Publication Date: 14/04/2023
Jak II: Renegade
If I were to make a list of games that defined not only my taste in the medium, but media and dare I say - my life itself - I’d be quick to throw Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy right up there. It came in the worst days of my life, distracting me from the loss of a loved one, and changed my perception of what games could be. But this review isn’t on Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. Oh, no, no. In an admittedly stupid decision, this upcoming trilogy of reviews - covering each of the three main Jak and Daxter games - will be going out of order, mostly because I started playing Jak 2 when I got the idea to write these reviews. So strap in - over the next few weeks, you’ll be seeing a couple of reviews of the core Jak and Daxter trilogy (perhaaaaps Jak X and - dare say, my first ever look at Daxter?) as I dive into nostalgia and answer the question no one wants answered - does it hold up?
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Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was, in some ways, the swan song, a culmination of the late 90s, early 2000s era of collectathons. With some of the best graphics and visual design of any game of the time, the first entry in the Jak and Daxter trilogy was a whimsical adventure, full of colour, life, and bombastic personalities in its main and side characters alike. It’s story was nothing special, but it’s heartfelt and simply *fun* to play from start to finish. It seemed to be a bold new franchise from Naughty Dog, fresh from their Crash bandicoot trilogy, even as the collectathon genre began to die out. And then Jak 2 came out.
In the more than twenty years I’ve been playing video games, I’ve never seen a title chasing the trends of the day more than Jak 2. I don’t even say this is an insult, but there’s simply no way around it. Edgy, dystopian, sci-fi future? Check. Replacing collectathon gameplay loop with a GTA3, mission-based, open world-city setting? Yup. Focus on gunplay over melee? You betcha. Hell, this game even has its very own version of a skateboarding minigame in the Hoverboard. Each and every facet of Jak 2 feels like it was directly inspired by another title; Grand Theft Auto 3, Tony Hawk, Final Fantasy 7, EVERY shooter that was popping up at the time. Jak 2 is a jack of all trades, but is most certainly a master of none. It’s a frustrating game, at times - incredibly difficult, poor character writing, and a sometimes generic storytelling method, but all this is contrasted with a pretty decent open world, leeway to tackle missions in your own order, fantastic graphics and strong gunplay in a burgeoning genre. Of my beloved Jak trilogy, perhaps the most defining series of my early time with games, Jak 2 was always the red-haired stepchild, but whilst it still shines in places, it seems absence did not make my heart fonder for this middle entry.
Taking place an indeterminate amount of time after the events of Jak and Daxter, Jak and co. finish restoring the Precursor Door found in the ending. Upon opening it, a swarm of dark creatures emerge, with Jak and his friends launched through the portal to escape. Separated, they find themselves in a dark, dystopian future, and Jak is captured and tortured for two years by the leader of Haven City, Baron Praxis, infusing him with Dark Eco in a attempt to defeat the army of Metal Heads - dark creatures of unknown origin - encroaching upon the city. Upon being freed by Daxter, Jak joins the Resistance attempting to dethrone Praxis, whilst becoming embroiled with the various factions and players most prominent in the decaying city.
Jak 2’s plot is… fine, I guess? It’s certainly serviceable at times, with a general ‘rise against the machine’ story that justifies its more mission-based gameplay. Through a variety of different mission providers, Jak helps rise the city in rebellion against Baron Praxis, whilst simultaneously preventing the invasion of the Metal Heads from outside Haven City. As the plot reaches a climax, some crazy revelations begin to pop up and Jak’s whole story is blown wide open, but it’s such a shame such cool storytelling comes at the eleventh hour; everything leading up to it isn’t bad, it’s just a little generic. The Precursor Legacy’s storytelling was basic, sure, but it felt unique, and a world all its own. Jak 2 does some real cool things, but in Naughty Dog’s efforts to pull from a bit of everything popular at the time, it kind of lost that identity, perhaps most of all in how it conveys its story. The adventure Jak and Daxter embark on in the first game wasn’t exactly a new paradigm shift or anything, but the way it’s twists and turns, and most of all the way it’s world was conveyed felt something all it’s own. Haven City and its surrounding locations have their own identity, but it’s muddled by the times, feeling far too often like a more sci-fi’ed version of Liberty City from Grand Theft Auto 3.
