Freaking.Space.Lasers

Platform games frustrate and infuriate me. I am too impatient, running in half-cocked and trying to soar across the lava pits like a magic eagle only to die horribly and repeat the act a half-dozen times. It’s the same urge that makes me blaze through to final bosses without levelling in RPGs and refuse to read the instructions on anything with instructions. So I don’t often play platform games, so they can’t play me. Except the Jak series of games are totally awesome blow-your-socks-off good.

The series consists of three main games (Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, and Jak 3 - all PS2) and two spin-offs starring David Boreanaz. In each you control Jak, an elf-not-an-elf who likes to jump, kill things, save sad people and collect orbs. Wink wink. The strapping lad and his ferret buddy go on exciting adventures jumping, shooting, driving and punching in a huge variety of open-world environments and with a buttload of fun tools.

Want a few reasons to buy ALL THESE GAMES? Here:

Gameplay: So damn spot-on it hurts. The platforming works exactly as it should, all the right moves are there. It’s just right. The games are made by Naughty Dog, creators of the (original) Crash Bandicoot games, which are fondly remembered by people who are not me. Jak and Daxter was straight-up platforming old school, but Jak II (poncy roman numerals) and 3 added shooting into the mix, allowing you to perfect the art of bitchslapping gunshot victims. A fantastic variety of firearms means you can find a way to shoot things that suits you.

Each of the games has it’s own take on vehicle segments as well. The first limited your access - which made sense as the setting was very primitive third world happiness village life - but let you zoom around a bit on hoverbikes. For the second game one of the developers had a sudden surge of market savvy and decided to add 347,000 cars, complete with traffic jams. So, Jak II plays a bit like a gritty, colourful, Saturday-morning-cartoon version of Grand Theft Auto. Transparent? Absolutely, but successful. The third game refined the concept (as well as juicing up the fighting with needles full of awesome) and let you speed around the desert in mad-crazy buggy-type cars shooting the testicles off dinosaurs.

Boss battles in all the games are suitably epic and range from giant robots, to giant heads, to obese men in hovering wheelchairs. You will not get bored. Even after you’ve finished the games themselves, they each have a ton of goodies to ollect and unlock - and it’s actually worth the trouble, if only so you can shotgun inncoent civilians while sporting a massive bobble-head.

Visuals: The games are beautiful and delicious for your eyes. If Disney weren’t a bunch of fish-loving pussies, this would be like playing one of their movies. It’s pretty. Everything is made just cartoony enough to be fun, without killing the slightly dark (or later in the series, “really fucking dark”) plot elements. The environments all look gorgeous and incredibly varied - forests, dungeons, cities… all the usual suspects are present - and the character design makes me want to lick your television while people watch.

Really. I would buy life size action figures of the characters and hump them.

Writing: It’s an alien invasion historical investigation post-apocalyptic time travel sci-fi blockbuster disguised as a magical fantasy tale. Please form an orderly queue to experience the rocking out. The writing is top notch, with just the right balance of funny and serious-business to stop you from getting tired of either. And it includes at least two classic, pure 80s straight-to-camera moments, making happy rainbows shoot out my face immediately.

The characters are all well written and all are memorable. I might even go so far as to say that they DEVELOP. That’s really a big plus for the Jak games: things do move. The characters don’t exist in a static world, their actions have consequences and the game reflects that in the way it plays as well as in the writing. The writers are also not afraid to play around with a few of the tropes of the genres - notably the sudden development of the main character’s vocal chords after 2 years of torture, and having an animal sidekick who is actually relevant to anything at all.

There are flaws, of course, hidden cleverly in all the wads of praise. Most obvious is the suddenly insane difficulty curve that smacks you in the face during the second game. But there’s really nothing major wrong with any of the games, and so much right. They’re fun, challenging, exciting, there are excellent details like chain-yanking death scenes, the story and characters are love-worthy, and each game manages to tell a coherent and mostly self-contained story.

And if you still aren’t convinced, they have an optional goatee.