I know that I have not been updating as much as I use to. Sorry to any who looked forward to my posts.

Anyways, I finished up Jak 3 last night. Honestly it felt like they dragged it out a bit.

This was what, a week after I started to play, about 15 hours of play. The game changed from night to day more times than it did in the real world, and I was in the middle of a battle that started before I arrived. As reminded by Daxter they had been on three total adventures together, but I could not share.

The game was defiantly part of a series, all the elements were there. Everything from the exile to the desert for allowing the enemy in from the very start to the reminder from soldiers as you walk past the, “We lost this war a long time ago.”

I had little to no connection with the story or most of the characters. There were moments where I could feel that I should have hated someone, but they ended up just feeling out of place. I knew that when I was to battle one of my old friends I should have felt conflict on the fight. Finding out that persons were really spies when I met them the first time should have led to a bit of betrayed feelings. Nothing.

All these things must have been great to a fan or at least someone who had previously played it, but I just felt like I was playing a game.

I still liked it.

Daxter started out to be something that I was sure would make me shut the game off. His clever remarks start off the game in abundance but get toned down quickly. I actually ended up liking most of his witty remarks when used in moderation.

There was really only one (well two, but the second was not important) new relationship set up in the game, but you still needed previous information from the other games to appreciate it.

I just could not get into the story of this game no matter how hard I tried. The ancient precursors and dark eco things were there. Metal-heads were… metal-heads and got blasted. I don’t really know who or why I was shooting half the time. This world was established, and well established as it was quite large.

I still liked it.

See, I have not played a 3D platfomer in a long time. I was not really sure what to expect. A Mario 64 clone? Nope. This game packed in a great many different styles of play and changes them up so quick it all seems fresh. I would not even go so far to call this a platformer, although there are many platforming elements.

You can go from a race, to a shooting gallery, to a platforming level, to a hang-gliding area. This feels like it is trying to be a focused Jack-of-all-games, pun intended. There are a few disappointing aspects to this. You are given many abilities that you can use in the platforming bits, but there are so few. Then in those few there are certain abilities that only get one or two times of use in the game.

I still liked it.

I don’t know what element grabbed me the most. Until the last couple of hours the game constantly felt fresh and always new. It has been a long time since I have played a game that felt so fresh for so long. But this is not an element of the game, it is the result of cohesion between elements.

I know it was not the frame rate. I go no less than 2 headaches from frame rate and screen refresh issues in the game. When it was running in wide open areas with many enemies I would not be surprised if the frame rate dropped below 30 fps. When there were more than a dozen enemies on screen the game will slow down, easily. When there is not too much happening, the game looks wonderful.

But you see most people will probably not get headaches. The first time it happen for me was Quake 3 for the DC. I did not get a headache, but one afternoon I played a good 3 hour multiplayer session and got really sick. It did not click with me that I got sever motion sickness from it until I played it again and had the same effect. Then it happen again with Half-Life for the PS2. I realized that it was mainly from indoor areas and fast movements. Can’t explain it for sure, but it also happens mildly in the apartment in Silent Hill 4.

So next I move onto Metal Gear Solid 3. I am pretty excited as I wanted it more than Jak 3, much more.