Jak II is a fascinating case study in the attempt to satisfy multiple audiences all at once. In order to best understand Jak II, it's best to view the game within the context of the time it was made.
GTA 3 exploded onto the scene, reverberating throughout the entire industry, causing everyone to go into a frenzy. Open world sandbox games were fresh and interesting, giving the player a means to doing seemingly anything they could ever want. Games like GTA, Halo and Metal Gear Solid 2 showed that games could not only be dark and serious, but could also be mature.
Jak, the series, was not this. Like, God, not at all.
Naughty Dog had just started a new IP that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tailend of the era of 3D platformers was here, and Jak 1 was one of the last ones out. So instead of leaning more into their current audience of mostly younger kids, they changed course with the sequel. Jak II would become a serious game, that's dark, brooding, cool, and most importantly, for mature gamers. Naughty Dog took the effort to become as appealing to this demographic of preteens, teens and inbetweens as much as humanly possible, injecting every facet of Jak 2 with any gaming trend to have ever graced the mid-2000's.
As a result, Jak II is a mish-mash of multiple ideas stapled together and crumpled up into a tiny ball. It's a GTA clone! It's a platformer! It's a third person shooter! It's a racer! It's a Tony Hawk clone? What?
The GTA style gameplay loop of driving around a city and having cops chase after you is very prevelant, albeit loosely implemented. The game pays lip service to GTA without ever really understanding the basics of why GTA works so well. A simple example: in GTA, roads function as you would expect in a densely packed Metropolitan area. In Jak II, this very simple element becomes lost in translation due to navigating around this futuristic dystopian world. Driving itself becomes counter-intuitive when there's numerous denizens walking in the middle of the road, airway congestion blocking you from above, every route and pathway feeling cramped, coalescing within every claustrophobic wall and tight corner this city provides.
This city is just simply not a fun place to drive in. There's so many dead ends, corners, traffic, with no real straight shots of any kind. The reason for this is simple. Everything is bundled to the world design, matching exactly how a dysfunctional dystopia would be. Dilapidated houses, roads with holes carved out by the many bomb blasts that have previously been bombarding the city. Wonky wooden pier pathways that creep out into the murky waters housing the equally wonkily built slum houses. Areas divided with electronic barriers to keep the slums from infecting the higher class areas. The world is built as an interesting backdrop first and a functionally fun place to drive around last.
Jak II has made me realize that I've taken for granted the systems and mechanics that GTA has set in place. Within the wanted system of GTA, there's a push and pull with how a chase begins, proceeds, and ends. When you begin, you're contemplating on whether or not the risk of obtaining a new car is worth potentially having the cops come after you. Is the coast clear? Are there any witnesses? Which car should I steal? If I need to get someplace fast, should I just steal any car? As you proceed with your car jacking proclivities, you obtain a wanted level. This level increases as you rack up more and more violations. Your choices from here are to either drive away avoiding the many cops blocking your escape route, or blasting them away, causing that pesky wanted rating to potentially rise more. The more your level goes up, the more artillery the cops begin to bust out to stop you, making your escape much harder. To end the madness, you have to hide until the heat dies down, or enter a safe house. Then, you can return to your normal state of being. Alternatively, you could also potentially die or get arrested by the police, causing you to either pay out with bail, or pay out your medical bills. This brings you back to the beginning, where you determine the next time if it's worth the risk to enter into the loop once again, potentially losing a valuable resource if you die/get caught. It's a fundamentally solid risk vs reward system.
Jak 2 does, uh... Very little of anything I just described.
Guards out on patrol absolutely do not care if you steal someone's car. They don't even care if you mow down civilians with your car! See, these asshole only care if you hit any of THEIR cars, or what's more likely, accidentally rammed into one of them while you were trying to dodge all the flying cars that clutter the screen. The reason why they're so indifferent is the same reason as before; this universe we're violently kicked into is an authoritarian oppressive NIGHTMARE, with a government that makes normal citizens lick their boots before they stomp them into the ground. In-universe explanation be damned — as a mechanic, it just doesn't work here. There's no real consequences to your actions, there's no real push or pull. Death just means restarting the mission at worst and respawning nearby where you died at best. The system is brainless in how you approach the threat, and there's no such thing as planning your next step ahead.
