Prerelease:Jak II

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Jak II.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

Released in 2003, Jak II is the sequel to the 2001 PS2 game Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. The game takes a much more serious tone than its predecessor, a direction that was taken in part due to the rising popularity of more "mature" games like Grand Theft Auto III, as well as the developers desiring to take the series in a different direction.

Development

After the release of The Precursor Legacy, Naughty Dog stated that they would make a sequel to the game if fans enjoyed the characters within its world. Late into the development of the first Jak and Daxter game, Grand Theft Auto III released, a game which many of the developers enjoyed, and a massive source of inspiration for what would later become Jak II. With the release of GTA3, children started to become more interested in "mature" games, which led Naughty Dog to become discouraged and question whether they should continue the Jak and Daxter series. However, with encouragement from Sony, due to both them and Naughty Dog developers loving the character of Jak, they decided to proceed into development on a sequel, one that would take place in a darker, more seriously toned world, to appeal to the new demographic that had formed.

An early promotional render for Jak II.

Naughty Dog's vision for a sequel to The Precursor Legacy had a larger focus on storytelling, as well as fleshing out the characters of its world more. Jak II's number of cutscenes compared to the first game's was greatly increased, as well as incorporating things like cutscenes having their own musical score, something the developers saw in retrospect as a great improvement. The world of Haven City, while much darker and "devoid" of characters in comparison to the populated hub areas of the first game, was much more fleshed out. While there were a smaller number of characters in Jak II, all of them received a much greater focus and character development as a benefit, which helped make the new environment feel much more "alive". Their roles in the story became larger, they had much more lines of dialogue, and they interacted with the main duo much more often than the characters from the first game, which led to them becoming popular enough to appear in future sequels. As another contrast to the first game, while The Precursor Legacy had a much more "black and white" morality based plot, centering around the "good guys versus the bad guys", Jak II's villains (and heroes) were both much more complex in their motivations and character actions, resulting in a much deeper lore being written for the series.

While the game reuses a lot of technology from the first game, namely what allows the game to run seamlessly with no loadtimes, significant effort was put into enhancing the game's graphical capabilities over the first game (for example, Jak's cinematic model from the first game uses around 3000 polygons, while the second game uses 15000). Insomniac Games, known for their work on the Spyro the Dragon series and the first Ratchet and Clank title, lent their assistance to Naughty Dog, allowing them to use the polygon occlusion code they had developed for Ratchet and Clank, a game already based off of Naughty Dog's engine.

A comparison of the polygon count between The Precursor Legacy and Jak II.

(Source: IGN.com, Gamespy, & Jason Rubin)

Pre-release Footage and Builds

E3 2003 Trailer

This is the first known trailer of the game, shown at E3 2003. Many early elements are present from the gameplay footage shown, some of which can be seen in the leaked E3 demo build.

• The HUD display is very different from the final game. Ammo indicators are aligned to the center left of the screen, rather than in the upper right where they are in the final game. The font used for the ammo indicator also seems to be reminiscent of the menu fonts from The Precursor Legacy, possibly even being the exact same font used for that game.

• A JETboard HUD icon appears whenever it's ridden, in the same position as the gun indicators for this build. This icon seems to be missing from the leaked E3 demo build, as well as the final game.

• All of the mission start icons on the minimap seem to use the same green coloring, instead of the different colors for each used in the final game.

• The Krimzon Guard have completely different voice acting, some of which can be heard in the E3 demo build.

• The Blaster uses a completely different sound effect, as well as the Vulcan Fury using a slightly different sound effect when fired.

• An early health/dark eco meter can be seen in the lower left of the screen, showing Jak has a maximum of 4 health pieces, compared to the final's 8 pieces. A symbol similar to the typical "radiation" icon used in fiction is in place of Jak's head as the indicator of whether or not he can become Dark Jak.

• Krimzon Guards drop dark eco globs when killed, and a distinct visual flash is visible around Jak when he collects them. The same flash can be seen whenever Jak picks up any ammo.

• The game features an early "Metal Head kill counter" in the upper right corner, seemingly as an early version of the Skull Gem collection indicator.

• The JETboard has a red eco "explosion" effect when using the boost jump.

• The Krimzon Guard city turrets use a different purple (dark eco) coloring for their fired shots, as opposed to the final game's red eco bullets.

• The "Juice goon" Metal Heads at the Pumping Station have a different coloring for their staff, lacking the red glow used in the final game.

• A debug timer and a "grenades left" indicator can be seen in the upper left corner of the screen during the trailer at 2ː54, meant for the "Blow up strip mine eco wells" mission. The debug display can be seen again at 4ː09.

• What appears to be an even earlier version of the HUD can be seen at 3ː18, displaying an unknown value of "99" above what seems to be an extremely early dark eco counter.

• Jak can be seen running around with an empty health bar at 3ː40, most likely with debug mode enabled to prevent death.

• The game uses the subtitle "A New Legacy Begins". Possibly an early title for the game, considering its consistent presence in the next trailer?

Playstation Demo Disc Trailer

This trailer was distributed in several PS2 demo discs, including Official Playstation 2 Magazine 37 and Jampack Summer 2003. The trailer is very similar to the E3 one in content and presentation, but some new differences are visible.

• The JETboard HUD icon and early Krimzon Guard voice acting is still present, as well as the green coloring for the minimap icons.

• Sig's Peace Maker leaves a trail behind it when fired.

• The debug display for the eco wells mission has been removed.

Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando Demo Disc Trailer

As the name implies, this trailer was distributed within a demo disc for Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando. While the trailer is close to the final game, lacking a lot of elements present in previous trailers, there are still some differences to be noted.

• The quality for the voice clips for this trailer seem to be very rough, probably an issue with how the trailer was encoded.

• At this point in development, the ammo indicators for the weapons have been moved to their final positions, and the sound effects for the Vulcan Fury and Blaster weapons have been finalized. The mission start icons on the minimap have also finally gained their coloring used in the final game.

• The early health/Dark Jak indicator is still visible. It seems that this stuck around long enough into development to even be featured in TV commercials for the game. Maximum health has been increased from 4 to 8 by this build.

• The game uses a different font for the timer and objective counters during missions. The ammo indiciator still uses the font from The Precursor Legacy.

• The Metal Head kill counter has been removed and replaced with the final Skull Gem indicator. Debug mode is blatantly turned on at 1ː39, displaying a normally impossible (or at least extremely unlikely) Skull Gem count of 8556.

• Keira seems to be using placeholder dialogue, or at least something recorded with a different voice actress, at 0ː54 in the trailer, before going back to her normal voice.

• The Yellow Krimzon Guard in the "Explore palace" mission seem to be using a different blue/gray coloring.

• The turrets in the "Ride elevator up to palace" mission use a different firing sound effect.

• The Titan Suit's health indicator is different from the final game's.

• The Scatter Gun seems to have a different firing sound from the final game.