Note: If you're in a rush or lack a sense of humour scroll down to the last couple of paragraphs?
In the beggining there was Sonic...
Well, actually, there was Mario, but he's not concerned with this story, right now it's just Sonic....
And then Crash Bandicoot came, and went, and the men, and women, who had made Crash Bandicoot looked at each other and said; "Let's make a platforming legend..."
So they crashed heads, worked very hard and created Jak and Daxter; The precursor Legacy...
A platform adventure with high speed action, roaming stages and brilliant graphics...
And there was still Sonic, and Mario but as I said before he's not important. Crash came back as well but by different people and didn't do as well..
So Jak and Daxter was well recieved, well liked and adored by fans... It was one of the big games of the PS2's original line up.
So the men, and women, looked at each other and said; "Let's make a sequel." And so they did...
Except they added guns, and motorbikes, and dark cities, angst galore and alien invaders called Metal Heads...
And then they made another sequel...
And both games were well liked and went down wel...
And still there was Sonic, and Mario, but mainly Sonic who wasn' doing so well any more. He was being plagued by this evil villain called Shadow, who wanted his own game.
So they made shdow the star of the next Sonic game... They added guns and motorbikes, and dark cities, angst galore and alien invaders called Black Arms...
Meanwhile the men, and women, who had made Jak looked at each other and said; "We like cars."
so low and behold they made a racing game, called it Jak X and enjoyed many hours of blowing stuff up.
Then Sonic decided he wanted a racing game as well and Sonic Riders is due to come out in january...
AM I THE ONLY ONE who sees a sort of pattern here? Jak & Daxter is like the Sonic Adventure games, mainly platformers but ith racing, small ammounts of shooting, and general crazyness....
Jak 2 is like Shadow, with guns and angst and death and so on...
Jak X is like Sonic Riders, a racing game... Does anyone not think this is at all suspicious???
*end rant*
Anyway, back to the initial point of this thread:
Jak X is a surprisingly good game, with a surprisingly decent plot. It actually builds upon the Jak and Daxter world laid out in the precursor trioligy... In fact I'd go as far as to say the plot is better here than it was in Jak 3, which despite having amusing twists and a general direction missed several important steps out...
So, a racing game that has cars, check, speed, check, weapons, check, good fun courses, check... Range of characters, hell yeah. Besides Jak, Daxter, Kiera (who is actually IN this game, I mean she was only in 1 scene in the third game and, YES Kiera fans, look what happens at the end,) you get a whole host of new characters including Rayn, Krew's sexy english daughter, Razor the accented driving legend and the brilliant GT Blitz. The plot unfolds that the dead Krew wants to make provisions for his fortune after he dies and poisons Jak and co to force them to race for him, the deed happens at his funeral and Jak ends up becoming the one wildcard in a heavily bet upon race syndicated so that Mizo (a crimeboss, one of Krew's old rivals) arranges who wins and who looses.
It's fast, fun, slick and furious, and I had a great time playing it. It could be better, but it's niggling little things, and as with all the other Jak games the only problem is it leaves you wanting more...
Those worried after playing the so so racing segments in Jak 3 need not be so, this is MUCH better, the engine is specifically designed FOR racing and the diversity of challenges (crash as often as yo ucan, kill everything in sight, collect artifacts, kill a certain person, charge up power cells (something we havent seen since Jak 1 yay)...
...
I WANT MORE 
I was considering avoiding it at first, thinking of it as one of those dodgey tie-ins you get at the end of a series (Crash Bash, anyone? Although admittadly, that wasn't Naughty Dog soooooo). However, with the above review and memories of CTR, I'ma probably at least rent this some time. Especially since I recently re-aquired Jak & Daxter and Jak 2 this weekend. Tho I guess that's a story for another day.
Sonic R.
Sonic R.
You mean that one that sucked? Yeah, what about it?
I believe he's trying to say that Sonic had a racing game first... However badly he made the point I think that's what he's getting at...
I dunoo, I started writing how much I liked the game and it occured to me how simmilar the two series are. I mean, I've been banging on i nthe Shadow thread "If you dont think guns work in platformers you havent played Jak 2" but playing Jak X just drove the nail home...
I can only hope Sonic Rider's plot holds a candle to Jak X's, but at least the Jak series has GOOD voice actors, with 4 kids doing sonic... eughh....
Still, this isn't to talk about that, it's to talk about Jak X.
I wouldn't say it's plot is, amazing amazing, but it's well done, nicely structured, and advances the series onwards MUCH more than Jak 3 did. It's definitely NOT a spin off, an offshoot but an integral part of the Jak story...
The whole Sonic and Jak thing I didn't notice, but it's not too big of a concern for me.
Any who, I can't say if Jak X will be good (I don't have the game yet), although I do admit, I DID spoil myself by reading the game script of it in Gamefaqs. I will say although the plot is predictable, the story I've read actually does feel ages better then whatever messy story Jak 3 did. Ugh. I just need to get the game and see if it's as worthy as ND's other racer: Crash Team Racing, STILL my fave racing game...of ever.
~Neo
Quote:
Sonic R.
You mean that one that sucked? Yeah, what about it?
Who's to say Sonic Riders isn't going to suck? 😛
I got Jak X two days ago.
So far, so good. Nothing too much for me to hate the game and the storyline is nothing like Jak 3...which is good cuz' I disliked Jak 3's story. In a way, since it doesn't deal with epic adventures or saving the world, the storyline feels very much like the FFX-2 of the Jak world. It's not necessary a bad thing, I'll judge more fully when I seen it all (despite the fact that I read the entire script).
Gameplay wise, my only grip at the moment is somethings it's VERY hard to see the track and that's caused me to crash and burn several times and at times, the control feels "floaty", but it's a VAST improvment from Jak 3's dune buggies which, in my opinion, just had some godawful controls. God only knows I always cry whenever I have to use the damn Sand Shark in Jak 3 as a mandatory requirment, including the end boss.
~Neo
