Jak II: Renegade - first impressions

I\'ve played both the Jak 2 and R&C 2 demos and Its safe to say,I\'m getting both.

the annoying level on the J2 demo were you were on that hoverboard was frustrating!

But the R&C 2 demo is massive and there are four,yes FOUR!playble levels!

R&C 2 for me hasn\'t changed much but if it ain\'t broken then why fix it?

I\'m eagerly awaiting both.
I\'m picking up my Pro Evolution Soccer 3 and Jak 2:Renegade tomorrow.

I love this game.. Soo much better than the first and sooo much more fun than R&C (btw, did you see the Ratchet and Clank poster in the city? ).

The city is fricking HUGE, it feels bigger than Vice City, plus its very detailed (unlike Liberty and Vice City).. Jump off your hovercraft and just look around, soo much detail for such a huge city. Must have taken them ages to do everything.

I nominate this game as best looking game of the year (on Consoles) and best game of the year so far (along with Freedom Fighters).

gt the demo in work today or jak 2, but left it at work... damn

I haven\'t been here in awhile, but due to Jak II being released, I wanted to come here and check out some feedback on this game.

I made the mistake of not doing more research on TR:AOD and thinking they may have actually made the game better for the PS2. Needless to say, I will probably trade that in toward my purchase of Jak II if I pick it up in the next couple of days.

I\'ve only put an hour on it...my excitement for the game has been drop kicked but not completely gone.  

The graphics, IMO, look the same.  There seems to be way more going on but overall it doesn\'t look any different (good thing:))

The controls (my favorite part) have been pleasant...I haven\'t been introduced to weapons but so far I\'m satisfied.

The gameplay is definitely lacking this early on...tracking all over that damn city just to be told where to go next (which is usually on the other side of town) is annoying.  It\'s just not flowing very well...

The humor makes up for it though.  When Daxter said "peeps are gonna get deep-sixed" I put a smile back on my face and kept playing.

Since the game garnered such rave reviews I\'m certain the entertainment level will pick up soon and I\'ll come back in here shouting how I can\'t get enough of it:)

Originally posted by Ginko
I\'ve only put an hour on it...my excitement for the game has been drop kicked but not completely gone.  

The graphics, IMO, look the same.  There seems to be way more going on but overall it doesn\'t look any different (good thing:))

The controls (my favorite part) have been pleasant...I haven\'t been introduced to weapons but so far I\'m satisfied.

The gameplay is definitely lacking this early on...tracking all over that damn city just to be told where to go next (which is usually on the other side of town) is annoying.  It\'s just not flowing very well...

The humor makes up for it though.  When Daxter said "peeps are gonna get deep-sixed" I put a smile back on my face and kept playing.

Since the game garnered such rave reviews I\'m certain the entertainment level will pick up soon and I\'ll come back in here shouting how I can\'t get enough of it:)

Just wait \'til you get the gun. It makes it much better. Although it is true that the game can get annoying at times with all the running to and fro in the huge city and the sometimes too hard missions.
But still a great game.

Just played my first couple of hours of Jak II and I aree with your comments.

I\'m no fan of GTA, and am a little dissapointed that NaughtyDog have gone down this route.  The City is as you said annoying, and acts as a portal to places outside the city where you complete missions.  Saying that I\'ve only done six missions so maybe the city will be used a bit more later on in the game.  I avoid the zoomers and walk to the missions, slow but you don\'t get bothered by characters attacking you.

One little difference with the characters that you interact with I noticed is that when they speak to them they say exactly the same thing over and over again.  In Jak I, the 2nd time and subsequent times you talked to a character you wouldn\'t go through the original speech the character delivers.  

One annoying thing I have found is that when using the left directional stick on my pad, it\'s easy to press the L3 button and up pops your current health etc.  Maybe it is just my pad but it is annoying.

I don\'t notice any frame rate issues cos I\'ve not got a decent enough TV anyway so I\'m always playing at a low refresh rate.

So far the first six levels are a sinch, so I\'m hoping for a bit more difficulty very soon.

Originally posted by fastson
I love this game.. Soo much better than the first and sooo much more fun than R&C (btw, did you see the Ratchet and Clank poster in the city? ).

The city is fricking HUGE, it feels bigger than Vice City, plus its very detailed (unlike Liberty and Vice City).. Jump off your hovercraft and just look around, soo much detail for such a huge city. Must have taken them ages to do everything.

I nominate this game as best looking game of the year (on Consoles) and best game of the year so far (along with Freedom Fighters).

As a fellow Jak and Ps2 fanatic, I\'ll take your word fastson. Ill rent it first though. Ill see for myself but i just cant imagine this one going downhill. To each his own but i will form my own opinions soon enough.

Originally posted by spangles
I avoid the zoomers and walk to the missions, slow but you don\'t get bothered by characters attacking you.