Can you have fun with this system? Sure. You can wrangle fun out of just about any system. But the main issue that arises though from this lackluster wanted system, as well as the atrocious level design, is that the GTA style of missions become a mind numbing slog to even be reached. Every mission is just running back and forth between different key locations, remixing previous level design for a new type of mission. Escorts missions, turret missions, kill this many enemies, skateboarding to do this or that, go do a race, then do it all again in the next few missions. New spins to those types of missions happen, and they're welcomed, but every mission is then hampered by extremely limiting checkpoints that'll make you repeat the mission over and over until you eventually manage to survive the entire mission in a single go.
These missions are at the very least helped by the combat feeling satisfying. Hitting a dude with a melee attack and seeing Jak and Daxter squash and stretch is immensely pleasing to view. Running, jumping, spinning, shooting, all of the actions feel nice and weighty to perform. Same with their spin attack.
But the you start adding weapons into the mix.
You start off with a shotgun, which is meant to clear out enemies within it's radius. The blast takes about 2-3 bullets to take out a bad guy. This would be fine, but your melee hits do the same amount of damage. Your spin attack is about as equally effective too. They try and swarm you with many enemies at once to justify the use of the shotgun, but it isn't very satisfying to use when it's only purpose is for a slightly larger crowd control. This in turn means that the shotgun is repetitive to the combat loop, at least more towards the beginning. The second gun you get, the Blaster, is much more enjoyable to use. It's a single bolt shot, but if you melee followed by shoot, you can perform an extra move that shoots 3-4 shots. Spinning shoots out in any direction, hitting anything in it's path. Why the shotgun doesn't have this type of role is beyond me. Next is your equivalent to a chaingun, which can be fun to mow down guys with, but ultimately chows down too many bullets far too quickly to be a go-to weapon. Same with the final gun, the Peace Maker, of which has very limited ammo but has a massive blast radius. I feel the need to hoard my ammo with these like a tiny little muskrat, since they feel slightly rarer to drop. The blaster is just way too versatile to use, making it the best gun in the entire game, which overshadows all of the other weapons dramatically. This makes combat somewhat satisfying, but also quite mindless. Spinning while shooting does the job quite aptly... until it doesn't and you randomly get hit. There's no real aiming with these weapons, they're all auto aiming at a nearby target, which in turn becomes difficult for the player to point directly at an enemy in the distance. The designers only occasionally pull this nasty trick on you on purpose, but in more open sections, this becomes an unintended side effect of the limitations of this shooting system. It's clunkily held together by duct tape and glue, but combat does have it's moments.
Playing Jak II has been a bizarre experience. Not entirely for it's story corrupting a relatively family friendly kid's game and inserting causality loops and dark authoritarian dystopians into it. It has moreso to do with my perspective changing from when I initially first played the game. Jak II was the first PlayStation 2 game that I ever owned, and was THE reason I wanted a PS2. That's right, I was that demographic. The game served as a more age appropriate approach towards GTA gameplay, and was my first real exposure to the type of formula. In a way, there's a certain affinity for the game that still remains. Even through all the frustration I've felt from this game, there's something distinctively intriguing about it's tone and design. Which doesn't mean that it's necessarily a good video game, but at the very least, it's an fascinating disaster. Jak II is a tried and failed method of attempting to cram in as many mechanics together as possible, becoming a jack of all trades, master of none. The more you look at Jak II, the more the game begins to break apart at the seams, and yet, the more I'm enraptured by the game. None of it really works for me, but there's still something there. A spark of life. A hint of soul. I love when you've entered a vehicle, the music transitions to a more upbeat drum backing it. I love the environments to the game, there's an incredible sense of atmosphere to these bleak fantastical world. I love how dorky and lame it is to have Jak become some weirdo edge lord who wields a gun. I love that this is directly responsible for Shadow The Hedgehog existing.
If Jak II was scaled back and had refocused itself on one or two gameplay styles, it may have been a better game. At the same time though, I'm not entirely sure it would have been as interesting. It'd be less ambitious, less absurd, and less of what makes Jak II irresistible to watch.
I don't think Jak II is very good, but I do think Jak II is an interesting game. Not all media can say that. And personally, I'd rather be remembered for failing spectacularly than to be completely forgotten from sheer and utter mediocrity.
