Jak X: Combat Racing [PS2]

Looking back, the Jak and Daxter games have certainly evolved from title to title, but all of the games kept the same general style from year to year. Sure, there were new features, crazy mini-games, and innovations galore, but the series never really made a major paradigm shift -- until now. Building off the racing mini-games seen in Jak 3, Jak X: Combat Racing attempts to give players a whole new way to explore the world. While Naughty Dog should be commended for taking a risk, the end result really doesn't push the genre or try anything that we haven't seen before.

Occurring sometime after Jak 3, the game sets up the action by bringing Jak and company to Kras City for the reading of a will. It seems the oversized gang lord Krew has kicked the bucket and wants to reward the boys for all their trouble. Unfortunately, all is not as it seems -- Jak, Daxter, Ashelin, Keira, Samos, and Torn were all tricked into drinking a slow-acting poison. Krew's holo-will tells them that they must compete, and win, the Kras City Championship. Emerge victorious and the team is given the antidote. Refuse (or lose) and everyone dies.

As is typical of the genre, you start out the game with a lowly car and limited track access. All the good stuff is locked away, only accessible by winning races. Any unlocked courses can be played in the exhibition mode as well as in multiplayer.

The individual races are split up into distinct types, with each kind sporting specific rules. The circuit race is a standard lap race, with weapons added. Turbo dash has you earning points by burning boost. Freeze rally requires you to beat a minimum time by collecting freeze tokens that stop the clock. Death race requires a certain number of frags within a limited time. And so on.

Although there are a variety of modes here, only the freeze rally brings anything new to the genre. Everything else has been done before and has simply been repurposed for Jak X. By itself this isn't a bad thing, but it does keep the game from standing out.

The game physics are relatively robust, with a decent handling engine and plenty of chances to go crazy on the track. Each of the racers are relatively light, which means power slides and big air can be achieved by even novice racers. Unfortunately, light also means "utterly flimsy" so dedicated racers must drive with precision -- bump a wall a bit too hard and your pretty speed demon blows up faster than you can say, "jak!"

Weapons help spice up the competition on the track, but the implementation leaves something to be desired. Split into offensive and defensive weapons (represented by yellow and red pickups) the weapons are randomly selected when you drive over the icon. One big problem here is the utter lack of a "drop weapon" function. This can be quite frustrating when you get stuck with a crap weapon and have to spend precious time emptying the chamber.

Defensive weapons suffer from a similar issue, due in part to being unable to break a missile lock. You either have to drop a defensive weapon just before impact, or deal with the fact that you're about to have a missile stuffed up your tailpipe. But there's a lot of combat in a combat racing game, so players go through their defensive weapons quickly, resulting in what feels like many cheap hits. Blocking a missile, only to have another opponent target you before you get close to another pickup is annoying.

Combat on the track also lessens the amount of skill involved in racing, as it is not uncommon to drop from the front to the back of the pack after an attack. Sure, you may have led the course for the majority of the race, but if another racer gets in a lucky shot just before the finish line, you're going down. Rapidly firing off offensive weapons as soon as you get them seems to be a better strategy than trying to take the best racing line.

Another issue with the game involves the AI balance. In short, it cheats. In some cases, it cheats rather badly. This is most noticeable in deathmatch as the AI players love to compete in the time-honored sport of "kill stealing." Once or twice would be a random occurrence, but it happens with frightening regularity. Not good.

Visually, Jak X is solid, but it lacks the "WOW" factor that made the prior games stand out. Textures lack detail and the environments, while familiar, don't impress. In fact, some feel downright repetitive. This is in stark contrast to what we've seen in the past from Naughty Dog. Running the game in progressive scan sharpens things up a bit, but still doesn't display the level of polish one would expect from a developer of Naughty Dog's caliber.

Ultimately, the problem with Jak X is that the underlying game is utterly generic. Strip away all of the characters and you're left with a racing game that borrows from the genre, but doesn't give anything back. With so many other racing options available for the PS2, there is little reason to pick up Jak X unless you're a hardcore fan of the franchise.