Which do you want first – the good news or the bad news?
The good news is that Sony has opted to provide devotees with another opportunity to indulge in some hearty festive nostalgia this Christmas, namely by rehashing three of their past greatest hits as part of their PS2 Classics range. The bad news is that if you’re tired of callbacks to console generations gone by, then you’d best stop reading now.
Takeaways:
- Following Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy‘s three-month lead, the eponymous platforming franchise’s second, third and fourth instalments – Jak II, Jak 3 and Jak X Combat Racing – are all set to become PS2 Classics on December 6th.
- In case you didn’t play them the first time around in 2003-2005, each member of this eclectic trio of follow-ups brought fresh new dynamics to the semi-open-world adventure saga, from Jak II‘s gunplay to Jak 3‘s weapon modifications to Combat Racing‘s visceral riffs on the Mario Kart formula (no, really!).
- Don’t hold your breath for a full remaster, however, since all PS2 Classics re-releases are merely up-rezzed 1080p facsimiles of their former selves, albeit with recent PS4 online features like Remote Play, Share Play and Trophies thrown in for good measure.
Naturally, your mileage with each of these revived Jak titles will vary considerably depending on a) whether you’ve played them before and b) whether or not the ongoing industry trend of retreading well-trodden ground with such remakes has gotten old for you at this stage.
But Sony wouldn’t have pursued their Classics range if its offerings to date – as well as their recent Uncharted, The Last of Us and Crash Bandicoot remakes – hadn’t sold enough copies to make this a feasible business strategy. The appetite’s clearly there, then, even if the wider implications for video game innovation need further discussion down the line.
As for the two PSP-exclusive entries in Jak‘s platforming pantheon, 2006’s Daxter and 2009’s Jak and Daxter: The Last Frontier, whether they end up follow suiting most likely depends on how the latter three instalments in his original quadrilogy fare on the PlayStation Store.
Let us know below whether you’re planning to pick Jak II-X up, or want to see original storylines concocted for everyone’s favourite elf-ottsel pairing in future.
I’ll have to pass. Nice to see these on modern platforms but the PS2 on PS4 games are just too expensive for what they are- digital copies of games I could get for far less on an actual PS2 that are (more often than not) sloppy cut and paste jobs. Only thing I’d miss out on are trophies…which honestly don’t matter much to me.