“Oh don’t worry, Jak beats things all the time, eh Jak?”

I fucking loved Jak II. It’s everything I could’ve possibly dreamed a T-rated gta game could be like…except bully but that’s not the point. So naughty dog now had a new task: to outdo themselves from their last effort, and did they do it? Well…not really. The thing about Jak 3 is I don’t necessarily hate it…but I don’t think it’s as good as Jak 1 or 2 for that matter and I almost feel as though it lets itself down. This isn’t a completely bad review though, I do want to point out what is good about the game whilst also pointing out what is bad because I’m going to do my first ever big critique of a game and why not let it be Jak 3? But first: what is good about Jak 3

The good (or at least what there is of that):

The wasteland - it’s basically advertised on the front of the box that ‘welcome to mad max but it’s Jak and daxter’. I really love this portion of the game and it feels cool that we’re actually trying to help this society which is cut off from everyone else. Whilst I do have a minor gripe with the driving, the missions didn’t annoy me that much and some were actually quite enjoyable. It’s just a shame that after the first act your done with the wasteland with only the odd mission with sig or the temple.

Damas - he is probably the best written character in the game and my personal favourite. Damas is introduced near the very start and takes Jak in from the desert and gives him the chance to reinvent himself as a wastelander. Slowly through the game he begins to warm up to Jak and becomes a father figure to him which connects to the plot twist near the end of the game. What I like about Damas’s character though is that he is more then just ‘oh yeah, I didn’t like Jak near the start but now I do’. Damas has a reason to like Jak, he is like the son he lost and it makes sense why he holds him up to that regard near the end of the game.

Precursor orbs - they have an actual use now which is nice. In Jak II they were used to unlock a few extras and some cheats near the end of the game. But in Jak 3 they have a much bigger use. If you get enough you can buy weapon upgrades, new desert vehicles, and even more extras than ever before. It feels like they want you to go out and get the orbs…shame about the weapon upgrades being slightly unnecessary.

The precursors being ottsels - you can’t tell me you didn’t at least do a slight chuckle when this plot twist came up. This whole time…the precursors were actually the same creatures that daxter got turned into. It’s such a nice little call back to what the original game was always pondering and it gives daxter yet another thing to brag about. It’s such a nice full circle twist and I love it.

The bad:

Keira - holy shit what did they do to Keira. “You know one of the sweetest characters that was always trying to help Jak no matter what in both games? Why don’t we make her do absolutely nothing and lose her as the love interest”…I’m sorry, why? Supposedly her actor was off doing other things or something and they decided to go for Ashelin to be the new love interest but like…they could’ve at least made Keira do something useful like she did in the last 2 games. She doesn’t even say anything. Even in the extras menu when you view her character she looks lazy and half arsed. I’m so happy she was back to how she was in Jak X because Jesus Christ.

Ashelin - I think this more goes towards her writing more than anything, her as a character is pretty sound. She has some of the biggest throwaway lines in the game. During the final scene, as Jak announces that his true name is mar, Ashelin just had to say: “wait so, Jak is mar, the mar”. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU IMPLYING. Do you mean that he’s the mar that is meant to be the next ruler of haven city? Do you mean he’s the original mar that is talked about so much? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN??? AHHHHHHH-

The ‘villain’ - so uhh…remember Errol from Jak II? He’s back! Just uhh…with a terrible design. What the hell did they do to him. The thing about Errol is he doesn’t really feel that threatening. Sure, he looks like an absolute menace and I wouldn’t want talk to him if I passed him on the street but like…I feel kinda bad for him. Like they may as well have just made veger the main villain because he at least has more of a reason then Errol does. Errol is only doing it because ‘he hates Jak’ and I just don’t find that to be a good enough reason. Like yeah sure he turned him into what he is but like…does that mean you also have to destroy the rest of humanity?

Driving in the wasteland - let’s set the scene. As they were developing the wasteland and trying to do the driving controls, instead of dedicating a button for drifting they decided to make it automatic drift and it sucks…like really sucks. The last mission was absolutely painful as I tried to wrestle with it and I just couldn’t. I had to put the game down for ages because of it. Eventually I would beat the mission but I could never forgive who decided automatic drift would be good except for maybe realism.

Guns - I see what they were doing here. The ratchet series allowed you to choose whichever type of gun you wanted and gave you a lot of options when it came down to that. In Jak II you only had 4. But that sort of worked as it gave you a decent challenge and fit into the gameplay really well. In Jak 3 you get not 2 extra guns, not 4, but 8. Combine that with the 4 from Jak II and you have 12 guns…and these guns absolutely decimate the enemies. I’m not gonna go too in depth about them but let’s just say they should’ve increased the difficulty to compensate for the guns.

The council - let me put it for you simply:
Near the start: Ashelin: “the council are too powerful”
Near the start of the third act: Ashelin: “count veger, I hereby dissolve the city council”
So how the hell did she just do that and why didn’t she do it near the start? It is just another throwaway line from Ashelin but it really bugs me and it clearly bugs other people.

No dynamic music - this might be me being a little nitpicky but remember when you’d pull out a gun in Jak II and the music would change to a more pumped up and anxious sounding ost? Well it isn’t here in Jak 3. I mean it is a shame they didn’t reimplement it but I guess they had other stuff going on.

Light Jak - so now alongside dark Jak we have light Jak which is so broken. You get 3 abilities with light Jak: flying, stop time, and heal. The heal ability is extremely broken, allowing you, mid battle, to heal yourself up completely. It only adds to how easy the gameplay has become which is in complete contrast to how Jak II operated. Also, you know those other abilities I reeled off? You barely use them. The flying ability is used a few odd times but the stop time ability is basically useless. There’s this one bit when you are trying to get to Errol where there are these spinning blades and I thought we finally needed to us the ability to go through. BUT NOPE. Instead we had to play as daxter to stop it…what. You made an ability which showed you that you could go through those things and like…you don’t even use it for what it’s meant for…also don’t even bother with dark Jak.

Haven city - this is probably me being nitpicky yet again but haven city feels kind of pointless. You do most of the missions in the harbour area and there are only a few areas left from the Jak II. I mean I do get that they showed how most of the areas had been destroyed but they could’ve at least spread the missions out a bit. I mean there are a few in the new haven section but what about doing a few in the slums where it all started? Or maybe even bring back how haven forest actually used to be.

And that was my critique of Jak 3. I don’t necessarily hate it, there were actually some parts I really liked. But it is a stark contrast from what Jak II was doing. While Jak II just missed the mark but did stuff really great, Jak 3 completely missed the mark and did only a few good things.

Piss easy gameplay, muddled up writing, some decent written new characters?, ost is still alright I guess, DAXTER GOT PANTS!!!