Jak II (PlayStation 2): A Video Game Review

I'm not sure what kind of audience I could have for this, but I've been playing Jak II, the sequel to the popular Jak and Daxter, a lot lately, and I was compelled to write this review.

Jak II doesn't have a single shred of originality to it. It plays like a "Greatest Hits of Recent Hit Video Games", combining many different elements into a mishmash of games. Let's look at this chart.

Basic characters and moves - from "Jak and Daxter"
Concept of stealing vehicles, smashing stuff, and completing random missions - stolen from "Grand Theft Auto"
Suspicious behavior or just attacking guards leads to chaos, and all of them start shooting you - stolen from "Metal Gear Solid"
Cartoony humor that is often lame or forced - stolen from "Banjo-Kazooie"
Collect enough dark eco (or rings) and become Dark Jak (or Super Sonic) - stolen from the "Sonic the Hedgehog" games
Riding on a "jet board", doing tricks, grinding - stolen from "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater"
Background changes from day to night - stolen from "Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask"
In certain missions, you have to take people from one place to another in a time limit - stolen from "Crazy Taxi"

As you can see, this is a game that tries to do many, many things. You can also pick up guns, which gives it the element of being like any third-person shooter, and of course there are the missions that take place outside of the city which feel like any other adventure game.

Now wait. If this were any other art form, this comment that the game has no original ideas and feels derivative would be a criticism. But video games have always milked the same formulas to create "different" titles. However, ordinarily it's just taking the "adventure game" formula and tweaking it in different ways to create a different adventure game. Never before have I seen a game that copied so many different formulas.

And ironically, that's how Jak II distinguishes itself: by combining so many different elements of so many different video games. That's what makes it original, that it does such a wide smorgasbord of things, and succeeds (for the most part) primarily because it's copying the hits. I groaned many times at Jak II's copycat techniques (as well as the corny humor), but I would be lying if I said I was bored playing it. I've played it a lot, and the game is still keeping me entertained. If that's not the purpose of a video game, I don't know what is.