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[Jarmel]

"crap accuracy", "poor enemy encounters" "firing of the weapons being pisspoor all as issues of the gunplay being garbage". You think this is specific or constructive?

Then he goes on to detail a section of the game that has an immense difficulty spike and was, in my opinion, a bit poorly designed. But he explains little more than his frustrations with the encounter.

There are things in Jak 2 I do not like but I can be specific about them and break them down in detail and I don't think that saying something "crap" or "sucks" counts as valid criticism. It comes off to me as simply a vapid flaming response and nothing can be gained from them.

Crap accuracy isn't specific enough? Or the enemy encounters being poorly thought out in the way of the game just dropping enemies into the middle of the map isn't?

I also detailed another mission that has issues due to the game mechanics being wonky.

Stop complaining and explain why in detail you think the lack of an accurate shooting system is acceptable in a game where you shoot lots of things.

 

[Suzzopher]

Out of the three character action platformers from Sony, Jak 2 stands out the most. The drop in quality from the first is insane. Then stack it up to what happened with Ratchet & Clank and Sly, the jump in quality from the first games to their sequels was huge! Such a shame for Jak & Daxter.

 

[Aureon]

skip, play 3, repent.

 

[SuperSonic1305]

Jak 2 is the best one by far.

 

[thewhitehawk]

Crap accuracy isn't specific enough?

It's as specific as me saying your reply sucks and leaving it at that. But it's clear to me you don't understand that I wanted to discuss the game's characteristics in further detail and are taking my replies personally, so I'll leave this discussion at that.

 

[zroid]

LOL ign's review

 

[Jarmel]

It's as specific as me saying your reply sucks and leaving it at that. But it's clear to me you don't understand that I wanted to discuss the game's characteristics in further detail and are taking my replies personally, so I'll leave this discussion at that.

Wow. Articulate to me why you think either accuracy isn't important for the shooting mechanics or why you think the accuracy system is fine the way it is. You have yet to do either other than just say you think it's fine. I have detailed why I think the accuracy system, in a game where accuracy is important, is flawed and you have yet to give me a good defense for that.

 

[bengraven]

Jak and Daxter is one of my favorite platformers of all time.

But the "shadow the hedgehog" thing kept me from playing part 2. It just felt like they were marketing to the recent GTAIII crowd. I played it a bit, but can't remember how I felt about it since it was years later and I was over the whole thing.

But 2 and 3 are holding me back from buying the Jak Collection.

 

[balohna]

I feel like anyone that felt Jak II was a great game can't have played Ratchet and Clank, which came out one year earlier.

 

[TMaakkonen]

Hmmmmm
Jak 2 was released in 2003.
Shadow the Hedgehog was released in 2005.

Shouldnt we call Shadow the Hedgehog a "Jak 2" since its Jak 2 that actually did it first?

Spoiler

Have there been earlier games that have done this kind of major change in gameplay & style?

EDIT:

I feel like anyone that felt Jak II was a great game can't have played Ratchet and Clank, which came out one year earlier.

If we go technical, R&C1 is pretty outdated nowadays.
And what kind of excuse is that? Sure Ratchet and Clank games have been superior to Jak games, but does that make Jak 2 bad? I hate this logic...

 

[Jarmel]

Hmmmmm
Jak 2 was released in 2003.
Shadow the Hedgehog was released in 2005.

Shouldnt we call Shadow the Hedgehog a "Jak 2" since its Jak 2 that actually did it first?

Spoiler

Have there been earlier games that have done this kind of major change in gameplay & style?

GTA 3.

 

[Retro_]

I feel like anyone that felt Jak II was a great game can't have played Ratchet and Clank, which came out one year earlier.

I have

I don't like Ratchet at all.

Ratchet seemed more focused on the guns than the platforming, which I felt was the worst out of the big Playstation mascot platformers. (Sly > Jak >>> Ratchet)

and then the games had that multiplayer phase with 3 and Deadlocked being balanced around that. Series had way more of a midlife identity crisis than Jak ever did

 

[TMaakkonen]

GTA 3.

