When I look back on the Jak series, I think of three things: Jumping puzzles, jumping puzzles, and more jumping puzzles. Of course, given the game’s core design approach as a platformer this should hardly be surprising, but few games have made me pull my hair out in crazy frustration and howl for my precious quicksave function than that of the Jak series, simply due to the tedium of having to do an extended series of tricky jumps over, and over, and over again. However, the game’s storyline and gameplay were otherwise so solid that I was left with no choice but to keep pushing forward, stuck with an overwhelming drive to see the game through to its end. Rarely before have I seen such an overwhelming mix of frustration and enjoyment from playing something – and it’s certainly not like the experience is entirely bad, as the vast feeling of reward from completing a hard segment is almost enough to make it worth the trouble. Love it or hate it, the Jak series has made a strong impression on the platformer genre, and the third game certainly manages to keep up the same tradition.
Jak 3 is the finale to the Jak & Daxter series, placing the trigger-happy duo into yet another desperate situation. After saving Haven City by overthrowing its leadership and destroying the Metal Head forces, the rebel forces finally have a stab at setting things right in their war-torn city. Unfortunately, the sudden gap created in the power circle only makes matters worse, as competing factions rise up and begin vying for control. Then the Metal Head forces regroup and intensify their attacks, plunging Haven City into chaos once again. Searching for a scapegoat to their problem, the citizens turn to Jak and Daxter, who are promptly declared traitors and exiled from the city walls into the barren wastelands beyond. After a death march through the harsh desert terrain, a band of natives come across them and take them back to their forgotten city, offering them a fresh chance at life. Of course, it’s not long before another catastrophe of global proportions begins threatening the planet again, forcing Jak and Daxter into a journey that finally explains the secrets behind their past, their destiny, and the mysterious energy source called “Eco” and the so called “Precursors” that created it.
Jak 3’s gameplay actually feels a lot like Jak 2, in that it uses the same general style of interface, combat, and advancement, with the main focus being on a bunch of new content and a few new gameplay tricks. The first parts of the game involve an initial training exercise to get players re-acquainted with the control system and basic gameplay elements, but right after that, the game begins opening up to allow exploration and adventure. “Spargus City” is the main area the early parts of the game focus on, which is a cozy little desert town filled with citizens – armed citizens – who are all trying to live their own little insignificant lives. On the upside, this new city is actually possible to navigate without having to worry about being chased by the police, but on the downside, each and every citizen is now capable of fighting back, should you feel the temptation to try and beat up on them. All this is significant because, much like Jak 2 (and also much like GTA3, to some extent) the player is free to explore the available areas in between missions, doing mini-games, exploring the terrain, and searching for hidden powerups. Initially Jak is only allowed to explore Spargus City, but as the game progresses the dangerous wastelands open up to reveal numerous battle areas, tunnels, racing courses, and the duo even gets the eventual opportunity to return to Haven City to set things right.
The missions are of course the most important part of Jak 3, as they not only advance the plot, but commonly offer new items and skills to the player. But as mentioned in the opening statement of this article, the Jak series is single-handedly responsible for numerous headaches endured on my part thanks to some insanely difficult segments in the past, so will gamers previously turned off from the series due to escalating difficulty levels find Jak 3 to be a more easy-going title? Surprisingly, yes – I’m unsure if this is due to a conscious decision or just co-incidence from the new weapon upgrades and character abilities, but Jak 3 as a whole felt like a much, much easier game than the previous releases. The jumping puzzles seemed a lot less elaborate and demanding this time around, the boss fights quite a bit more straightforward (some I actually won on my first attempt for a change), and combat in general felt significantly easier, though this may have been due to my abuse of two of the new weapons available, both which are self-guided and do a fair share of damage – more on the new toys in a bit, of course.
On the other hand, the mini-games seem to have been taken up a notch, both in terms of difficulty and variety. Mini-games are still accessible via either terminals or more of those weird talking statues randomly scattered across the landscape and offer a variety of novel little challenges that not only help keep players amused between missions, but also offer “Precursor Orbs”, which can be used to unlock special upgrades, cheats, and secret features, and as thus are well worth hunting down. These challenges range from the basic “find this spot before time runs out” goal to more elaborate sequences that involve trying to follow an orb of light without letting it out-run you, trying to catch a significant amount of air-time in a vehicle, or racing through a series of colored markers that freeze the countdown timer until you’re able to reach the end. The little mini-games and side quests have always been an integral part of the Jak experience, and I was very happy to see them done so well in the third and final game in the series.
