As it turns out, my fears that Jak X wouldn’t be a fun stream game were unfounded. And since we’re enjoying ourselves so much, let’s keep going.

Perhaps the biggest improvement of this game’s Adventure Mode over something like Crash Team Racing is the way that we’re rarely playing the same types of events repeatedly.

In CTR, most players finish all the normal races first, then the boss race of a given hub, before they can even think about the CTR challenges and Relic Races. All of the events of a specific type are discreetly handed out at roughly the same time, so we tend to do them in batches.

But here, the structure is different. As we accumulate medals, new events open up in a given Cup, and those events can be anything. We may do a Circuit Race only to be greeted by a Deathmatch or a Freeze Rally immediately afterward. This means there’s a constant variety and diversity that keeps gameplay fresh and exciting as we progress through it.

Additionally, while we still have to win the bulk of events, there’s some built-in leeway since we only need 50/60 medals per cup. If a particular race is causing us problems, we can be content to come in second or third and move on to something different.

It’s a smart way to make sure players don’t get bored or frustrated for long, while still allowing for challenging and exciting events.

Nothing can bring us down. We’re rapidly climbing the ranks until we can qualify for the Grand Prix. Onward and upward!

Though I find myself enjoying how aggressive and offensive Jak X is as a racing game, I do think there are a few issues with how aggressive it is that could put people off, and they’re worth mentioning.

While the emphasis on offensive weapons means that players falling behind always have a means of catching up, the reverse is that if they’re ahead, there’s a good chance they could be taken out and thrown behind without due recourse. The most obvious example of this is the ratio of front-facing to rear-facing weapons. In theory, if we have a rear weapon, we can always use it to deflect a missile coming at us. In practice, missiles always come in sets of two, while rear weapons like mines always come in sets of one. That means that it’s usually impossible to fully deflect a volley, and you’ll always at least take a few hits.

Additionally, most games of this nature, like Crash Team Racing, have systems in place to prevent AI-controlled racers from gaining access to the Blue Shell equivalent, the Peace Maker in this game. In the hands of a player, this weapon means that there’s always a chance they’ll be able to hit the person in front to take the lead. But when the AI has access to it, especially at the frequency we’re seeing it here in Jak X, it often means if the player takes first, they’re likely to immediately be taken out without almost no possible counterplay to stop it.

Even though I personally haven’t gotten frustrated by this yet, I see an alternate reality in which I am. And to people who do have that frustration while playing Jak X, I want you to know that I see and acknowledge you.

Whoever this Mizo guy is, he’s certainly doing whatever it takes to stop us from winning our antidote. Fortunately for us, his henchmen aren’t too bright.

We can take them.

One of the things I enjoy most about replaying a game like this actually, shocking does have to do with the story and writing. When we already know what the big plot twist is, it’s fun to replay it and watch scenes again in the light of the information. Things that might have read as off or awkward the first time around make much more sense in hindsight, giving us a brand new appreciation for how the latter plot points were set up.

Obviously, I can’t go into details now, but pay attention to how certain characters act. Credit to the team at Naughty Dog for frequently doing a good job at this.

Now that we’ve been given a “warm welcome” from the denizens of Kras City, I say it’s time to take the racing circuit by storm.

Let’s give these clowns a lesson they won’t soon forget!

Somehow, I forgot how good the driving feels in this game. Our vehicles have a weight and momentum to them that is extremely fun to manipulate through power sliding and effective use of turbo. It’s one of those things that’s hard to explain, but easy to demonstrate in action.

But that leaves the “combat” aspect of “Combat Racing”, and using weapons strategically can make a big difference. I like the innovation here of giving each racer the ability to hold two weapons at a time, an offensive weapon in the front, and a defensive weapon in the rear. No matter where we are in the pack, we always have a reason to have a weapon in both slots, to both try to claw our way further up the rankings into first, or defend our position from would-be aggressors. And when we’re at the front or the back of the pack, we’re still able to have a response ready for when that position gets threatened.

This does have the net effect of increasing the overall lethality of the game compared to CTR. In every race we’ve played, the top positions are fiercely contested throughout the duration, and the one in first is never fully secure. There are a few criticisms that can be levied at a game that skews its balance more heavily towards offense than defense, but I think those drawbacks are worth it for a more interactive match where no one ever truly feels like they have no chance to clawing back from disaster.

After all, it’s not over until we’ve crossed the finish line.

After wrapping up Drake’s Deception, I found myself unsure of what game I wished to play next for the channel and for Twitch. That’s when someone suggested Jak X: Combat Racing off-hand. I had been skeptical of doing it for the channel because I know some of the later races can be frustrating, but ultimately it still seemed like the best option.

So here we are, playing Jak X: Combat Racing.

Let us take a moment to acknowledge that the canon for Jak and Daxter has always been “loose”. Everything we take as fact is liable to be changed or contradicted by the premise of a future game, such is the case with Haven City being the last city on the planet. Turns out there is a whole other city that takes combat racing as the most important aspect of their culture. No, it doesn’t make sense. No, it doesn’t need to make sense, so let’s just go with it.