I meant mostly a change from "childish" to a more "mature and edgy" game.

 

[AniHawk]

It sucks that your post was looked over.

haha, thanks. i appreciate that.

 

[Jarmel]

I meant mostly a change from "childish" to a more "mature and edgy" game.

Ah, hmm. That I don't really know. I can think of a few that changed tones(in that time period or before) but not going all the way from kid friendly to something relatively dark.

 

[Burbeting]

Jak 2 wasn't horrible game per se, but it had some annoying flaws. Most of the flaws got something to do with the games difficulty. The difficulty of the game itself didn't really bother me, but...

1. Check-point system was mostly really really bad. They were at some points way too scarce. Sometimes it was okay, but usually not. One example is one of the earlier missions in the pumping station: if you died, you basically had to restert the whole mission, which was +10 minute trip on the first playthruogh. There were bunch of missions that had almost none/not at all checkpoints. This comes to...

2. Bad Mission Desing Some of the missions in Jak 2 were really awful. Many people seems to mentiont the run from the water slums (you know, the one were there were countless of enemies chasing you, and the mission was basically luck-based?). It wasn't the only poor mission though. There were pretty many missions were you needed to do something with very small time limit. If you fail, back to the beginning.

3. You can't regain you used. I can't understand who thought this was a good idea. If you died in some part of mission, you wouldn't regain the ammo you used before you died (like having same amount of ammo as you had when you reached the check-point). This made every try of some frustrating part of a mission even harder since you had less and less every time.

I have played Jak 2 to completion twice (once on PS2 and once with HD-collection), but these flaws just make me confused. Jak 3 fixed some of them, but not all.

 

[ScreenSplitter]

Eugh people calling it a Shadow the Hedgehog thing, really? I'd rather have a cliched character than a silent protagonist, again. At least they attempted to give Jak some rough semblance of a personality, which always made Jak II feel a little better. Daxter pretty much carried Jak 1.

I don't know, I sort of liked the realisation moment that they were in a dystopian Sandover Village. I was 10, but I liked it. God forbid they do a little world building outside of "here's a generic ice/forest/beach, go collect some power cells for the *INSERT JOB/ARCHETYPE HERE*"

 

[TMaakkonen]

Ah, hmm. That I don't really know. I can think of a few that changed tones(in that time period or before) but not going all the way from kid friendly to something relatively dark.

Only thing I can think of is Conker, but original Conker was never released, so I dont think it should count.

 

[jimi_dini]

Is Metal Gear Solid a shooter?

MGS 4, yes - hell you can buy weapons and ammo whereever you are
MGS games before that, no

 

[ClivePwned]

Jak II was just an unnessary retconning of a series. It was like "Hey we liked Jak and Daxter, but it really didn't sell like we hoped." Rather than iterate, they panicked and Jak II was the result. Goatee, cheap deaths, open world, cheap deaths, guns, cheap deaths, edgier, cheap deaths, harder, less fun, longer, really cheap deaths, more padded and drawn out, etc.

Yes, some people liked it. I just wasn't one of them. J&D was a really good game. Jak II was something else. I beat the game, but I promised myself I would never again slog through games I hated in order to complete them.

Jak III may have been an improvement but I only played it for a few hours before giving up

Jak II remains the only game of ND's that I outright despise. I'm fine with Crash, TLOU and Uncharted games. They at least seemed to learn from their mistakes.

also, R&C 2 released the same time was sooooo good.

 

[JB1981]

can't even play it due to the inverted controls.

 

[Tourmeta]

Jak 2 was alright as a kid. I kinda enjoyed the HD edition as well. Jak 3 really improved things.

 

[pantsmith]

I played it when it came out, and though I loathed the direction the story and general aesthetics took, it was a very well made game for the context of "its time" and all that it tried to achieve in one package.

You can tell that Naughty Dog wanted to be taken a bit more seriously and I think they took it out on a world/IP that maybe didnt need it, but its understandable how and why it happened.

I generally agree with you and cant really argue with anything you said, though I will say I adored the hoverboard and have fond memories of several of the "natural" locations outside the city, cruising around to really pleasant ambient sounds.

