jak 2 it's no where as fun and exhilarating, it's just annoying. On top all of this, there are mission where you are timed to drive somewhere and this game gives you barely enough time to get from place to place, so you have to rush to make it on time, but as I said before, the skies and ground are bustling and crowded with people and vehicles and the driving controls are utter shit. All these issues alone make the game so frustrating that your controller will be meeting a wall faster than you can shout "FVCK THIS GAME!"
Graphics, Music, and Sound (5/10): The graphics of Jak 2 are pretty dark. And by dark, I mean this game has poor lighting and it isn't cool. Music wise... I can't really comment on the music because the music plays so low that I can barely hear it... Sound effect wise... Sub par.... Plus I do like the fact that now Jak has a voice actor for this game and Daxter is there to make his hilarious lines and what not.
Replay Value: Very low: Ok, if this game wasn't so damn difficult, then maybe this game would be worth playing again. But there are secrets that can be unlocked depending on how many Precursor Orbs you collect within the game. Also, if you have this game on PS3, there are trophies (like many PS3 games), so there's a good reason to play this game again. There is a mode called Hero Mode, where you can play through the game with everything. I'm not sure that'll make the game any easier.
Overall: Jak 2 isn't a bad game, it's just heavily flawed. I don't care about the story of the game, but it's just the Gameplay that was the major issue. The lack of checkpoints, the excessive backtracking, the abysmal driving controls, dark graphics, and the unforgiving difficulty makes up for an extremely painful experience. You would have to be a pretty hardcore gamer in order to get the enjoyment out of this game. So yeah, Jak 2 is a step down from The Precursor Legacy and my least favorite of the Jak and Daxter HD Collection. I would tell you all to stay away from this game, but this game is still 100 times better than the shitty games I've reviewed in the past, so I'd suggest renting the game or you could just buy it on the Jak and Daxter HD Collection. But I'm warning you, if you play this game, you will be rage quitting alot. I'm dead serious.
Final Score: I give Jak 2 a "D"
I really wanted to give this game an 8/10, but all the issues the game had caused me to mark it down so drastically.