GTA 3 exploded onto the scene, reverberating throughout the entire industry, causing everyone to go into a frenzy. Open world sandbox games were fresh and interesting, giving the player a means to doing seemingly anything they could ever want. Games like GTA, Halo and Metal Gear Solid 2 showed that games could not only be dark and serious, but could also be mature.
Jak, the series, was not this. Like, God, not at all.
Naughty Dog had just started a new IP that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tailend of the era of 3D platformers was here, and Jak 1 was one of the last ones out. So instead of leaning more into their current audience of mostly younger kids, they changed course with the sequel. Jak II would become a serious game, that's dark, brooding, cool, and most importantly, for mature gamers. Naughty Dog took the effort to become as appealing to this demographic of preteens, teens and inbetweens as much as humanly possible, injecting every facet of Jak 2 with any gaming trend to have ever graced the mid-2000's.
As a result, Jak II is a mish-mash of multiple ideas stapled together and crumpled up into a tiny ball. It's a GTA clone! It's a platformer! It's a third person shooter! It's a racer! It's a Tony Hawk clone? What?
The GTA style gameplay loop of driving around a city and having cops chase after you is very prevelant, albeit loosely implemented. The game pays lip service to GTA without ever really understanding the basics of why GTA works so well. A simple example: in GTA, roads function as you would expect in a densely packed Metropolitan area. In Jak II, this very simple element becomes lost in translation due to navigating around this futuristic dystopian world. Driving itself becomes counter-intuitive when there's numerous denizens walking in the middle of the road, airway congestion blocking you from above, every route and pathway feeling cramped, coalescing within every claustrophobic wall and tight corner this city provides.
This city is just simply not a fun place to drive in. There's so many dead ends, corners, traffic, with no real straight shots of any kind. The reason for this is simple. Everything is bundled to the world design, matching exactly how a dysfunctional dystopia would be. Dilapidated houses, roads with holes carved out by the many bomb blasts that have previously been bombarding the city. Wonky wooden pier pathways that creep out into the murky waters housing the equally wonkily built slum houses. Areas divided with electronic barriers to keep the slums from infecting the higher class areas. The world is built as an interesting backdrop first and a functionally fun place to drive around last.
Jak II has made me realize that I've taken for granted the systems and mechanics that GTA has set in place. Within the wanted system of GTA, there's a push and pull with how a chase begins, proceeds, and ends. When you begin, you're contemplating on whether or not the risk of obtaining a new car is worth potentially having the cops come after you. Is the coast clear? Are there any witnesses? Which car should I steal? If I need to get someplace fast, should I just steal any car? As you proceed with your car jacking proclivities, you obtain a wanted level. This level increases as you rack up more and more violations. Your choices from here are to either drive away avoiding the many cops blocking your escape route, or blasting them away, causing that pesky wanted rating to potentially rise more. The more your level goes up, the more artillery the cops begin to bust out to stop you, making your escape much harder. To end the madness, you have to hide until the heat dies down, or enter a safe house. Then, you can return to your normal state of being. Alternatively, you could also potentially die or get arrested by the police, causing you to either pay out with bail, or pay out your medical bills. This brings you back to the beginning, where you determine the next time if it's worth the risk to enter into the loop once again, potentially losing a valuable resource if you die/get caught. It's a fundamentally solid risk vs reward system.
Jak 2 does, uh... Very little of anything I just described.
Guards out on patrol absolutely do not care if you steal someone's car. They don't even care if you mow down civilians with your car! See, these asshole only care if you hit any of THEIR cars, or what's more likely, accidentally rammed into one of them while you were trying to dodge all the flying cars that clutter the screen. The reason why they're so indifferent is the same reason as before; this universe we're violently kicked into is an authoritarian oppressive NIGHTMARE, with a government that makes normal citizens lick their boots before they stomp them into the ground. In-universe explanation be damned — as a mechanic, it just doesn't work here. There's no real consequences to your actions, there's no real push or pull. Death just means restarting the mission at worst and respawning nearby where you died at best. The system is brainless in how you approach the threat, and there's no such thing as planning your next step ahead.