Generally the game is about as unpleasant to think about (for me) as Jaks demeanor- from the atmosphere to the story. I would love them to make another game like the first Jak and Daxter.

 

[ScreenSplitter]

Jak II was just an unnessary retconning of a series. It was like "Hey we liked Jak and Daxter, but it really didn't sell like we hoped." Rather than iterate, they panicked and Jak II was the result. Goatee, cheap deaths, open world, cheap deaths, guns, cheap deaths, edgier, cheap deaths, harder, less fun, longer, really cheap deaths, more padded and drawn out, etc.

Yes, some people liked it. I just wasn't one of them. J&D was a really good game. Jak II was something else. I beat the game, but I promised myself I would never again slog through games I hated in order to complete them.

Jak III may have been an improvement but I only played it for a few hours before giving up

Jak II remains the only game of ND's that I outright despise. I'm fine with Crash, TLOU and Uncharted games. They at least seemed to learn from their mistakes.

also, R&C 2 released the same time was sooooo good.

lol you criticize them for trying to sell more games but think them going back to do Uncharted 4 is fine yeah?

 

[TMaakkonen]

Jak II was just an unnessary retconning of a series. It was like "Hey we liked Jak and Daxter, but it really didn't sell like we hoped."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jak_and_Daxter:_The_Precursor_Legacy

4.2 million copies

Spoiler

and I didnt even need to use bannedsite

Your excuse is BS.

Im also convinced people who hate Jak 2 are those who were the fans of the original and are unable to accept change.

Spoiler

Thou in hindsight pissing of original fans is never that good idea. . .

 

[Nev]

It just felt like they were marketing to the recent GTAIII crowd

Well, that's exactly what they were doing. Sly 2 suffered the same retarded focus group fate, but it was much, much more bearable than the atrocity that happened with Jak.

The same happened this last generation (except it wasn't GTA but CoD) with a lot of games, and most of them ended up terribly. When will people who make these decisions understand this is a terrible thing to do I don't know, but so far a lot of franchises have been destroyed and the same mistake keeps being made. Some will never learn I guess.

 

[rjc571]

I feel like anyone that felt Jak II was a great game can't have played Ratchet and Clank, which came out one year earlier.

That's a stupid leap in logic. Jak 2 blows the Ratchet games out of the water in terms of platforming and level design. The only thing Ratchet does better than Jak is weapons, but again, the weapons and shooting gameplay were pretty much the entire focus of the Ratchet games but were a very small component of Jak 2.

 

[ScreenSplitter]

That's a stupid leap in logic. Jak 2 blows the Ratchet games out of the water in terms of platforming and level design. The only thing Ratchet does better than Jak is weapons, but again, the weapons and shooting gameplay were pretty much the entire focus of the Ratchet games but were a very small component of Jak 2.

Indeed. I must have missed the open world section of Ratchet and Clank with a decent story and excellent music.

 

[jluedtke]

I remember being so excited for this game when it came out. The first game was a really fun platformer, and this...? This was Jak Theft Auto, only terrible. Make Jak an angsty gun-toting protagonist, call it "open world", add in a bunch of really bad driving missions...ugh. I hated it when it came out, and after giving it a few extra chances, I still hated it.

Could've had a life similar to Ratchet & Clank, but nope.

 

[Axass]

Indeed. I must have missed the open world section of Ratchet and Clank with a decent story and excellent music.

You're right Ratchet & Clank doesn't have those things.


It's incredible how it manages to still be such an incredibly better game than Jak II.

Spoiler

 

[jooey]

Perhaps it is I who just misunderstood poor Jak, heck, IGN seemed to really enjoy his new direction in their review:

"Jak is far more likeable now that he speaks, and that fact that he's pissed off and owns honking big guns weaves in an unmistakable new level of emotion into the narrative."

who the fuck wro-- oh doug perry

 

[Yoshi]

Hmmmmm
Jak 2 was released in 2003.
Shadow the Hedgehog was released in 2005.

Shouldnt we call Shadow the Hedgehog a "Jak 2" since its Jak 2 that actually did it first?

