Prologue: Proceed to the Review if You Don't Care About the Following
Upon completing the long and arduous task that was Jak 2 back when it was still brand-spanking-new, I was very hesitant to seek out its sequel upon its release. Sure, Jak 2's writing was excellent, the characters were all very well-crafted, the game was pretty, et cetera et cetera, but the game itself was filled with immensely frustrating missions, most of which involving vehicles. This hesitation was only worsened upon finding out that driving was just as prominent a gameplay element in Jak 3 as it was in Jak 2. Because of this, it was only until recently that I even considered playing it. However, after researching the game to a greater extent than I usually do others, I came to the conclusion that it most likely fixed most of the problems with its predecessors. It did.
Review
Jak 3 is an action/platformer game released by Naughty Dog, which is the studio behind Crash Bandicoot, and more recently, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. It is (don't hurt yourself trying to comprehend this) the sequel to Jak 2 and the threequel to Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, both of which being decent yet flawed games. The first was a platformer with a sense of humor and the occasional abominable vehicle mission. The second was a platformer with a sense of humor, guns, and frequent abominable vehicle missions. The third is a platformer with humor, guns, and frequent vehicle missions that are actually fun.
If you haven't completed Jak 2, skip ahead. Unless you're alright with spoilers.
The story in Jak 3 takes place immediately after Jak 2. Jak has just been kicked out of Haven City, left to die in the desert miles away from the city walls. In spite of the fact that Jak had killed off the leader of the Metal Heads, the army of robot-creatures wreaking havoc in and around Haven City, in the previous entry of the series, the Metal Heads remaining were still plentiful enough to tear up the city, and as a result, people blamed Jak and Daxter (and apparently Pecker) for the misfortune that befell their city, so they banished him to the desert.
Hell, Kleiver, it looks like we're going back without any food for the othe- oh, lookie there. I stand corrected.
Of course, Jak 3: Heat Stroke and Death by Starvation wouldn't be a very entertaining game (to most), so Jak ends up getting rescued by a group of desert dwellers called the Wastelanders, who live in a reasonably large city built in the desert by and for those banished from the city. Jak then begins to work for the Wastelanders, and the game's story progresses from there. The game's excellently written story also features a few plot twists here and there, one of which being one of my favorite plot twists ever.
The Precursors turn out to be Ottsels. Yes. Daxter is a member of the legendary master race of organic beings.
Non-Jak 2-finishers may continue reading.
The dialogue in this game is usually well-written and entertaining, though not quite as funny as that of Jak 2, which had excellent writing (possibly to compensate for the frustrating gameplay). Fortunately, all of the primary and secondary characters are well-crafted and bear distinct attitudes and idiosyncrasies. From the aforementioned characters to the game's fantastic art design, this game oozes personality.
True to form with the previous titles in the series, one of the main draws of this game is its platforming, which is done just nicely. The controls are almost as good as one would hope they would be and jumping from platform to platform using varying types of jumps is simple and delightful. After a time, the player is given a hoverboard, which speeds up travelling throughout the Wastelander city and acts as a skateboard with which to grind rails and such, which spices up the platforming aspect of the game a good bit.
You expect me to jump what, now?
The main thing that separates Jak 3 from its predecessors is that it takes the vehicle-based missions that were so plentiful in Jak 2, gives most of the vehicles wheels (Jak 2 had nothing but hovercrafts), and makes them not suck. With the exception of the vehicle portion of the final boss fight and a few of the optional vehicle missions, there are no particularly frustrating missions of that variety. Granted, the game got on my nerves a bit when my car swerved like a lubed skateboard on ice, but this rarely kept me from finishing a mission. Luckily, when vehicle controls are lacking in quality, the game seems to compensate by making the situations around them manageable.
What's also been improved over the previous title is the frustrating gunplay. Unlike Ratchet and Clank, which has no trouble at all with its firearms, Jak 2, and 3 to a far lesser extent, did not have good controls for its guns. To target an enemy, you couldn't simply point the target reticle at it. You had to step toward it and hope your laser sight targeted it. This really bogged down the gameplay in tight situations. Jak 3 solves this problem (for the most part) by adding new firearms that compensate for the player's lack of aiming ability. These new weapons are all well-designed and useful in different situations, thus removing much of what made Jak 2 a pain (when vehicles weren't involved). It would have been nicer had they simply added an adequate aiming system, but this works too, and it's actually pretty fun.
The Dark Jak powers have returned from Jak 2, as well as some new powers, which include temporary invisibily and a charged blast of lightning. What's new in this game is the Light Jak form, which serves as the supportive, non-lethal counterpart to the Dark Jak form, which is meant for little more than brutally killing your enemies (well, brutally as a T-rated game can depict). The Light Jak form offers very useful abilities, such as health regeneration (which has saved my ass numerous times) and limited flight capabilities that allow the player to reach platforms otherwise unreachable. Both forms are well-designed and useful, though thanks to the improved guns and my constant I'll-save-it-for-when-I-really-need-it mentality, I rarely used the Dark Jak form.
Hadouken!
In addition to the driving, platforming, and shooting, there's a variety of minigame-missions, including Daxter riding a missile in the docks of Haven City and Jak participating in a top-down shooter-style segment in which he takes on swarms of Metal Heads. None of these are particularly frustrating, and most of them are very fun. Some are even a tad nostalgic.
Overall, the game is surprisingly fun, with its great story, gameplay that fixes most of the problems of previous entries, excellent voice acting, fantastic pace, and charming art design. In spite of the occasional shortcoming, whether it be from vehicle-related problems or game-halting glitches, Jak 3 is one of the best platformers available on any system, not just the Playstation 2. I highly recommend this game to any platformer fan, and especially anyone who was bewildered by Jak 2. This game is most certainly the best of the Jak franchise.