So far the first six levels are a sinch, so I\'m hoping for a bit more difficulty very soon.

I advice you to use the vehicles. It\'s much faster, so there\'s less annoyance. And besides you\'ll need the practice for later when you have to cross a really long distance in 3 minutes.

And it gets harder, much harder.

I picked it up, but I\'m going to finish viewitful Joe before starting Jak II.

Originally posted by alienmagic
I haven\'t been here in awhile, but due to Jak II being released, I wanted to come here and check out some feedback on this game.

I made the mistake of not doing more research on TR:AOD and thinking they may have actually made the game better for the PS2. Needless to say, I will probably trade that in toward my purchase of Jak II if I pick it up in the next couple of days.

You bought AOD???? Bwah!! Haaaa! Haaaaaa!!!! Oopppss...sorry for the sarcasm...but even PACMAN is better than AOD!!!

Better quickly exchange it for almost ANYTHING!!!

Okay, I\'m a little over 3 hours in and I\'m still not thrilled with it.  The timed missions are the most annoying I\'ve encountered in a game...there\'s too many of them and they cut the time way too close.  Trial and Error does not equal fun:mad:

I\'m still having to go clear across town to get to my next objective...the city is no more easy to navigate even a few hours in.  Besides the different sectors, it mostly looks the same making the task of memorization a tad difficult.

Stupid crap like the hover board course was not even fun, building up speed then having to pull off stunts requires more thought than it should making the mission a bore, not to mention annoying.

Making it from the fat man to the stadium in under 3 minutes was the worst part of the game yet.

It sounds like I\'m complaining...I really am.  Besides the same control scheme, this is not like the original game.  Jak and Daxter was easy going which made it a joy to play...not to mention it flowed rather well.

It\'s like they tried to make the game more mature...which is apparent due to the weapons, sexual innuendo, and harsh conversations. ("I\'m going to kill you.", "I should have had you both knee-capped...", "Remind me never to piss you off."  or how about Daxter getting drunk after he looks down the shirt of one of the female characters.)

On the bright side, the sub-level play has been a blast.  The sewer, the water plant, wasteland...all fun, including the objectives needing to be completed.  They just screwed up on the over-world, IMO.

At this point I wish I would have just rented, however I bought it so I\'m going to keep playing just to finish it...I\'m just not excited like I hoped I would be which means I won\'t be compeled to collect everything like the original. (sigh)


I need a good platform game so here\'s hoping Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando turns out to be a worthy successor.  

Ginko:

I feel with you. Your post pretty much sums up what I\'ve been feeling the first 5 hours - or until getting to the stadium. After having roughly over 40% of the game, I think I\'m beginning to love it. The city is still quite an annoyance, but I\'m quite good at finding my way through it by now and the guards aren\'t really a problem anymore. Missions which you have to guard someone through the city are still very challenging though, but the use of weapons makes up for it. I love the fact that you can just press the R1 button to fire a shot - much better than in Ratchet & Clank. This makes it especially easy to fire and jump at the same time or the combos with kick etc.

The hooverboard which you get later on in the game is certainly a blast, especially the fact that you can just use it anywhere you want. If Ratchet & Clank does something like this, I\'m sold (I remember those magnetic boots.. imagine using them anywhere in the game!!). Anyway, back to Jak II - the hooverboard is a blast in many areas. The missions have been okay so far, ranging from annoying to excellent fun experiences. The difficulty is great - though sometimes it\'s hard not to get frustrated when redoing it the 20ieth time (I think I died about 30 times with the mission if the metalhead eggs). Anyway, I miss the old atmosphere of the first part, but quite enjoy the outskirt missions and the gun implementation of this one. I\'m still at just over 40% of the game, so there\'s still lots of things to find out, let alone the fact that I didn\'t even pay that much attention to the city itself yet, which is probably due that I was always hurying to get from A to B for the next mission objective. Perhaps at the moment, I wish Naughty Dog would have made the city smaller and the outskirt areas bigger - then again, I don\'t know what\'s coming though, so I might change my mind once it does and I take a closer look to it.

Ginko: It may take a while (4 or 5 hours for me), but you\'ll eventually love the game. Or at least like it a lot more than you do now.

I just remembered that I HATED Kingdom Hearts until I was a good 5-6 hours in.  I ended up loving that game and putting over 30 hours on it.

Alright, I\'ll hold off any more opinions until I\'m a little further in.

Perhaps at the moment, I wish Naughty Dog would have made the city smaller and the outskirt areas bigger - then again, I don\'t know what\'s coming though, so I might change my mind once it does and I take a closer look to it.

I think a better approach would have been to get the player to know one sector at a time.  Give the player a couple hours worth of objectives in one area...then perhaps I wouldn\'t be so dependant on the damn map.