While superior in many ways to the original, Jak II falls short of being great. Like its green-haired hero, this game is cursed with an unshakable dark side.
There are plenty of positives about Jak II: the graphics are fantastic; the variety of gameplay is nearly unique in this genre; and the storyline and voice-acting are considerably well-executed.
Naughty Dog has managed to push the PS2's hardware to its limits. Take the time to look around Haven City and the surrounding areas, and you'll find endless visual marvels. The subtle details are sometimes surprising, sometimes easily overlooked, but unfortunately, often take a backseat to the frantic racing around back and forth and back and forth you'll be doing during the game. The "real-time" weather and time-of-day changes make the environments remarkably realistic...although the day-to-night ratio in Haven City seems to be about 20% - 80%....
The gameplay in Jak II borrows from (as has been mentioned before) the likes of Grand Theft Auto. But it does so as a means to an end: you "borrow" vehicles because you need to get across the monstrous maps...something that will take FOREVER on foot. You can shoot Krimzon Guard officers, and Haven City locals, too, if you want. But that's not rewarding in either case...the cityfolk just collapse and vaporize, and shooting the cops will result in your having to run wildly with every red-suited, gun-toting Guard member in the city taking pot-shots at you. So although there's some defininte GTA-style play, it isn't the game's forte. The game's innovations in platforming are inventive and unique, with engaging puzzles and clever methods of getting your goals accomplished.
Also, the hoverboard you'll aquire will become a welcome replacement to having to steal hovercars, and the Tony Hawk-style tricks you can pull are pretty fun...for a while.
Last on the list of positives is the story and voice-acting. Jak and Daxter was brightly story-driven, and much of that storytelling continues here. The characters you interact with are believable and engaging, and although the story isn't meant to draw you into a FFX soap opera, it does a good job of keeping the missions purposeful and your tasks logical.
Rarely do you see a PS2 game with English as its native language, and as such, it's great to see one with characters who are mouthing the same words you're hearing. The voices are solid, and well-cast, and the character models are great. Jak II also showcases some of the most curvaceous elf-eared female characters you'd care to imagine...heh.
Now, the dark side:
Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. The curse of platform games is the endless repetition of a sequence of timed tasks that must be completed in full or else...WHAM...dead and back to the start of the level. This isn't so evident in the earlier missions, but as the game wears on...it REALLY wears on. You'll find yourself entering a dungeon and just resigning to a 30-attempt, 45-minute learning curve to master a sequence of jumps and flips...killing enemies of every sort along the way. When you've spent nearly an hour trying to outrun a giant worm by leaping platform to platform, and you finally reach the last platform...only to jump just short of the ledge and plummet to your death...finding yourself back at the very very start of the dungeon AGAIN is simply devastating. How easy would it have been to add autosave points after critical tasks are executed? Finishing a dungeon after 30 tries isn't rewarding...it's exhausting and frustrating. That's the game's hamartia.
But you'll also find yourself cursing the hoverboard, speeder races, endless jaunts through the city with every Krimzon Guard officer in sight pelting you with pulse rifles, and the noticable lack of improvements to your character's abilities. There are 4 weapons in the game, each one useful in specific situations, and each one (except the Peacemaker) unbearably difficult to aim. There's some semblance of an autotargeting system at work here, but, curtly, it blows.
I loved Jak and Daxter, and am a fan of platformers. Jak II is a notable addition to the famliy of great platformers from Naughty Dog, and definitely represents a progression in their game development. If they'll combine the beautiful graphics and innovations in gameplay with a less repetetive level system, Jak III will be the PS2's platformer to beat.
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