Name a successful game, you can spot it living inside Jak II: Ratchet and Clank, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Mario, Rainbow Six, Panzer Dragoon, Banjo-Kazooie, Final Fantasy VII, The Legend of Zelda…they’re all there, somewhere, tied together in the underground sewer network of Jak’s dirty City. But this is hardly a criticism—it’s actually Jak II’s biggest strength. It uses “3D platformer” as a loose foundation for a towering monument to a million great gameplay ideas. Naughty Dog, it would seem, has been paying attention the last couple of years. Strangely enough, the game Naughty Dog seems to have been paying most attention to is Grand Theft Auto III, as evidenced by Jak II’s enormous living City, a vast hub world connecting the more traditional “platformer” missions, filled with different vehicles to steal, police alerts to trigger, bonus missions to find, and innocents to run over—and, yes, kill (Jak II is a surprisingly dark ride—the opening sequence finds our cute hero fresh from two years of life in a pain-and-torture device). While there’s still plenty of trick jumping to be done, the game takes a key step away from its roots by offering a huge variety of missions—squad jobs, gun-intensive hunts, hover-contraption races, and intense chases through crowded city streets. A visit to a sewer to retrieve a missing artifact for one fellow’s shady operation, a trip to a pumping station to sabotage another’s. Black City Lights The game is unreally gorgeous—no one should have ever realistically expected to see these kinds of graphics pumped from the PS2. The City itself is detailed to a level of sheer absurdity such that random fruit carts realistically spill their wares when you crash into them with a hoverbike. Opening a door to the world outside the walled-in city inspires awe every time. The voice acting is wonderful; the sound effects are tuned like a feature film, and the music is a cinematic symphony to perfectly complement the fully-realized narrative—these are characters to love, villains to hate, and motivations to question. Crime and Absolution Now and then, Jak II suffers somewhat from Wind Waker syndrome (a.k.a. lots of backtracking through the ocean…er, City). Some may be put off by just how often ol’ platformin’ Jak has to race and drive. Others still may hurl their controllers in frustration at a couple particularly evil missions. But this is the kind of game that you’ll easily forgive for its sins. You curse and you swear and say “this game sucks!”…but then you triumph, smile, and eagerly check your mission list to see what task is gonna make you lose your next night’s sleep. Now that’s a game.
