JACK's creators settled for a NOLF knockoff instead of an extension of the series' high-minded appeal...
The problem in JACK’s wall-to-wall havoc was that the combat mechanics felt incomplete. Enemies often appeared in tightly-packed clusters, with their guns blazing full-bore from the very moment each group spilled through the doorway. The key to surviving nearly every battle was simply to hold back and try to bottleneck every wave of attackers through a choke-point, spraying the entryway with machine gun fire before the first target appeared. Target after target would rush directly into the line of fire, and once the carnage was over, I would round the next corner and repeat the exact same process. I saw a few stray targets duck behind cover, but most bad guys would simply run straight toward me until one of us was dead.
I was grateful to find that JACK’s repetitive battles and constant scouring for armor and health packs after almost every unbalanced encounter was mitigated immensely by the visual majesty that is the Jupiter engine. The glittering depths of space were especially impressive in one of JACK’s best levels, which was an interesting take on an on-rails sequence in which our spacesuited anti-hero floats along in the void while taking potshots at some suicidally rabid villains as they dart around à la Intellivision’s Space Spartans. Like NOLF 2, the environmental details in JACK are appreciably nuanced without trying too hard for perfect photo-realism, in keeping with the series’ cinematic cartoon motif.
As happy as I was upon hearing the announcement that HARM’s newest and deadliest assassin would eschew the tranq darts, camera disablers, and bunny slippers that dominated Cate Archer’s toolkit, I quickly realized that removing NOLF’s furtive elements left little more than a nearly identical series of ambushes and firefights wrapped in a very pretty package. JACK is not a bad game; its only crime is the boring and somewhat glitchy combat model. As opposed to the first two titles, the expansion’s incidental humor is more wacky than witty (although the strangled cawing over the moon base’s PA system that signals Danger Danger’s appropriation of the facility still makes me laugh out loud, and the anti-nepotism rant that follows is worth a chuckle). Otherwise, there are some very good visuals and an engaging storyline present that deserve a more solid presentation.