Right, let’s get on with some of the other significant new stuff. Jak 2 made a big leap by introducing a number of hover-cars into the environment, which could be hijacked from random NPCs and driven around at the player’s leisure. The vehicles had some really nice effects and some very cool driving physics, and added a major part to the gameplay possibilities offered by the vast city terrain. Jak 3 still features these vehicles (although they’re not available until Jak’s return to Haven City), but the main focus is now on a number of rugged patchwork dune buggies that are built specifically to handle the harsh wasteland terrain. It’s obvious that a lot of work went into making sure the physics on these rigs was as detailed as possible, as the wheels and suspension on these vehicles all behave beautifully in relation to the rolling, bouncy terrain. Each of the several vehicles available has a different level of handling and offensive compliment, ranging from quick, fast jeeps with light machineguns to huge unwieldy behemoths with auto-tracking turrets. My personal favorite however is the “Dune Hopper”, which has a specialized suspension that allows it to literally leap over pits and large obstacles, and packs a pair of high-explosive mortar launchers. Really, the vehicle implementation is an excellent twist on Jak 3’s gameplay, and my only complaint is that they tend to spin out incredibly easily at high speeds – something that might be realistic, but also gets annoying. The randomly spawning marauders that roam the wastelands can also be a nuisance, simply because they never stop coming (unless a mini-game is triggered) and do such an irritatingly effective job of ramming you head-on and knocking you off course and into other obstacles.
Jak 3 also blesses the player with an arsenal upgrade, adding a new tier of weapons and powers to the action. Jak’s neat little multi-function rifle is back again with four distinct ammo types and settings, but each of these four modes has two new sub-modes available, expanding the weapon’s use and power. The standard yellow shot, for example, can be adjusted to its second setting (when the appropriate upgrade is found) to fire bouncing projectiles that home in on enemies on each bounce, which is excellent for room-clearing jobs - almost exceedingly so. Similarly, the third setting on the weapon’s blue mode fires a swarm of projectiles that not only home in on any enemy target, but is also capable of sustaining a very high refire rate – albeit at a severe ammo cost. Getting into the more exotic side of things, some of the other weapon modes include a launchable hover-drone that sprays the area with bullets, a downward-firing blast of red energy that is excellent for taking out all nearby targets, and even a crazy little gadget that launches something resembling a tactical nuke. Sadly, as I mentioned earlier, the two auto-guided weapons available seemed more than enough to deal with just about any threat I ran into, and unless I was feeling particularly sadistic or just wanted to waste ammo, I never found any reason to use the other weapons. This ties in most heavily with the reason why I found the game to be so much easier than the other offerings, and I actually find myself wishing that the guided weapons had either not been included, or redesigned a little so that I would’ve had a reason to give the other weapons an actual workout.
Of final mention are the new “eco” powers Jak has. Jak 3 explores Jak’s “light” side as well as the darkness lurking inside him, and both elements come into play quite commonly throughout the game. When he has enough light or dark energy stored, Jak can turn into his dark or light form and use a number of special abilities to annihilate groups of enemies and progress through the game. While the dark abilities include the regular array of attack combos and strikes from the previous game, Dark Jak can also turn invisible at certain parts to sneak past enemies or get through some puzzles. Meanwhile, Light Jak has a whole deluge of useful abilities (that I actually bothered to take advantage of on more than one occasion), such as the ability to regenerate health, form a special kind of shield, and even slow down time (again, necessary to bypass some puzzles, but it’s also a really cool effect). Towards the end of the game, Light Jak even gains the ability to turn into some kind of cool angel-like figure with wings, offering the new ability to glide across the landscape at will. The special powers are definitely much, much more useful than they were in Jak 2 (which I forgot even existed several times throughout the game), and the developers really find some neat ways to spruce up the puzzles.
The Jak series has won great acclaim for having some really nice animation, a compliment that the latest contribution still deserves. The cutscenes used to convey the storyline and advance the game do a really great job, and Daxter’s wacky little cameos continued to bring a smile to my face. Sadly, when the engine isn’t putting its best foot forward through dramatic cutscenes, the graphical style comes off as looking a little dated, with a lot of little lapses in detail that could have been covered up with some fancy special effects. That said, the game certainly by no means looks ugly, and the fact that the framerates stay high and loading times are effectively nonexistent (they’re nicely maxed by animated airlocks or elevators when transitioning to a new area) still help Jax 3 put forth a very good graphical presentation.
Despite being significantly easier than its predecessors (at least in my opinion), Jak 3 is no less of a lengthy title with an equally interesting storyline and a good sense of humor, beautifully projecting a dark universe that, somehow, still manages not to take itself too seriously. While that certainly isn’t something that every gamer will enjoy on equal levels, Jak 3 is still a very solid platformer title that ends up being a lot less frustrating than the series used to be, and consequently tons more fun. The music and voice acting is still spot-on, the unlockable features add quite a bit to the experience, and the new vehicular action makes for some really awesome high-speed action. Fans of the series have no excuse not to run out and pick this up ASAP, but newcomers might also have a reason to get in on the action thanks to the more forgiving difficulty levels – although it’s still strongly recommended that one starts from the beginning. Naughty Dog definitely gets a thumbs-up from me.
