In Jak X, it's not just win or lose - it's life or death...
Taking pointers from franchise racers of the past (Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing, among others), Jak X lets you play as one of our favorite platforming heroes, in both offline and online modes, as you race your way through the mean city streets and scorching deserts around Kras City, as if your life depended on it. Because in Jak X, it does.
This go around, Jak and Daxter find themselves in quite a predicament, as they are unknowingly poisoned, and subsequently forced (by the now deceased Krew) to race through the Kras City tournament of Combat Racing in order to receive the antidote. You and Daxter aren't alone in this, however, and with the help of other characters you take on the challenge to survive.
Within the first five minutes of gameplay, you will undoubtedly realize that Jak X has a lot going on in the controls department. After five training tutorials (yes, I said five), you should have a pretty good grip on what is going on – to the point where you can now begin the actual game. However, to make it to the end, you will need to use every skill you have learned and then some to even stand a chance. This means that you will find yourself holding the controller in ways you never thought possible, just to be able to comfortably hit all of the shoulder buttons, more than one at a time. The AI is fairly dangerous, and will make no excuses about blowing you into next week, which brings me to the great combat aspects of the game.
In most racing titles, your goal is simply to make it to the end first, and while that is the overall goal of Jak X, the task is not as simple as it might outwardly seem. Strapped to the back of your various vehicles are weapons of mass destruction, and by picking up either yellow or red eco, you can launch missiles at your foes in front of you or leave mines in your dust for those behind. The large number of weapons at your disposal are varied enough to keep the game from becoming too repetitive, and watching your back at all times will definitely keep you on your toes. Adding to your defensive strategy is blue eco – a turbo power up, if you will – that will let you outrun not only your enemies, but also a lot of the weapons flying up towards your real panel. Don't worry about always avoiding the contact, however, as it's not game over if you get "killed"; you are simply reanimated near the spot where you were taken down, and are allowed to get right back to the addictive racing.
While one could theoretically save their weapons and simply race without the violence, Naughty Dog has added quite the incentive to blow stuff up: the graphics. Never has a ball of flames looked so good, yet so animated at the same time. The Jak and Daxter feel that has been made famous in past outings is back and the ideas for cars and costumes will definitely impress. The cutscenes, which break in at random intervals between races, are also pretty impressive. The only part of the graphics that isn't so hot is the water that appears in various levels, but as you're trying to avoid falling into it anyhow, it can be looked past. In order to maintain the destructive atmosphere when Jak is in the lead, the game applies some of the best musical tracks I have ever heard in a racing game. Hard rock guitar riffs mixed with electronic undertones will have you moving your head to the beat in no time.
As for the characters themselves, the voice acting is spot on, with characters from previous Jak and Daxter installments popping in and out throughout the length of the Adventure game. Whether these players are there to help or hinder Jak on the track is anyone's guess, as you will have friends off the track who will not think twice about blowing you up to save themselves. Who needs enemies when you have friends like that? The positive side of this coin? It makes blowing them up an even sweeter revenge.
To elaborate more on this Adventure mode, instead of every race being of circuit style, Naughty Dog has added new and exciting twists to some levels. Races like Turbo Dash (which have you launching turbo-powered orbs at your opponents) are the more irritating races, but the ones like Death Race (rack up as many kills as you can in a certain time limit) will have you feeling like a bad-ass again in seconds. Speaking of time, the Adventure mode can easily be beaten in less than ten hours, but could of course take much, much longer if picking up the complex controls turns out to be harder than you first expected.
There's little incentive to play in this mode after the story has been completed, but luckily, there is an extensive Exhibition (Arcade) mode, which is just as fun, if not more fun than the Adventure game itself, depending on how you look at the mission based races of the latter. While you could stick with the Exhibition mode for life and never touch the Adventure counterpart, in order to really enjoy the depth that the title has to offer, in the form of tracks, cars, and racers, you will first need to unlock them in the Adventure mode. Besides unlocking the cars themselves, by earning orbs, you can purchase higher turbo capacity, faster engines, thicker armor and more to really take your vehicles to the next level.
I could even go further into describing the unlockables by saying that you can hook your PSP up and get new content, plus if you have a save file from a previous Jak game on the same memory card, you get some extras as well. As for the rest, I think a little should always be left for you to discover on your own, don't you?
vAfter giving all of this praise to Jak X, I'm afraid I do have to take a step backwards when it comes to the price department. Most stores still offer Jak X for 40 bucks or more, and while many people might find this worth it, I would suggest perhaps renting it first, to see if the style of gameplay is for you. Like I said before, this game is not a walk in the park, and will almost certainly have you screaming at the tele on numerous instances before all is said and done. However, this is not to say that the title is lacking in the fun department, as it honestly is one of the best times you can have traveling in proverbial circles.
In the end, whether your experience is through renting or otherwise, after looking past its complexity, Jak X: Combat Racing boils down to this: a highly addictive racer that everyone should definitely play.
Review text part of Grrlgamer.com. Review and screenshots at:
http://www.grrlgamer.com/review.php?g=jakx