Can you have fun with this system? Sure. You can wrangle fun out of just about any system. But the main issue that arises though from this lackluster wanted system, as well as the atrocious level design, is that the GTA style of missions become a mind numbing slog to even be reached. Every mission is just running back and forth between different key locations, remixing previous level design for a new type of mission. Escorts missions, turret missions, kill this many enemies, skateboarding to do this or that, go do a race, then do it all again in the next few missions. New spins to those types of missions happen, and they're welcomed, but every mission is then hampered by extremely limiting checkpoints that'll make you repeat the mission over and over until you eventually manage to survive the entire mission in a single go.
These missions are at the very least helped by the combat feeling satisfying. Hitting a dude with a melee attack and seeing Jak and Daxter squash and stretch is immensely pleasing to view. Running, jumping, spinning, shooting, all of the actions feel nice and weighty to perform. Same with their spin attack.
But the you start adding weapons into the mix.
You start off with a shotgun, which is meant to clear out enemies within it's radius. The blast takes about 2-3 bullets to take out a bad guy. This would be fine, but your melee hits do the same amount of damage. Your spin attack is about as equally effective too. They try and swarm you with many enemies at once to justify the use of the shotgun, but it isn't very satisfying to use when it's only purpose is for a slightly larger crowd control. This in turn means that the shotgun is repetitive to the combat loop, at least more towards the beginning. The second gun you get, the Blaster, is much more enjoyable to use. It's a single bolt shot, but if you melee followed by shoot, you can perform an extra move that shoots 3-4 shots. Spinning shoots out in any direction, hitting anything in it's path. Why the shotgun doesn't have this type of role is beyond me. Next is your equivalent to a chaingun, which can be fun to mow down guys with, but ultimately chows down too many bullets far too quickly to be a go-to weapon. Same with the final gun, the Peace Maker, of which has very limited ammo but has a massive blast radius. I feel the need to hoard my ammo with these like a tiny little muskrat, since they feel slightly rarer to drop. The blaster is just way too versatile to use, making it the best gun in the entire game, which overshadows all of the other weapons dramatically. This makes combat somewhat satisfying, but also quite mindless. Spinning while shooting does the job quite aptly... until it doesn't and you randomly get hit. There's no real aiming with these weapons, they're all auto aiming at a nearby target, which in turn becomes difficult for the player to point directly at an enemy in the distance. The designers only occasionally pull this nasty trick on you on purpose, but in more open sections, this becomes an unintended side effect of the limitations of this shooting system. It's clunkily held together by duct tape and glue, but combat does have it's moments.
Playing Jak II has been a bizarre experience. Not entirely for it's story corrupting a relatively family friendly kid's game and inserting causality loops and dark authoritarian dystopians into it. It has moreso to do with my perspective changing from when I initially first played the game. Jak II was the first PlayStation 2 game that I ever owned, and was THE reason I wanted a PS2. That's right, I was that demographic. The game served as a more age appropriate approach towards GTA gameplay, and was my first real exposure to the type of formula. In a way, there's a certain affinity for the game that still remains. Even through all the frustration I've felt from this game, there's something distinctively intriguing about it's tone and design. Which doesn't mean that it's necessarily a good video game, but at the very least, it's an fascinating disaster. Jak II is a tried and failed method of attempting to cram in as many mechanics together as possible, becoming a jack of all trades, master of none. The more you look at Jak II, the more the game begins to break apart at the seams, and yet, the more I'm enraptured by the game. None of it really works for me, but there's still something there. A spark of life. A hint of soul. I love when you've entered a vehicle, the music transitions to a more upbeat drum backing it. I love the environments to the game, there's an incredible sense of atmosphere to these bleak fantastical world. I love how dorky and lame it is to have Jak become some weirdo edge lord who wields a gun. I love that this is directly responsible for Shadow The Hedgehog existing.
If Jak II was scaled back and had refocused itself on one or two gameplay styles, it may have been a better game. At the same time though, I'm not entirely sure it would have been as interesting. It'd be less ambitious, less absurd, and less of what makes Jak II irresistible to watch.
I don't think Jak II is very good, but I do think Jak II is an interesting game. Not all media can say that. And personally, I'd rather be remembered for failing spectacularly than to be completely forgotten from sheer and utter mediocrity.