Hello! Justin here and welcome to the Otaku Mind. I remember as a kid I played all types of game genres growing up. I guess it was all because I it didn’t really matter to me what I played. As long as I was having fun I was content. As I grew older I started to figure out which genres I liked more than others and would often spend my time playing those games more. However, there was one genre of gaming I didn’t find much appeal in even as a kid and that was racing games. For whatever reason racing games never really caught my attention. I don’t think they’re bad I just never really got into them the same way I didn’t really get into sports games (but that’s whole another topic). That’s not to say I didn’t play my fair share of racing games. But while I could spend hours naming my favorite JRPGs and why, I can name my favorite racing games on one hand. Crash Team Racing (CTR), Star Wars Podracers Revenge, Mario Kart Double Dash, Diddy Kong Racing, and Jak X Combat Racing. Which in my opinion is the greatest racing game I’ve ever played and the one I want to talk about.
Jak’s Rise
Before getting into the topic at hand I think it’s best to give my young readers out there a crash course into exactly what Jak is. So our story begins in the early 2000s. Before Naughty Dog gave us Uncharted and Last of Us they gave us Crash Bandicoot. Crash was one of the first games for the PS1 and helped Sony’s game system rise in popularity (even at one point being seen as the official mascot of the Playstation). After completing the third game and CTR, Naughty Dog’s relationship with Universal Studios who owned the rights to Crash would turn sour and the two publishers decided to go their separate ways. Universal would keep the rights to Crash while Naughty Dog would become an exclusive 1st party studio for Sony. With Crash no longer in their arsenal, Naughty Dog got to work creating a new IP and what they created was Jak and Daxter. Just like Crash, Jak and Daxter was a hit. Despite Jak’s quiet demeanor you could sense a heroic spirit inside of him and see his personality. He had a funny loudmouth friend in the form of Daxter, an interesting gallery of side characters, a fun world to explore, and good mechanics/graphics (for the time) that showed off what the PS1 could do. Two years later and Naughty Dog would release Jak 2 and it was even better than the first game. Being largely inspired by the playstyle of GTA 3, Jak 2 was grittier, darker, emotional, and more violent than its predecessor. Jak and his friends were now in a dystopian future fighting to overthrow a tyrant and destroy a group of monsters known as Metal Heads. It was a radical change, but it worked. People enjoyed the missioned based objectives of the game. We got to explore Jak’s world more and we expanded on the array of characters. Jak could talk, Daxter was still the comic relief and of course we got weapons. The game’s success would carry over into the third game which was seen as the finale to the series but Naughty Dog would go on to do a few spinoffs such as a stand-alone Daxter game and Frontiers for the PSP and finally Jak X Combat Racing.
Plot
Alright, so what’s the story of this game? Well taking place after Jak 3, Jak and his friends are invited to hear the will reading of Krew. Krew was a mobster that Jak and Daxter are forced to work for in the second game in order to get information to help the resistance (think Jabba the Hut if he could fly). In the final missions of the game, Jak and Daxter wind up fighting him and leaving him to die in an explosion. At the start of the game the group meets Krew’s daughter, Rayn who presents the holographic will to the group after sharing a drink with them. In the will, Krew wants them to win this big racing tournament being held in Kras City which is where he’s originally from. Naturally, everyone says no but Krew reveals that the drink they just had was poisonous and in order to get the antidote they have to win the tournament. As the game goes on we find out that the reason Krew wants to win this tournament so much is because of a deal he made with a rival gang to gain complete control of Kras City. In order to avoid an all-out war they agreed that whoever won the tournament would absorb the other gang’s territory and rule the city.
Gameplay
Like all racing games you participate in a series of races to qualify for the cup’s championship and move on to the final race. The game has four cups total and each cup has its own cars that you can use to race and customize. The better you place in the races the more points you get to do qualifying matches for the cup’s championship race and of course you’re free to replay these races as many times as you want. Winning races also earns you points which you can use to upgrade your cars. Each car is different and has their own specialty. Some are faster, some have better control, and better defense. You’ll pretty much have a go-to car for each cup and for each race. Speaking of races, that’s where the fun begins. Just like Mario Kart you’ll be competing against other characters in the game and be allowed to pick up weapons to take out your opponents. You have two types of weapons. There’s weapons that can attack people in front of you and weapons that can attack people behind you and these weapons are a lot of fun. You can leave mines on the road, a gun turret, take out others with missiles or a machine gun, or my favorite, flaming oil slick which burns the racers behind you alive. Of course we got are attack the leader weapon and attack all weapon for those following behind. Along with these weapons we have health and turbo boost items on the track to give you an edge. Just like in Podracers you can use your weapons to destroy other cars momentarily. They’ll come back after like 3 seconds. One cool feature I like in this game is that sometimes they’ll show your kills in slow motion. Allowing you to take in all the destruction you cause. It’s awesome. Just like you can destroy other cars they too can destroy you and this in turn makes the races all the more exciting as you battle it out to get the win. You get points for each kill and lose points for each death so it’s important to pick your spots and keep your health up.
Different Types of Races
Along with your traditional races the game offers a wide variety of different races to keep things from getting mundane and repetitive. There’s death races where the goal is to kill as many cars as possible within the time limit. We have death matches which are similar to Twisted Metal battles. Get a certain number of kills before the other characters to win. There’s capture the flag, team battles, treasure/wild hunts, time trials, and turbo dash races. And they’re all fun things to do. That’s one of the things I really do love about this game. They could have been content with just doing standard races and maybe throwing one or two special types of races, but instead they go above and beyond to give us a whole buffet of races that we can do and play throughout the game and main story. By not adhering to realism they were allowed to get away with a lot more things than the standard realistic racing games. That’s not to say realistic racing games are bad or boring. I get the appeal and understand why people like them, but I prefer non-realistic racing games that take full advantage of the world they’re in. As far as stages go we get four areas. Two cities, one desert, and one ice mountain. However, these four areas have different tracks in each and they’re all connected. There are a few races where you can do a tour and combines all the tracks in that area to create one massive race from point A to point B (this is the kind of racing I wish the world did more of).
Other Things I Like
Along with all the various races and vehicles, the game also has a good story. While we don’t get to take control of Jak outside of the races, they make up for it by giving us good cutscenes that progress the story. We have some funny moments sprinkled throughout the story as well along with new characters and villains for Jak to face. There’s a good twist at the end of the story I won’t give away but it really does catch you off guard. While the story isn’t as good as the previous games it’s still good, makes sense, and has that good writing that made the previous games so fun to play.
Closing
Jak X Combat Racing in my opinion is the greatest racing game of all time. It may not be the most realistic or have the best graphics but it has a lot of content to keep you entertained, a good story, funny moments, and cool cars to customize and race. I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes racing games. You can buy it on the PlayStation Store right now for the PS4 or PS5. It’s cheap which is a shame because it’s worth so much more but a game you won’t regret buying and that’s a Project Nitsuj guaranteed. If you’re a fan of racing games let me know what your favorite racing games are in the comment section below. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.