I had the chance to ask Naughty Dog, the creators and developers of the popular Jak and Daxter franchise a few questions, and the following interview shows some very interesting results. In case you haven't had the chance to pick up the latest Jak title, I am sure the following questions and answers will help you make a decision.

The Jak series has evolved over its last two installments. What kind of step forward does Jak 3 take over Jak II? 

Evan Wells, Studio Director:  Evolving the series is something very important to us here at Naughty Dog.  We want to give the gamer a new experience in every installment, but still maintain a cohesive trilogy.  Jak 3 takes the player to a new and very different looking location within the Jak universe: the Wasteland.  This is an expansive environment, more than five times as large as Haven City was from Jak II.  We also evolve Jak as a character.  In Jak 3 he has grown a bit older since Jak II, and he also gains the power of Light Eco, to balance out the Dark Powers he gained last game. 

What kinds of new things are you doing with the graphics engine that you haven’t done before in previous Jak games? 

Amy Hennig, Game Director:  First off, our optimizations to Jak 3’s graphics engine have essentially allowed us to render more to the screen than we could in Jak II, without sacrificing frame rate.  This enables the artists to embellish the environments and characters with more detail, and we’re able to populate the screen with more enemies and effects than before. 

In addition, we’ve written an entirely new rendering scheme for the desert wasteland, enabling us to create a vast, open landscape five times the size of Haven City in Jak II.  We’ve also added features like cloth dynamics to the character models, ragdoll physics for dramatic enemy combat reactions, a realistic rigid-body physics model for the vehicles, and an enhanced particle system for more spectacular visual effects.

In terms of the game’s story, since this is the “final” entry, what kind of character development can we expect? 

Evan:  In Jak II, Jak was motivated by revenge.  In Jak 3 his struggle is more internal as he has to cope with having been banished from Haven City.  He meets new friends in the Wasteland who teach him how to survive, and ultimately he has to decide how to handle the balance of Light and Dark Eco that he has inside of himself.  Also, since this is the final entry in the Precursor Legacy trilogy, we will answer questions about the Precursors and Jak’s past that have gone unanswered for the last two games.

Some people had an issue with Jak II’s sometimes very challenging missions, has this been taken in mind with developing Jak III? 

Amy:  Yes, absolutely – we realized that some of Jak II’s missions could be frustratingly challenging, creating difficulty “spikes” that kept some players from progressing.  With Jak 3, we set out to tune the missions so the difficulty would rise and fall more appropriately over the course of the game.  We extensively focus-tested the game to identify potential trouble-spots, and used dynamic difficulty adjustment in some cases to help players that might otherwise get hung up on a particularly tough mission.

Compared to the last two games, how does Jak3 stack up in length, and what has been put in place to warrant a second time through? 

Evan:  In terms of game real estate, missions, and amount of gameplay, Jak 3 is the biggest of all three games.  However, because of the additional tuning and balancing of difficulty, some players may complete the main path slightly faster than before.  But we put a lot of hidden side missions and secrets in the game to give the perfectionist player a lot to uncover.  And for those who put in that effort there are some very cool DVD-like extras that can be unlocked.  We included animator commentary over all of the cutscenes in the game, hundreds of slides of concept art, and a model viewer that lets you look at all of the character models from each of the games in the trilogy.

Some have compared Jak II’s gameplay style to be in the vein of Grand Theft Auto and then with the Teen rating, the game seemed to be labeled as a much more mature game, and in some areas maybe more that it was intended to be.  Jak 3 isn’t receiving as much feedback regarding its Teen rating this time.  Do you believe it is because fans are already used to it, or that it’s just becoming more acceptable in gaming as a whole? 

Amy:  It could partly be due to the industry maturing as a whole, but mainly it’s just because Jak 3 is similar in tone to the last game.  When Jak II came out, it represented a mature new direction after Jak & Daxter, so people naturally remarked on the change at the time.

As with most trilogies, the beginning starts off with a more lighthearted introduction to a universe, the second fleshes out a story and explains the conflict and the final usually throws both elements at you in a blockbuster big bang and explosion sort of way.  Will Jak 3 follow this trend and be a much faster paced game to bring it to its climax? 

Evan:  The pacing of Jak 3 is fast and the player will encounter a huge variety of gameplay throughout.  Apart from the traditional platforming action, Jak and Daxter will pilot dozens of new vehicles including the new dune buggies that they use to cross the desert Wasteland.

What are some of the new weapons or modifications we can expect to see?

Amy:  Jak acquires twelve different MorphGun mods over the course of the game, each with its own distinct properties.  For example:  the Wave Concussor unleashes a devastating area blast, the Plasmite RPG launches explosive grenades, the Arc Wielder emits a continuous stream of sweeping electricity, while the Mass Inverter sends out anti-gravitational waves that lift enemies off the ground, leaving them vulnerable to further attacks. 

Jak also earns new Dark powers (enabling him to turn invisible, and to hurl Dark Eco projectiles), and a new suite of Light Jak abilities that give him the power to heal and shield himself, slow time, and even fly for short distances.

What overall difference do you feel the desert hub area will have from the Haven City one in Jak II? 

Evan:  We wanted to eliminate the tedious feel of traversing the hub between missions that Jak II occasionally suffered from.  We achieved this by creating a hub that has no walls, streets, or predefined paths.  The player can choose to drive across it in any direction they desire which is quite a big departure from the winding streets of Haven City.  We also concentrated on making the feel of the dune buggies as fun as possible.  They drive much faster (up to three times as fast!) than the hover bikes in Haven City and the rolling hills and cliffs in the Wasteland make for exciting travel.

Lastly, but of course not least, is this truly the “final” Jak game, or just the end of its current storyline? 

Amy:  Jak 3 marks the end of the trilogy that began in the first game, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, but it’s by no means the end of the franchise.  The Jak universe is incredibly rich, and there’s plenty of room for more stories and new adventures.

So what are you waiting for? Buy it already!

Discuss The Interview With Naughty Dog On Our Forums: Click Here