Dark Eco once again rears its ugly head in Jak's world, and the quiet hero and his friends end up being tossed through a warp gate into a dark, futuristic new world. Jak is caught by a band of soldiers and undergoes vicious Dark Eco experiments, and Daxter and the rest are scattered about. Daxter eventually locates his buddy, busts him out, and they both escape into the slums of the city where they meet up with an underground resistance group.

Jak II is undoubtedly a bigger, better and badder sequel. In terms of visuals, environment size, scope, gameplay technique and plot, the game has increased tenfold over the original. The futuristic locations are absolutely tremendous as well as amazingly detailed, and there is certainly no shortage of movement, activity, or interesting lighting and special effects. The characters are utilizing at least 3 times the polygons and the animation is excellent once again. The textures all around have received a nice boost as well. Naughty Dog is definitely pushing the PlayStation 2 quite a bit further than before, and when the system can't seem to keep up, there is some occasional "screen tearing" when turning from side to side. Most casual gamers will probably not give it much notice, but being the only real graphical blemish, it stood out.

J&D was a pretty straightforward platformer, with all your typical run n' jump platformer maneuvers. Jak II follows up with those same gameplay techniques, but adds a whole other layer by equipping Jak with firearms as well as Dark Jak powers. Was it a good decision to introduce gunplay to the game? Well, in my opinion, yes and no. Certain aspects of the game feel too much like Ratchet and Clank now, especially those missions which absolutely rely on blasting away waves upon waves of enemies while monitoring your ammo usage. Ratchet and Clank (and its upcoming sequel) were built on heavily modified versions of the J&D/Jak II engine, so ironically, it feels as if Jak II now borrows a little too much back from R&C. Jak's Dark Powers, which can be unleashed after collecting enough dark eco blobs from defeated enemies, ends up being a minor addition overall. All the dark powers really do is provide Jak with some limited use, super-powerful "smart bomb" attacks, which are perfect for boss encounters or a room full of enemies.

There are some other minor drawbacks associated with the shift in priority. The lush, tropical environments have given way to (mostly) much darker, dirtier and more serious locations. The enemies are less cartoon-like and also more deadly than those in J&D, and the shielded metalhead soldiers in particular look like they were pulled directly from Halo. As a result of both, the light and happy, more humorous tone found in Jak and Daxter was lost somewhat. Many of the missions seem less focused and disconnected and tend to lean on some successful existing genres a bit. The reliance on timed hovercar missions, 'jaking' vehicles, traveling around the huge hub-like city, countless weapon shootouts and annoying Krimzon Guard soldier chases provide definite shades of Grand Theft Auto. There are also Tony Hawk-ish hoverboarding and Wipeout style hovercar missions, both of which are worked into Jak II in a comfortable amount. In small doses the change of pace is always appreciated, but the hovercar and weapon missions in Jak II become tiring after a while. One thing is for certain, the game is ripe with missions and ton to see and do, and should keep even the best gamers busy for at least 20 hours. And that's not counting all the little side quests and unlockable stuff.

The game has plenty of real-time cutscenes all which feature excellently acted voiceovers. Now that he speaks, Jak has a little bit of a surfer-dude tone to his voice, but it is never overdone. The game is still loaded with humorous one-liners and dialog, and like the original, I found the writing to be amusing all the way through.

Though taking a slightly different path than Jak and Daxter, Jak II is definitely a worthy sequel especially for fans of the original as well as Naughty Dog's earlier works. I personally could have done without the majority of the hovercar and weapon-based missions, but overall the game works well, looks and sounds fantastic, and provides many hours of mostly enjoyable gaming.