Video Games Suck - Jak X

Jak is back, with his orange badger. And now he is a racist! Back in the days when they announced Jak2, I laughed at the though of Jak turning bad ass. He would walk around cussing and raping elf chicks.

He'll maybe even be an alcoholic and drug addict. What about wiping his ass with that orange badger? The possibilities were endless. How long could the franchise survive if Jak had AIDS? Unfortunately a scruffy voiced Jak and mediocre game was the whole deal. Now Naughty Dog has decided to make a racing game out of the franchise. Why god? This is why: That gang boss died and left a bottle of wine for everyone to drink of to celebrate his death. SURPRISE! The wine is poisoned and when they win the race championship, some person will give them the antidote.

As a racing game, nothing good can be said about it. Racing is slow and tedious. Tracks are very wide and cornering is a personal preference to the player. You'll drive side to side with an opponent and decide to use the nitrous(or blue eco, or what the fuck ever) and suddenly notice it does shit. You could compare the racing to racing the old beetle around nurnburgring in GT4. Except it's a unimaginative buggy driven by "badass I drink milk from the carton and rebel against my parents by listening linkin park" Jak in "this must be a city cause there are big squares that must be buildings, this must be a forest because the track is green."

Racing is racing, one can argue racing games are stupid or nice. A Fat dungeons and dragons degenerate will tell you "Racing games are inferior to my level 23 paladin dwarf +3 sword... etc etc." So naughty dog saw that issue, maybe because this is a racing game, some people will actually like it. They just had to do something about it. In a stroke (the brain kind) of genius they implemented a combat aspect, guaranteeing that all species walking on two legs will hate this game.

Then one would argue "Hey, weapons are cool, bang bang, kill stuff, explosions. HOERAY!" Well. Not today my friend. Ok let me explain why. When you drive and an enemy is behind you, and he has any weapon, you gonna get raped. They'll show a lock on warning, in that time you can decide to distract the missile by laying down a mine, or die. You will never have those mines, so the latter is the only option. Usually this is the situation from race 1. You will drive for 5 minutes, last lap, last straight. Boom, you're dead and in last place. Race again and again. The problem is that you won't know where the hell everything is coming from and you can do nothing about it. So lets just forget about the combat thing in the game and rename it engine failure. Every now and then you will blow up. Challenge: wish that your engine won't blow up on the last straight.

GFX:

Naughty Dog can program a nice engine, but ever since they decided slow downs are acceptable, they signed their own death warrant. So if the game were static like resident evil, it would look all right. But as soon as you move, the slow down kicks in and the motion blur effect kills all other details, then you'll turn your ps2 off and become emo. Ratchet Deadlocked uses the same engine, but why it that so smooth, pretty and even has per pixel shaded water?

Sound:

I think I heard two songs loop while racing. One sounded like SNES music and the other is a guitar riff noise. It sounded like it was recorded with an old cassette players built in microphone. Car engine noises is just humming, you know kids who put a piece of carboard in the spokes of their bicycles with a clothes pin? Well, sounds like that. While you drive you will hear the other drivers moan and groan. Strangely, it's louder than anything else. It's just plain irritating, what do these graons add to the game?

Closing statement:

Don't buy it, steal it, pirate it, accept it as a prize. If you have the chance, don't play it. But if you liked Juiced, you will love this game. It will make a great addition to your goatsy porn dvd's and 7 copies of Juiced. Brb, have to take a shower, I feel dirty after thinking about juiced. By the way, if you have American Wasteland, throw away your board and climb a ladder to the top. Neversoft Programmers: "You making fun of I R's programming!?"

2/10 (one for not being juiced and the other for substituting for a coffee mug coaster)