Instead the developer, veteran of numerous successful platform titles, has attempted to transfer all that was bright and absorbing about its platform prowess into a host of new vessels - most notably the Smuggler's Run-esque dune buggy missions that make up a large chunk of Jak 3 - and the result is a game that seems to pulse with the same magic despite abandoning much of what was celebrated about it in the first place. That was our main concern about Jak 3, particularly when we blitzed through everything the demo version had to offer at E3 earlier this year in just over an hour. Fight clubīut then, having owned up to the game's unfortunate propensity towards stabbing us in the heart and vowed to address the situation, a lesser developer might have allowed that imbalance to pollute its yearlong development cycle for the third and final game in the series and turned out a samey-but-easier response. We often have to apologise for a good game's faults with Jak II, we had to apologise for what it did to us instead. In fact, the final boss encounter - finally overcome at around midnight one chilly winter's evening just before Christmas last year - almost earned this writer a sock in the jaw from a flatmate at the end of his tether. It also kicked the crap out of us, often unfairly, always uncharitably, and the difficulty spikes were at times so pronounced that we had to walk away for fear of smashing something rather more expensive than our ten-a-penny Dual Shocks. And it wrapped them up in an entertaining and imaginative narrative, spurred onward by amusing characters and pin-sharp dialogue. Last time, the transition between Jak & Daxter and Jak II gave us a talking hero, a substantial technological boost, a Grand Theft Auto-inspired sprawling city environment, and a range of missions that were as often about shooting, grinding and racing as they were to do with the precision platforming that separated the first game from the herd.
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