Unfortunately the character writing, however, is kind of abysmal. Daxter is multiple times more annoying in this game, constantly hitting on - and vaguely sexually harassing - every woman he comes across. Not only was he less disgusting in the previous games, his flirting with women in the previous game fit the more silly and light-hearted vibe of the game. Jak is also at times a kind of non-entity; his existence as Dark Jak barely factors into the story at all, sans the very end, and instead he just feels very ‘generic early 2000s angry protagonist’. All he has it disgruntled, snarky comebacks and pure rage - it’s genuinely amazing that a character who was previously totally unvoiced has *less* personality in his voiced sequel. Honestly, he’s kind of unlikeable in this game, and overall, the only characters I feel I really, really enjoyed in this game were Samos (plural), Sig, and Torn (the latter of which is just because I thought he was cool as hell as a kid - he still is, love that gravelly voice).
But easily the cream of the crop of this game’s bottom-tier characterisation is Krew. Now, Krew is a morbidly obese weapons dealer who employs Jak, supplying him with weapons in exchange for black market jobs. Krew is disgusting - not because of his size, but because of his mannerisms, his disregard for everything and everyone around him, and *especially* the way he talks. The fact that he’s fat is just Naughty Dog’s way of making sure you know he’s super evil - a fact that is underlined by Daxter peppering every interaction with Krew with two or three fatphobic jokes on average. I don’t want to harp on about Krew, but it’s really disappointing to see how hard they go in on making him as gross as possible - most of all through his size. And I guess that kind of sums everyone in this game; tropes. The angst protag, wisecracking sidekick, the sexy love interests… Sans a couple of notable moments, no one really feels like they grow as a character; Jak doesn’t feel like any more of a hero then he was at the start, and his symbol as a man of the people he achieves by the final missions of the game feels ultimately unearned.
Whilst almost universally the time you spent in Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was utilized platforming and punching beasts in the face, Jak 2 doesn’t disregard its predecessor’s legacy. He has all the same basic moves; punches and kicks, and all that jazz, only really missing his Eco power-ups, but Jak 2’s combat style is defined by its reliance on gunplay. Yes, it is a game from the early 2000s, and of course that means Jak needs a gun - or in this case, four guns. Across the game, Jak will slowly gain access to a small slew of guns, each with their different abilities and uses. You’ll start with the short range, high powered Scatter Gun, before finding other weaponry suited for different ranges and tasks. And for one of the earlier 3rd Person Shooters in the 3D space, the gunplay generally works pretty fine. Carving through a slew of emerging Metal Heads with the Scatter Gun is joy-inducing, same with picking off distant Krimzon Guard with the long ranged Blaster or blazingly fast Vulcan Fury. Its aiming could be a little better, as especially from long range you’ll just be missing a bunch of shots, but it was early days for this kind of a gunplay - I’m willing to give it a pass - it’s fun! And having played Jak 3, seeing how they iterate on these guns… hoo boy, Jak 3 is such a fun game. But we’ll get there when we get there… The other major addition to Jak’s combat repertoire is in Dark Jak, a rage-infused transformation activated upon collecting enough Dark Eco. Drastically increasing his speed and damage, Dark Jak’s greatest attributes come in his special moves, unlocked by collecting Metal Head skulls, which will instantly kill all but the most powerful foes. Dark Jak is a pretty fun addition to the game, but even with its crazy power, it feels like I rarely ever got the chance to really use it, considering just how long it takes to charge it up. When you’re facing down a small army of Metal Heads and Krimzon Guards, there are few things as exciting as using a Dark Blast to take them all down in one blow, but this is the only really economic time to use Dark Jak - anything else just feels like a waste.
As a part of Jak 2’s jack-of-all-trades game design, the different missions Jak takes on across Haven City vary greatly; in one, you’ll be speeding on a hovercraft, avoiding guards to smuggle Eco Ore to a buyer; in another, you’ll be participating in a racing tournament, and another will be spent battling your way through a firefight in the slums of the city. Without a doubt, this mission variety is Jak 2’s greatest strength. Whilst there is a lot of overlap in what you’re actually doing - y’know, shooting, punching, driving - the game frequently gives you the choice of which mission you want to tackle next, breaking up the experience. In the mood for a hoverboard or racing based mission? The Mechanic will probably be your best bet. Something more action packed? Torn’s likely to have the goods. Ultimately, the game will eventually railroad you into doing specific missions at specific moments, so it’s not any real kind of non-linearity, but it’s nice not to be forced into the same sequence of missions if you’re the kind of person who plays these games again and again - I see you, Jak speedrunners. You are more powerful than any US Marines.