Sonic is the bigger franchise and Shadow is a well known other example for such a drastic change in tone. I agree that Jak 2 did it first and if I was discussing Shadow with an example, I'd definitely bring up Jak 2. Especially since both, Jak 2&3 and Shadow really took the same kind of nosedive: Emo story in the foreground, horrible shooting and driving sections, badly planned out level and mission design. Jak 2 & 3 and Shadow the Hedgehog are an absolute dream team.

Also, I still think Shadow and Jak probably have inspired each others, because when Shadow was introduced in SA2, he already was like he was in Shadow the Hedgehog, from a story-point-of-view. Jak 2 & 3 took it a bit further by also killing the gameplay alongside the change in tone, before Sega copied that "idea" and shat out Shadow.

well it's no secret that i hate this game and i think it represents when naughty dog seriously lost the plot when it came to game development. dark schala pointed me to a postmortem from daniel arey shortly after the game was released.(...)

Wow, what a moron, how could he ever get in charge of designing a game. Really great read, can you link to the complete aftermath? Was there also a similar aftermath for Jak 3?

 

[TEH-CJ]

Best game ever made.

 

[Zalman]

Yup. I don't know what they were thinking with Jak 2 and 3. Why go all mature with a light hearted property? It'd be like Nintendo giving Mario a gun and porn stache because focus testers said he needs to be more edgy.

I don't see why this gets a pass when Shadow swearing with a gun in his hands doesn't.

 

[ScreenSplitter]

You're right Ratchet & Clank doesn't have those things.


It's incredible how it manages to still be such an incredibly better game than Jak II.

Spoiler

Are we talking R&C1? Because that game was janky as fuuuuuccck.

 

[Banzai]

Maybe making Jak & Daxter "more mature" or whatever just for the sake of making it more mature might not have been the best move, but look what we've gainend. A GTA platformer. What's so bad about that? We had plenty of normal platformers, why not try something new?
As for the guns...fine, take them out. Would the game have been better if the yellow eco came shooting out of Jak's hands instead of a gun? They're just a means to defeat enemies in the game and I quite honestly don't see how the aiming is tough or anything.

Daxter: "Yeah, I got it! I got it! Just point and shoot. Sweet. "

 

[rjc571]

I don't see why this gets a pass when Shadow swearing with a gun in his hands doesn't.

Because Shadow the Hedgehog is a terrible game while Jak 2 and 3 are great games.

 

[Axass]

Are we talking R&C1? Because that game was janky as fuuuuuccck.

Yeah, it's the only one I've played in the series. Granted it's been ages since I've touched it, but I clearly remember it as an excellent game, a million times more fun than Jak II, and slightly better than the first Jak as well. To each his own I guess.

 

[ScreenSplitter]

Yeah, it's the only one I've played in the series. Granted it's been ages since I've touched it, but I clearly remember it as an excellent game, a million times more fun than Jak II, and slightly better of the first Jak as well. To each his own I guess.

Well I mean, that's fair enough. But jesus, play Ratchet and Clank 3. It makes Ratchet and Clank 1 look to me how Jak II looks to you.

 

[Axass]

Well I mean, that's fair enough. But jesus, play Ratchet and Clank 3. It makes Ratchet and Clank 1 look to me how Jak II looks to you.

I wanted to play 2 and 3, but ever since I tried the demo of one of the new R&C games for PS3, I lost my resolution, it felt very different from the first game. Also I wish I had the time... I barely get around to play what I have.

 

[V AA D E R]

The games were meant to show the maturation of Jak as a character. They didn't intend for him to stay a kid forever, and some people couldn't accept that, but I liked it. The original Jak will always remain my favorite but I don't hold any ill will against 2 like so many GAFers seem to.

 

[Kujo]

!

 

[Kura]

No game after Jak II (except GTA V) succeeded in mixing so well that ammount of gameplay mechanics. Platforming, shoting, racing, and skating.

Some of you complain about crap precision. Just point the stick to the enemy and you will target the nearest enemy. Or use the (I dont know the english name) the first close range gun. Or spin and shot, that targets too.

