Current Events > Playing Jak 3 (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just finished Zelda Twilight Princess, seeing how this thing holds up.

Starts with action hero Jak getting into an argument and being sent to an arena.
A minute or two later I already have the red gun.
Beautiful start.

Edit: And then the yellow gun just like that!

Secrets screen says there's 600 precursor orbs in this one. They seem much less hidden. I like that. Makes me feel like I could have a good unlock before the game's over.

Oh good, some negativity.
That race in the dune buggy thing was excruciating. You tap anything, you turn 180 degrees. You drive, you sometimes turn 180 degrees for no reason. Why?

How is the Jak series? I some how missed out on it as a kid. I'm torn between buying a few Jak and Daxter games or Ratchet and Clank.

Well 2's the only one I've beaten recently and I had a lot of fun with that one. Character's fun to control, 4 guns that each have their own purpose, actually pretty challenging, good level variety.
3's really pressing the right buttons so far, giving me 4 guns including one of the most fun ones within the first hour. I remember it getting started fast but this is crazy.

I can't compare them to R&C though because even though I played the first two, I can't remember anything about them.

MisterPengy posted...

How is the Jak series? I some how missed out on it as a kid. I'm torn between buying a few Jak and Daxter games or Ratchet and Clank.

Always liked it much better than R&C which I could never really get into.

I bought the first game mostly because Dee Snider did one of the voices and ended up loving the series even though it made a hard right turn to the left after the first game.

And Ashelin is hot as fuck so I forgive them.

I wish more cars in video games were the Jak 3 Dune Hopper.

Honestly the cars in the city of Jak 3 were pretty cool I kind of wished they made the whole game like that.

Oh this secrets menu is great. It works like a store for precursor orbs. I collected a few orbs and now I get 100 extra ammo on the yellow gun and the blue gun. There's one called turbo jetboard in desert which I have to try.

I love how some of the precursor orb challenges in the city are just spam the same two jetboard tricks for 2 minutes and we'll give you 12 precursor orbs.
This game feels like a power trip after Jak 2.

I'd love to see how Jak 2's difficulty would hold up if they gave you this game's Dark/Light Jak system where you don't have to fully charge it.

Even more so I'd like to see if that game could stand up against the yellow gun that deflects off walls.

And there's a Cyber-Errol boss fight.
My quest to figure out how the Jak 2 Erol became this guy is back on track. It always felt like a sudden shunt into global scale psychopathy to me.

Let's just get the joke out of the way real quick. Ahem. Maybe the robots accidentally adding another r to his name when they rebuilt him caused him to go crazy.

In the second game he had a lot going for him. Champion racer, KG leader, Praxis' right hand guy.
These aren't things he can easily rebuild, Praxis is dead, everyone saw him lose to Jak when it mattered, KGs wouldn't want him back.

He was kind of Jak's rival too. Maybe the same way the precursors guide Jak through their adventure, the Dark Makers (Which have been described in an earlier cutscene as corrupt, evil precursors) either wanted to create their own anti-Jak, or just saw a perennial number two with a bruised ego who'd lost everything and decided he'd be easy to manipulate.

The latter makes it sound like it could have been anyone though so I like the anti-Jak idea more. Eco's good, metal is bad in this series, Jak's full of Eco, Errol's full of metal. He's even kind of mirrored Jak in Jak 2. At the start of Jak 2, Jak goes from a happy go lucky mute to I'm-gonna-kill-praxis the person. His total shift in demeanor is not dissimilar to Erol being totally bent out of shape between games.

Also I like that Cyber-Errol still calls Jak eco freak, even as a weird cyborg guy.

Oh, something else.
When Jak got filled with dark eco, it manifested as anger. This stuff is confirmed to turn up the negative aspects of the personality.
Maybe Cyber-Errol is less insane and more motivated by dark eco amplified anger or hatred. He did drive in to that month-long supply of eco (However much that is, sound's like a lot.) and who knows what sort of shape he was in and for how long before they fixed him up.

No idea how Errol survived as he hit that tank of Dark Eco and it exploded, you'd think there would be nothing left to reconstruct! I think Naughty Dog over-corrected with the difficulty in Jak 3 as a reaction to feedback from Jak 2. I found it really easy while Jak 2 was just sadistic at times.

Jak 1 is my favourite and in my opinion is the greatest platformer of all time.

I guess the armor he was wearing and whichever parts of the bike could have miraculously shielded from the blast are gonna have to do as far as an explanation goes.

I never really went for the first game. Probably because I played 2 first and it felt so weird to have him lose all the abilities I was used to.
One thing the first game does have though. "I'd hate to fall in again and turn into you!" is the best line in the series.

I feel like Jak 2 is the only brutally hard game where I liked it and was like "hurt me more". Somehow it was just what I wanted at the time.

It got to the point that I knew a racing or times challenge was almost over when I'd raced as long as I could possibly imagine I could go..and then went a bit further. Always pushing the limits.

And done.

That felt really fast and it was absolutely worlds easier than Jak 2.
You could definitely subtract pieces and get it back up to Jak 2 difficulty though. If you went back to the old checkpoint system, some of those vehicle levels would be brutal. If you took the reflecting yellow gun and the big blue homing triple thing away the KG robots would suddenly be a good bit more threatening. They got rid of that thing where you tap a Krimzon Guard and suddenly they're all swarming you but that was less challenge and more elongating the travel between missions.

The cars had positive and negatives. Randomly skidding and turning 180 degrees or performing two flips because I lightly tapped something I couldn't swerve away from was pretty irritating. I really like big dumb hail Mary boost jumps though and the Dune Hopper was the best at that. I say again. Put the Jak 3 Dune Hopper in more games.

I really like how the secrets section works in this one, a lot more than in Jak 2. They give you your weapons fast, make precursor orbs more common and treat it like a shop. There's your actual upgrades in there and there's dumb fun stuff. I beat the game and infinite dark/light Jak have appeared in there for 50 orbs each. I might have liked if the game went crazy and made them available from the start. If the game's gonna be a power trip, go all in.

The whole game feels like a reward for sticking with Jak 2. You struggle in that game, then in this one you play as the ass kicker you just spent a game building. I can't get the same sense of achievement I could from Jak 2 but when they just let you charge some bad guys with your 12 guns and much more readily available Dark Jak powers. Light Jak's heal really breaks the game over its knee, I wasn't using the time slow or shield at all, I was just going in with the guns and then treating Light Jak as an undo-damage button which more than worked.

The villains were kinda hit or miss. Kleiver is just Wario, Count Veger was a bad dude but he spent too much time in the back. Dark Makers are apparently out there but the game keeps the vague, if the end revelations mean anything then maybe they're angry looking ottsels. Cyber-Errol had the previous game building him and I dunno why but I just like him. I enjoy his level of commitment to a very questionable plan. Cyber-Errol's fight isn't as cool as it was back when this game was new but it still sure as shit feels like the end of a video game.

If they ever rerelease these again, they should mix Jak 2 and 3 into one game and give it some different difficulty options and any other customisation options they wanna throw in.
I know there's another game but whatever, for me this is the end of the series.