Jak II (PS4) - 7/10Finished this off last night, the final boss was a bit annoying as it basically forced you into using my least favourite weapon in the game (by virtue of not dropping any ammo for any of the other guns) but I'm definitely glad that I went back and finished this game after being so put off by it back in the day.
For me it's definitely a weaker game compared to The Precursor Legacy, but is certainly better than I gave it credit for back on release. Whilst the first game is a more narrowly focused experience (an evolution of the Mario 64 style 3D platform game) it absolutely nails what it goes for. It is an
excellent 3D platformer with spades of character, charm and is still a beautiful thing to look at even now. Jak II gets credit for broadening its palette and introducing some more variety into the gameplay through weapons, hover board action, driving etc. but it lets itself down with the fact that none of these elements are as well refined as that core experience of the first game. It has, shall we say, become something of a
Jak of all trades.
I think the main aspect that lets it down is simply the inconsistent quality of the experience as you play through. There are many, many missions which are excellent - well designed, fun to play, fit into the story well, look lovely etc. but they are peppered with just a few too many sections that are of a much lower quality. The game never really offers enough refinement in the shooting controls so areas that are big on gun combat tend to be more of a slog than is welcome and most missions involving heavy amounts of driving are probably the real low point, particularly those that involve collecting and dropping of passengers as the mechanics just do not work well enough to be anything other than frustrating. Failing because you are bad or failed to understand what is the goal is one thing, but failing because the game simply doesn't behave effectively or consistently is entirely different!
Something else that I think sours the experience, and is definitely what made me give up on it back on original release, is that the game presents a lot of the worst content in its opening third. The initial slums area is the least interesting to look at and most frustrating to drive around, and the same goes for the early missions. As the game proceeds there is still a reasonably regular occurrence of poor missions, but they start to become outweighed by the good ones. I heard an interesting interview with John Romero recently who was talking about the development of the original Doom and how the opening level of the game was actually the final one that he completed. He said you want to open the game with something strong and that by completing the development of all of the other levels before coming back to this one he could put everything he had learned into making this opening play to the strengths of the game. I feel like this is an approach that Naughty Dog could have benefited from here - taking what they had learned from the later missions which are far better and using some of that to make the early parts of the game more fun.
In terms of narrative there is certainly more going on here in comparison to the first game, more characters, a greater level of cinematics etc. On the one hand this is a good thing, and they certainly play up to the strengths of character and animation that the first game set down, but at times it feels a little ... directionless in a way that the original never did. At times you can be doing things without really knowing why, missions that seem to serve little or no purpose to the core goal and so on. Plenty of times you will complete a mission and just be dumped back in to the city and think "oh, now what?" - what you were doing seemed to have no real point and there is no obvious follow up or new direction for you to pursue other than to wander the city again and find the next icon that the game wants you to go to. The first game could get away with being looser as it wasn't trying to be an especially story driven game. Get power cells to beat the bad guys is an easy overarching goal that doesn't need re-iterating to make each challenge valid, whereas here they're almost trying to have their cake and eat it - make the game much more narrative driven but without putting the effort in to make the narrative and the gameplay thread together effectively.
Overall I had fun with it, increasingly so as things progressed, but it still feels like something of a missed opportunity. With a bit more refinement and focus I could easily have seen this as a 8 or 9 out of ten game.
On to Jak 3 next...