Jak and Daxter are back in Jak 2: Renegade, a Platformer with a difference.
Jak 2: Renegade, picks up not long after the events of The Precursor Legacy. Jak and Daxter have found some precursor technology, so they take it to Keira, Samos's daughter. Jak activates it, and some sort of wormhole opens. Through the wormhole they see a creature. Then Jak, Daxter, Keira and Samos get sucked into the wormhole. When Jak and Daxter awake, they have no idea where they are.
Jak gets found by some soldiers, and someone named Erol, leader of the Crimson Guards. He gets taken to a building and for some years, gets allsorts of experiments tested on him under the commands of Baron Praxis, leader of the city Jak and Daxter are in. Eventually, after 2 years, Daxter frees him and tells him that they are in a place called Haven City.
Haven City is the place where the entire game is played. It's designed beautifully. Apart from the fact it's designed well, it's also huge. It may not be as big as worlds in other games, but it is big enough for you to have good exploration, but not too big that you always end up getting lost.
The experiments on Jak, involved Dark Eco. This has altered Jak giving him super-human abilities. At times during the game you can turn into the alter-ego of Jak. You can actually use Dark Eco on Jak 2, and you need to, to turn into Dark Eco Jak.
Jak 2: Renegade, keeps the core gameplay of the previous game. You can still do the actions off the first game, like the spin attack, but the new battle feature to this game is the fact that you can use guns. There are four guns in the game altogether, The Scatter Gun, a shot gun style weapon with a wide fire radius, the Blaster, an semi-automatic assault rifle style gun with long range, the Heavy Vulcan, a Gatling gun style weapon with a very high fire rate, and the Peace Maker, a Rocker Launcher style gun. You get an new gun at different intervals in the game.
At the beginning of the game, Jak's main enemies will be the crimson Guards. While they won't automatically attack you, if you commit a crime in the city or attack one of them, they will chase you like the police do on Grand Theft Auto games.
While the core game play remains that of a platform game, Naughty Dog have made this game darker then the previous one. The game is more of a Grand Theft Auto style, with the platforming elements. You have the city map displayed in the bottom corner of the screen, so you know where to go, you can hijack hover cars and you even do missions for people. The missions can range from simple ones like picking up and dropping off people, to killing things, or blowing things up.
You do missions for several people during the game. The two main people are: Torn, one of the main people in an organisation called the Underground. The underground are trying to find away to get rid of Baron Praxis and are trying to put the rightful heir to the city on the throne. And there is Krew. He isn't a member of the underground, but he is wired to the city and he informs the Underground with sometimes vital information.
Even though there are plenty of missions to do, 65 to be precise, when you're not doing them you're free to roam Haven City to your liking. At the beginning of the game most of Haven City is restricted to your characters, and you unlock more of it the more missions you complete.
The story in the game is bigger and darker than that of the first game. As you get into the game, you learn that Jak and Daxter have been transported into the future. The whole point of the story is for them to return to there correct time, but first, Jak wants to take revenge on Baron Praxis. He can talk on Jak 2, he is no longer a mute. Because he has been corrupted by the dark Eco, he has become more evil in the way he acts and talks.
The Baron is having a war of his own though. There are races of creatures called Metal Heads, which are threatening to invade Haven City, so to stop this, Baron Praxis is giving them Eco. The metal heads are extremely powerful and high in numbers, so they would easily overrun Haven City if they invaded. But when the Eco supplies run out, the Metal heads do invade. The baron has a plan though. He is sending his Crimson guards out to find artefacts of someone called Mar. Mar is the founder and former ruler of Haven City, and Baron Praxis thinks that if he can acquire artefacts from Mar's reign, he can use them to destroy the Metal Heads.
There are many plot twists to deal with in this game too so that's good. You do get reunited with Keira and Samos. Keira is in charge of the speeder racing and you actually work for her without knowing. In this game though, there are two Samos'. It turns out the Samos off the first game is actually from the future and went back to the past. Also Jak is to from the future. He is the rightful heir to Haven City and the Metal Heads want to kill him. You do actually see the younger version of Jak in the game and in one mission you have to protect him.
On Jak 2, you can play separately as Daxter. He can perform all the actions that Jak can do, but he cannot use guns. This isn't possible all the time. You will only be able to play as Daxter if he and Jak get split up.
The game comes to a brilliant ending when Jak encounters the Metal Head leader. This boss is quite difficult so be prepared. He can freely bring Metal Heads into the battle zone, so no matter how many of them you kill, you can't stop them without killing the leader. After this fight, young Jak goes to the past with Young Samos, to protect him from any further harm. These are the events that lead to Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy. The proper Jak, Daxter, Keira and old Samos actually stay and live in the future.
The sound and graphics, as like the first one was, are fantastic on this game. Even though at the time of this games release, you could get better graphic games on the XBox, this game is visually one of the best the PS2 has to offer, and it does rival a lot of Xbox games in the visual stakes.
Jak 2 is a fantastic game. But it's not just that, it's also one of the best I've ever played. You may think I'm off my head to think this game is worth a score as high as I've given it, but it takes what is brilliant about the first game and makes it bigger and better, and that is an achievement Naught Dog need applauding for. I don't usually say that a sequel is better than a prequel, but on this occasion it most certainly is. If you own either a PS2 or a PS3, you absolutely have to get this game it's as simple as that. If you've never played this game, go out right now and but it. You won't be disappointed.
Review by: James Widdowson
Score: 9.6/10