Anyway, considering this game branches into a variety of secondary gameplay styles, it’s a good thing they’re generally pretty fun. The hoverboard and driving feel like the biggest changes; the former is an unabashed facsimile of the now booming Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise. It’s exactly what you’d expect, albeit not as complex as its originator. You can ‘skate’, grind, and flip your way throughout Haven City, with a full skate park arena to test your might, and a decent amount of missions incorporating your skating - ahem, hovering - skills into the tasks required. Driving is a retooled version of the Zoomer from the original game, giving you more vehicle types to play with and putting a focus onto races and speed-based challenges. Some of the driving can feel a little janky - many vehicles turn radius feel off, and sometimes even the bulkiest cars will just explode from a light tap from another vehicle, but it’s not a huge deal - except for the bloody races with Errol. They’re fun enough, but god, doing a five lap race and crashing out on the last circuit is rage inducing. There’s a few other styles thrown in, like a rail shooter mission or several mech suit segments, but these are few and far between and are generally fun enough without overstaying their welcome. But overall, the new gameplay elements in Jak 2 - whilst a far cry from the platforming focussed predecessor, work well enough. It frequently doesn’t quite feel like Jak - ironic, considering only the first game feels different, and both Naughty Dog sequels continue this gameplay aesthetic design, but it’s almost always fun, with only on the rarest occasions feeling outright frustrating to deal with.
Now, for any of you who played this back in the day - or hell, even more recently than that - you’ll all know what Jak 2 is best known for. Yes, yes, this game is hard as balls. Like, ridiculously, stupidly difficult. This is due to two main factors; first, the checkpoint system, or to be more accurate, the seemingly lack of a proper checkpoint system. Missions will consistently be throwing you into gauntlets of enemies or full on firefights, taking on sometimes dozens of melee and ranged foes alike, but when I think back on the hardest of these missions - the mech suit segments, escaping the Undercity with Sig, and the dreaded Slums firefight, to name a few - they all share the issue of having no checkpoints throughout their brutal runtimes. This issue is mitigated by how fragile Jak is as a character. Jak has eight health nodes, but the fact is the vast majority of enemies do two nodes damage per hit, leading to four effective hitpoints. This game is too difficult - that’s a fact, but so much of this could’ve been mitigated with a single additional checkpoint throughout these brutal missions - hell, even throwing the player a bone and letting Jak upgrade his health, either through story progression or as rewards for side missions. Jak 2 has a reputation for difficulty, sure, but it really, really, *really* drags down the game to be stuck for potentially hours on some of these missions. I didn’t struggle too badly on this run, but I remember back in the day getting stuck for days, if not weeks, on the slums firefight. It’s a massive deterrent to people who enjoy the relatively easy predecessor, and I’m very thankful Jak 3 retooled this difficulty drastically.
As a result of it’s more mission-based structure, there are almost no unique side missions to tackle across Jak 2; the majority of these are accessed from little holograms, where Torn or one of the other supporting characters will task Jak with completing a relatively basic task - usually flying through rings, winning a race, or locating a spot on the map in a certain amount of time. These all reward Precursor Orbs, the once plentiful collectible from the previous game. Here, instead of trading for other items, they are used to unlock items from the secrets menus. It’s a little sad the side quests are so homogenized and… I don’t want to say pointless, but there are very few Precursor Orb rewards that feel valuable. Overall, the side missions are fun when you’re just wandering the city, or wanting something to spread out the main missions, but once I’d finished up Jak 2’s main storyline, I didn’t feel the need to hunt all these missions down. Precursor Orbs are also available as secrets hidden around a myriad of locations, but I’m not a 100% sure you can actually find them all if you don’t know exactly where they are, as I feel like some areas in the game are inaccessible once you complete their respective mission. I feel like I’m being a bit harsh here, as technically Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy had *no* side content… but it’s a collectathon, so it’s an apples to oranges kind of thing. Still a shame, though.
Overall… Jak 2 is a lot more of a mixed bag then I remembered. It has always been my least favorite of the trilogy, but I still remembered having - and still have - fond memories of this game. It has its moments - it somehow pulled off a decent paradigm shift from the collectathon prequel, introducing gunplay and a variety of other gameplay styles without feeling hamfisted. It’s a really, really fun game to play… which makes it all the more frustrating when so much of its surroundings don’t meet the mark. It’s plot, whilst decent, struggles with interesting characterization at best, whilst being downright offensive at worst. This, coupled with an extreme difficulty at times, can create a really frustrating relationship with this game. It’s very, very fun when all the pieces come together, but ultimately it lacks an identity, trapped between the whimsical, swang song of collectathons in The Precursor Legacy, and the more refined, and more well plotted Jak 3. I like this game - don’t get me wrong, but I don’t love it, and that alone is quite saddening, considering the impact the Jak trilogy had on me in my pre-adolescent days.