Every single zone/level in the game, even if you have to shot, is full of platforming elements.
You have all possible kind of platforming and even puzzles.

The bad airship control... all you need to understand is the existence of inertia and distance-to-floor. Single seat ones are faster and weaker that the others with double seat.
Come one, you even had 2 heights to go avoiding enemies on floor and on airships.

The 3 airship races were frustrating at first, but it's all about to learn to take the shortcuts. It gets fun then.

You have and skate you can jump, flip and grind all around.

You have a very decent story, well written and executed, with lots of enjoyable characters.

You even have a couple of minigames more.

Sincerely, I cannot understand how you can say that game is terrible. Is totally beyond me.

Jak II is so full of gold. Your dissappointment about the change from Jak I is closing your eyes so hard. Treat the game as what it is, and not what you expected/wanted it to be,

 

[DonMigs85]

I loved the first Jak but I can't bring myself to continue Jak II anymore. It just seems so tedious. I got up to the part where you meet Keira.

 

[Aarglefarg]

Jak 2 and 3 got the open world design right a lot more than Sly 2 and 3 (which had several levels that acted like small 'open worlds' for different missions).

I'm 60-something% into Jak 2 and I like it a lot, though not the layout of the city (going from one side of the city to the other on a timer is not fun) or the shooting. I mostly like the challenge and the levels that are on the outskirts of the city.

I much preferred Jak 1, though. Getting 100% being realistically achievable is one of the things I liked about it, to get me care about collecting all the orbs. Getting all the orbs in Jak 2? I'll just get the ones I can and not go hunting for the rest.

 

[buddha0991]

I will just say again, I love this game and its hilarious how its by far one of the most polarizing games I have ever seen.

 

[Drago]

I really do love Jak 2. I thought it was a lot of fun, the challenge was great (could have used more checkpoints though) and I found the shooting to be fun, shots felt like they had a lot of power to them. The platforming sections were really top notch stuff as well. Didn't care much for the story/characters but they got quite a few real laughs out of me.

I still think Jak 1 is the superior game (I may even say that's one of my all time favorites, at least in the 3D platformer genre) but Jak 2 was something else entirely, and for whatever it's worth I found it to be a fantastic game. Would I have liked a direct sequel to the first game more? Yes, absolutely. But I'm still more than happy with Jak 2 as it is.

Never did finish Jak 3 though. Wasn't really a fan of all the 'cars in a barren desert' missions, they really started to wear out on me quick. I think I stopped once you got back into the city, I should pick up from there some day.

 

[Sutton Dagger]

Except Prince of Persia 2 didn't dramatically change its design/gameplay.



Hahaha. Funny stuff right there. Not only the original Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games are equal to the Nintendo platformers in terms of quality, but Ratchet and Clank games are also really good and charming games, so are the Sly Cooper games and the first J&D. The only ones that has been "shite" are Jak 2 and 3. Stop putting plain untrue stuff as facts.

Did I really need to put imo before my statement? FOR ME Sony (and especially MS) haven't been able to match Nintendo's platformers, not even close. I'd love a decent platformer for the PS4 as I don't have a WiiU, sadly their existing franchises in this genre have all been sub-par, IMO.

 

[Veldin]

Jak 2 sucks inside and out. The platforming levels are occasionally designed well, but it takes minutes upon more minutes to drive between them, and for no reason either due to a huge and utterly pointless open world city that does nothing but pad the game's length, and occasionally send you on a boring and/or tedious driving mission.The guns and the controls for using them are awful, yet the game loves to send swarms of enemies with ridiculous amounts of health and broken as hell hitboxes. Checkpoints are miserable, forcing you to replay enormous chunks of a level because of some trial-and-error bullshit that kills you instantly. Oh, and the story is dull as rocks, only briefly spiced up by Daxter's entertaining animations and cutscenes.

I played Jak 2 HD recently and it was just as terrible as I remember on the PS2. Jak 1 is better in pretty much every aspect.

 

[CodytheHero]

All of Naughty Dog's games (bar Uncharted 1) were masterpieces. Including Jak II