Jak X: Combat Racing Classic Review

Jak X: Combat Racing (PS2)

Classic Review

One year after Jak 3 blew everyone away, Naughty Dog decided to switch the series up. They looked at the response to the driving and racing portions of Jak 3 and said, “Yeah, that’ll work.” From this choice came Jak X. It’s Crash Team Racing but with a Jak and Daxter roster, and less consistently fun gameplay. That said, it has some charm and world-building that cannot be ignored.

      One of the cooler game genres to come out in the Nintendo 64 and PS2 era of consoles are Team Racers. These games started with the original Mario Kart and still come out every now and then in the form of Team Sonic Racing. Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing brought this concept to a wider audience since, by that point, the main platformers everyone cared about were either Mario, Donkey Kong, or Crash. These games relied on the fact that people would see their favorite characters on the cover, and buy them based off face value alone. Most of them are really well made for the time, though. Diddy Kong Racing brought “Boss Races” into the genre, and that carried over into Crash Team Racing and beyond. CTR, in turn, introduced concepts that can be found today in Mario Kart 8. One of the last Team Racers to come out before Sonic and Mario almost exclusively dominated the scene was Jak X: Combat Racing. It followed the tropes of a Team Racer to the letter and came out slightly under the radar. Despite this, the reception for Jak X was reasonable, but it loses some luster when you realize its just an extremely hard Team Racer cash-in targeted at a teen crowd.

      Jak X finds Jak, Daxter, and all the other mainstays from the series in Kras City. A punny, dangerous city where Combat Racing is the main sport. They are summoned there by Rayn, daughter of Krew, the crime-boss Jak ultimately had to kill towards the end of Jak 2. They are there to read Krew's last Will and Testament, only to find they have all been poisoned by the wine Rayn pours for them. A Krew hologram demands they all race in his name in order to get the antidote. Along the way, Jak and Daxter lock horns with rival crime-lord Mizo and his band of merry misfits.
        Like I said before, Jak X takes the driving mechanics from Jak 3, which are pretty finicky, to begin with, and expands upon them to be more high speed. You pick different tracks spread all over the world of Jak and Daxter, and race in one of the handful of events and earn “Medal Points.” You do this for four different Cups, all getting harder with each race. The events in which you participate in range from regular Circuit Races to Deathmatches with a lot of other events in-between. Completing events can reward you with a cut-scene to move the plot forward, Precursor Orbs and parts to customize your vehicles with.

        There are a plethora of cars to pick from, all with upgradeable stats that cost thousands of Precursor Orbs per upgrade. Honestly, at this point, I don’t know if Precursor Orbs can be considered reliable tender. They went from having a modest exchange rate in the first game, barely being able to find any. Now thousands upon thousands of Orbs are being thrown around with reckless abandon. Something just doesn't add up there. The inflation in Jak’s world must be insane. At this point, I think bottle caps might be a fair option.
        Anyway, Some of the cars are built small and low to ground for races and other are build like tanks for arena fights. I almost never used the tank cars, since the faster cars were still able to  take plenty of hits in Deathmatches. The designs are all really stylish looking and have aged well graphically. The ability to change different pieces and colors makes owning the cars feel more personal. Weapons are picked up using Yellow and Red Eco on the tracks, and are limited to missiles, grenades and oil spills among a few others, but nothing mind blowing. Blue Eco is used for speed boosts, Dark Eco is used in creating stronger versions of your weapons on the fly, and Green Eco heals your car. These are all standard for team Racers, they just have the Jak and Daxter flair throw on. Back in the day, I had wondered what had happened to all the colored Eco in the world after the first game, so its enjoyed Naughty Dog bringing back old concepts from the Precursor Legacy.

         Unfortunately, this racing game isn’t all that fun when you are actually racing. Circuit Races are just a slug fest of kreening into walls and getting sent into flips by a pebble or crack, or getting destroyed by other racers who somehow get the game's equivalent of the "Blue Shell" three times in a row. Driving in a straight light is next to impossible most of the time. Drifting, or "Power-Slides" around corners is often too powerful and will send your car into a spin, before launching you in the wrong direction. Other issues arise in other events, but Circut Races are by far the worst offenders. Circuit Races called Tours are also Hell on Earth. They are long, seemingly never-ending, races that mash up three or four tracks into one big middle finger of a race. Don't get me wrong, when you find your groove and find the best way to turn corners and get the best weapons, it's the ultimate high. But it almost never comes.
        In an attempt to not be too hard on the game though, I have to say that most every other event is extremely fun and challenging. Freeze Races give the right amount of challenge with you needing to hit power-ups that stop the timer. Death Races let you go crazy with weapons in order to gain points as well.  My personal favorite of the events is Deathmatches, though, due to the honestly idiotic AI of the other racers. As an added bonus, you get to hear the death screams of every racer and over and over again as you wipe the floor with them. As well as Jak saying “I’m going to Jak you up” three times a race, much to my pun-hating girlfriend's chagrin. Its easy to mix and match the events you do in order to minimize the ones you don’t like, but you will have to do some of them in order to get to the end.

        The world building and graphics are top tier, however. The story, which brings in almost every fan favorite character from Jak 2 and 3, has a fun, but obvious, the twist at the end. The new characters, mostly those who are on the Mizo racing teams, are fun stereotypes and are the kind of people you would find in an episode of Wacky Races, but a tad more edgy. While most Team Racers suffer in story-telling due to the format, Jak X excels in this, and still presents you with thrills and cleverness every cut-scene.
         Jak X was not really the sequel a lot of Jak and Daxter fans were looking for. It still has plenty of charm, though, that makes it worthy of a playthrough every couple of years. The game has since been ported to the PS4, making the game a bit more relevant again.  Despite the upgrades, it's still controller-throwingly hard to get through, though. The next game in the Jak series, The Lost Frontier, went back to the series roots, but also changed developer hands. This may have been partially due to the lack of interest in Jak X. Here's hoping a resurgence of interest in these game via PS4 ports will make some developer want to pick up the mantle. Jak X is not a Team Racer I would recommend to many people, but if you are a fan of Jak and Daxter first, Jak related puns second, and Team Racers third, it is definitely a game you should try out.