Well, before I played this game i was a big Ratchet and Clank nut, playing all three of them numerous times. However, I saw that the Jak and Daxter series was receiving just as good or higher marks so I thought, being a platformer fan, I ought to try at least one of them. Jak II interested me the most so I tried it out and loved it. I liked how it was more challenging, had a longer and better story, and had better melee moves as well as more vehicles. And even without playing the first, i could still follow the story to some extent. Gameplay I love the attack moves that Jak has here, especially the way that you can string together combos of moves to some extent. The controls were easy as pie to get used to, and the vehicles were fairly easy to maneuver. Now, something that Jak II does is use many different types of gameplay here, such as the GTA style, having the city as the central location and hover ships everywhere at your disposal to steal. The Krimzon Guard act as the police of the city and aren't really too hard to get away from unless you're in a mission. The hover ship races are a lot of fun, as well as the hoverboard sections, along with the mini games that must be completed to advance the story mode. Swimming is pretty good, although it is very slow and the camera does not follow you when you dive underwater. Using the hover board to cross water is a very good idea. The game also lets you go outside the city for many of its missions, to places such as a forest, a sewer, a drill station, and others. Another thing I liked about the game was that it was much more difficult than Ratchet, yet still a lot of fun to play. Pretty much every mission required me to play at least five times before I had a chance to beat it. One thing that seemed to be a bit too sparse was checkpoints. Having to go through the same section of a level countless times just to get to the troublesome part is quite annoying, and having a few more checkpoints in each level wouldn't have hurt. The guns in the game are excellent, even though there is only four. Each one is good for different things, which means you'll be using them all a lot. the puzzles in this game were some of the most fun I've ever done, and although some had me stuck, I always figured it out by the next day. Aside from the lack of checkpoints, this game had some of the best gameplay of any PS2 game out there. Graphics Most of the graphics in this game were top-notch, and the environments had hardly any problems with draw distance, unlike GTA games. Every area looked and felt realistic, and the particle effects from the vehicles and the guns was really nice. There were many different character models in the city, in fact I only noticed seeing the same fat guy in two different places one time. The metal head leader looked fantastic, along with all the other enemies. Sound This is where i thought the game was lacking a little. The same song would play every time you re-entered the city, and the guards would always say the same exact thing when you were in their presence. I would guess that the Krimzon Guard only had about two lines that they said when you were around them, which gets old really fast. There could have been some better music; it wasn't bad, but for a game this good I was expecting really catchy music. Voice acting for all the main characters was superb and a lot of funny one-liners were dropped, which was good. Value The game had 66 total missions and took me 18 hours to complete the story mode, which is pretty damn good for a platformer. There are hidden orbs throughout the game that unlock cheats, although all the really cool ones make you get almost all the orbs, which would take a lot of time. The game also lets you replay all the fun mini games from the story mode and keeps track of your scores. I only wish there would have been some developer interviews or a making-of video for completing the game. Tilt Like I said before, I was very impressed with this platformer, and should have gotten it a lot sooner. It may not have a ton of guns to choose from and multiplayer modes, but it is superb in what it sets out to do, and that's to be a great platforming game. I would highly recommend this game if you like Ratchet and Clank or if you like any kind of action/adventure game with an interesting story.
If you liked the first jak and daxter game, you'll absolutely love the smash hit sequel and positively the best in the series! The gameplay is bit similar with the different styles of attacks and movement to the first... Read Full Review
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