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Jak II: Renegade - Preview Preview
Mark Simons
07/08/2003
We take a look at Naughty Dog's sequel, and investigate Jak's darker side...
'Jak and Daxter: The Precusor Legacy' was an entertaining platformer in the tradition of 'Mario 64'; many worlds, many things to collect and distinctly light in tone. They say that art imitates life and perhaps that explains the darker, grittier edge Naughty Dog has given to 'Jak II - Renegade'.
Two years on from the end of first game Jak and Daxter finds themselves in a corrupt world run by a megalomaniac, who we only know as the Baron. He runs his world into the ground via a corrupt regime that rules by force and fear. Jak gets arrested for no reason soon after his arrival into the main metropolis. Once arrested, he is taken to Guantanamo bay. Just kidding, he is taken to a secret science lab and experimented on like a big, goateed lab rat.
These experiments revolve around dark eco, a mysterious force that is dangerous, but very powerful if harnessed properly. Once Daxter frees him, exactly how that little ferret thing manages to get Jak out of a high security facility leaves us scratching our heads at the moment, anyway, once free, Jak's innocence is lost.
He is angry. He is very angry. He wants revenge. As a side effect of the dark eco experiments he finds he can transform into a very powerful alter ego giving him increased strength, invulnerability and some very funky graphical effects. Pure comic book stuff, but we're not complaining, it's a good excuse to have a super alter ego that has interesting gameplay implications, even if it's not the most original gameplay device ever - nothing will ever beat the blonde bombshell Super Sonic for coolness, but perhaps that just our biased Sega fanboyism coming to the fore.
So collecting things isn't the focus of the game - revenge is - interesting concept. Normally things aren't so personal in games like this, the lead characters inadvertently end up saving the world, but the Baron picked the wrong dude to mess with this time. The focus on Jak's revenge and personal journey is why the title for this game only has his name in it, that and subtitles are always forgotten, by everyone anyway.
If you're out for revenge, what's the best route to go down? Guns, guns and more guns of course. The game could almost be set in America considering how easy it seems for Jak to get tooled up with some impressive firepower and almost unlimited supply of ammunition, in order to take on the timeless forces of repression and corruption.
The use of guns is a completely new addition from the first game and makes the gameplay fundamentally different. Whilst there are still many platforming elements you'll find yourself blasting hoards of enemies a lot of the time. This is rather satisfying as the weapons have a weighty feel to them, mmm shotgun blasts, and some cool visual effects, as well as a satisfying effect on the enemies, mainly down to the wonderful animation. Jak still has all of his moves from the original game, plus the special moves in the dark eco alter ego mode and then the four different weapons, which can also be used up close for melee attacks.
We have some slight concerns that the focus on blasting away enemies could distract from the platforming that made the first game so enjoyable, but it seems that Naughty Dog have got things in hand. There still appear to be many reflex based platform things as well as puzzles to get your head around, it just seems you need to be able to shoot while you do these things. There will be 80 or so missions in the game, and with the focus on advancing the story, rather than collecting lots of objects, you should be kept on your toes a lot of the time.
The structure of the game has changed as well, as we mentioned collecting things is replaced by progression and unraveling the threads that keep the Baron in power. Along the way you will meet characters that unlock the next section of the game, geographically speaking, and also advance the plot. There will be underground freedom fighters, wise old men, strange creatures and an interesting female character, Ashling seems to be her name, who seems to be key to the plot, perhaps even a love interest for Jak, but that's just us guessing.
It seems that Ashling, or perhaps it's Ashley, is after a great source of power, which the Baron is after as well, naturally. Her and Jak will have to work together to get the artifact that contains the mysterious power, and then work out how they can stop the Baron for good. We like the sound of the story, Naughty Dog are purposely being a bit vague on the details, but with the quality of direction and voice acting we're looking forward to playing through to see how and why things happen.
The Baron's seat of power, a big metropolis that is slightly ramshackle after the years of corruption, is a sort of a hub level and allows Jak to indulge in some 'Grand Theft Auto' style messing around. There will be vehicles, cool flying ones at that, which can be stolen and driven around, but whilst hitting civilians may be alright, you've got to be careful to avoid the Baron's minions, who will come after you if you accidentally tailfish into a group of them. In addition to driving hovering vehicles Jak will find himself with a cool hoverboard in some of the levels, think the koopa trooper shell from 'Mario 64', except with more things to trick off.
Things are looking good for 'Jak II', metaphorically and literally, the lead characters have a great amount of detail, as does the entire supporting cast. Draw distances go right into the distance, frame rate is a solid sixty even with number of characters on screen at one time, with lots of fancy lighting effects and some crisp texture work. Best of all is the animation, which is wonderful, especially in the cutscenes that display some directorial flair and mean that the darker storyline is not inadvertently cheesy or hammy.
We've had a chance to go hands-on with 'Jak II' and we were frustrated and entertained in about equal measures. The difficulty level has been ramped up since the first game, with some unforgiving jumps and many enemies coming at you relentlessly. This is good though as many people thought that the first game was, relatively, easy, and hopefully this should be rather more satisfying with progression that bit harder it will be that bit more rewarding. Our only potential complaint is if things become frustrating rather than challenging, but we'll have to wait for the final code before we can see if this happens too much of the time; we trust that Naughty Dog will have spent a while tweaking things to provide a decent learning curve.
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