Once we do, the premise of this game is actually quite strong, giving our heroes and their allies ample motivation to continue racing when they have nothing else. After all, they’re literally die if they refuse to. It’s also perfectly natural for someone like Krew to issue this ultimatum from the dead, in the event that his plans back in the second game were interrupted. And in typical PS2-era Naughty Dog fashion, all of those stakes are established quickly, in the span of a few minutes, before we’re thrust immediately into basic tutorials to make sure we know all of the mechanics.

We’re off to a solid start. Let’s hope the game continues to deliver.

Now that we’ve wrapped up Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, let’s talk about our experience.

Overall, this is decisively my least favorite game in the mainline Uncharted franchise, disregarding any portable spinoffs. It’s not the worst game in the world, but it falls flat in almost every way when compared even just to its PS3 brethren.

Next time, we’ll give Jak X: Combat Racing a shot.

To think, this whole time it wasn’t a djinn. It was actually a hallucino-djinn. The big supernatural twist is that it’s not a supernatural twist. The City of Brass fell because there were drugs in the water.

And the British want to use those drugs to do it to other civilizations. There’s no way we’re going to let them.

Jokes aside, I don’t actually take issue with the idea that there’s no big supernatural twist and that this mystery has a mundane explanation behind it. I’m not sure why Marlowe and her order need this specific hallucinogen when they already have no trouble whatsoever with brainwashing people, but it does hit solidly into their MO. It’s one of those things that’s not an inconsistency, just a gap in our understanding of the plot that could be better served filled in. But we don’t have much time left in the game, and this script likely already had some major rework it went through on account of Cutter’s actor having to leave the production.

This probably explains how strange the ending scene feels. I don’t understand the thematic purpose of Nathan going back to try to save Marlowe. His spoken words that he’s “got nothin’ to prove” imply that he won’t give in to her provocations, but then his next action is to immediately try to save her. Sully is right to point out that he can, and probably should, just walk away and let her perish.

If he did, I would understand Talbot coming after us for one final boss fight, consumed with righteous fury that we stood there and did nothing. But Nathan tried, which makes this last-ditch assault look petty and ridiculous at best. I’ve never believed either the Hermetic Order or Marlowe/Talbot were credible threats. For all their bluster, they are routinely thwarted time and time again without fail, never taking even a single decisive victory. But if I did have any illusions to the contrary, this pathetic tantrum would’ve easily quashed them.

At least the trio of Nate, Elena, and Sully get a strong scene to finish out the trilogy. Next time, we’ll have a short post-game discussion and plan for our next project.

At last, we are come to Iram of the Pillars. This makes the third time we’ve found ourselves in an ancient city, and both times prior we were set upon by supernatural forces beyond what we thought possible.

So the question remains: What horrors await us here?

Of course, it’s just our luck that Marlowe and Talbot wait for now to unleash the evil fire spirits, and have them possess their troops to make them strong… right?

Surely it’s just a coincidence that our possessed foe, lobbing volleys of explosive flame from his hands, drops a grenade launcher when he dies. We’re playing an Uncharted game, after all. There’s always a supernatural explanation.

It couldn’t be that we’re just tripping balls like Cutter was… right?

Right!?

The end is in sight, and today we start the final push towards the City of Brass, in the hopes of stopping whatever the evil British lady has planned for it.

As much as I continue to criticize the combat in Uncharted 3, the convoy assault in this episode is probably the most fun I had with it for the entire game. It’s a well-constructed set piece that fits snuggly into this part of the story, like the similar sequence Naughty Dog used towards the end of the second game.

I’d remark on the supernatural aspect of the djinn that Salim mentions, but for now, I need to wait for other important details to come to light before I can share my thoughts. I would, however, be curious to hear what someone from this region of the world thinks about Salim, his tribe, and how they’re portrayed in the game. It looks tasteful to me, but I am a Caucasian American male with no knowledge of local customs, so my opinion is more or less worthless. Either way, it’s a shame he has such little screen time for the part he has to play for the finale of this story.

And props to Naughty Dog for dodging the trope of a white Western protagonist gunning down legions of Middle Eastern people just because they happen to be in the way of his objective. Instead, we get to work with the locals to thwart the British, and I can respect that a lot more. Obolish the monarchy.

We’re closer now than we’re ever been to Iram of the Pillars, and to rescuing Sully. It’ll just take one more push until we stow away on the plane to the Rub-Al Khali Desert.

Hopefully, there aren’t any more irritating combat sections between us and that plane.

I used the word “pretentious” to describe this scene where Drake wanders the desert on his own, and that word tends to be over- and misused in the sphere of gaming criticism, but I want to defend its use for what is going on in this scene.

There’s nothing inherently wrong about a 10-minute montage of a character experiencing a brutal trial to survive in harsh conditions without the support they realistically need to keep going. That’s fine on its own. Sure, it’s filler in much the same way but it serves a purpose of giving us a sense of what Drake is willing to do for Sully, now that his life is in danger.

What throws it into the category of pretentious in my mind is the use of TS Elliot’s poetry. While the events of the sequence do mirror the words of the poem, those words don’t tie into the overall themes of the game’s narrative. It feels like the writers are invoking the work to put on the airs of deep thought and philosophy without doing the work to back that up with themes and narrative work to support it.

It rubs me the wrong way, and I’m surprised that it took me up until now to examine why that was the case.