Jak X: Combat Racing

Jak X would have been even better if it supported four-player split-screen with the multitap.

Jak X: Combat Racing is the best thing to happen to the genre on PS2 [Nov p.90]

The most fun you can have racing and watching vehicles blow up since "Burnout Revenge." [Dec 2005, p.120]

If you want to spend hours twiddling with option screens and menus, there's Gran Turismo. But if you want some of the best get-up-and-go vehicular carnage since "Twisted Metal" and "Burnout," Jak X: Combat Racing is the most adrenaline-pumping racer you can find on the PS2.

One of the best racing game I've ever played, walking the fine line between serious race challenge and kart-style arcade antics with the grace of a tightrope artist. Luscious graphics, masses of hilarious and beautifully scripted cut scenes, a great story, a host of racing modes with loads of weapons, a huge single player campaign and blissfully great online play.

Though there are some problems with the single-player artificial intelligence in the later levels, there is an overwhelming amount of value from the multiplayer modes and unlockable options.

The gameplay variety wasn't always necessary but is a welcome change for the genre – a few more changes with the inevitable Jak X sequel and they could form a new sub-genre.

While not a Jak and Daxter game in the traditional sense, this combat racer does drill together a nice driving game that doesn't fall apart like a cheap engine would.

I actually found myself giggling from time to time as I tried everything I could to keep my opponents behind me.

It’s a pretty good title with impressive graphics, a lot of tracks and cars, a deep single-player adventure and full online support with many game modes.

A solid arcade racing game that plays a little bit too much on the safe side. [Nov 2005]

Jak X is kart racing for the Twisted Metal generation.

With the ability to unlock characters such as Ratchet, and the option of online play, Jak X is another chapter that fans of the series will absolutely adore.

A healthy collection of on and offline modes and a very satisfying story build real value for the title, but the actual play can sometimes feel a bit lifeless and often suffers from spontaneous swings.

A solid racer with a few minor game balance problems. If you're able to get over them -- which isn't hard -- you'll be looking at a good online and offline kart-style game slammed with the good stuff from the Jak & Daxter universe.

So ridiculously fast paced and explosive, and so loaded down with features, that it’s hard to punish it for what are primarily just minor gripes.

While the overpowered weaponry, somewhat repetitive track scheme and rubberband AI complicate gameplay, Jak X is still good enough for fans of the platforming duo to pick up and play with their friends off or online.

It’s almost a racing game for everyone, but traces of the tad-too-touchy driving the Jak series is known for will throw newcomers for a loop and frustrate even veteran drivers on occasion.

One of those games that I would just call just plain fun.

The addictive, just-one-more-race feel works perfectly with our normal just-one-more-can-of-cheap-beer schedule.

The forgiving handling and a near-Burnout level of speed make Jak X arcadey, but there's strategy too.

Jak X is one of the better kart-styled races on the market. It's a solid experience that Jak fans should come to enjoy.

Another fantastic script with more one liners and jokes than should be allowed.

If you can find yourself falling in love with the slightly twitchy handling, and look past the few failings involved with the enemy AI especially on later levels, then this could just work it’s way gaining a large portion of your Christmas gaming time.

A fun combat-racing game; the story will appeal to fans of the franchise, and there are a lot of cool secrets and unlockables. But there are some functional drawbacks--especially noticeable in the later levels--that prevent this game from being truly excellent.

As a non-serious racing game that manages to combine Wipeout and Burnout in carting form, Jak X has a lot to offer – at least if you don’t already own a dozen or so such games.

Phenomenally polished and plays incredibly well. It just stalls out early on and gives players little reason to stick with it. [Nov 2005, p.155]

I would defiantly [sic] recommend this to anyone who ever wished they could strap a rocket launcher on the side of their car in "Gran Turismo."

A decent arcade racing game where fun is the aim and destruction is the game; and this title should definitely be able to stand among the other games on the shelf.

It's been too long since we had a great vehicular combat game, and Jak X delivers some rollicking good multiplayer fun. It just lacks the flair needed to make it a must-buy. [Dec 2005, p.101]

The controls also suffer a bit thanks to the floaty physics and awkward use of the shoulder buttons for boosting and attacking simultaneously.

Jak X: Combat Racing isn't really going to change your driving nature, as it lacks some of the zest of the more concentrated racing games out there. But it still delivers a mostly good time.

It's a racing game where the racing isn't even right thanks to cars that are just too squirrely and AI that blatantly cheats on top of rubber banding up behind you. Any fun the game had in the start is sucked right out by the end.

Opponents cheat to keep every race competitive but it can be irritating, especially when rivals destroy your car within reach of the finish line.

Sure, it's repetitive; sure it's not doing anything massively new, but what it does provide is an exceptionally polished genre offering that fans of the series and kart games in general can get a lot out of.

There's enough car customisation capabilities for sense of progression together with a range of munitions that can obliterate opponents, and the narrative is exactly what you'd expect it to be in a Jak & Daxter game.

This is not "Jak 4." It's just a kart racer, albeit a quality one with bags of online potential. [Dec 2005, p.106]

Jak X delivers smooth, intense online action and a solid variety of game types, including a take-out-the-drones death race and an entertaining sport hunt in addition to typical races. Nothing spectacular, but satisfying nonetheless.

The extremely dedicated, and perhaps a bit masochistic, will absolutely adore Jak X's lengthy and varied single-player, however frustrating it may be.

After three games packed with at least twenty hours of consistently engaging platforming, action and driving, it's difficult to see Jak X as anything but an odd diversion. Even taken within the context of combat racers (as the title requests) there's little to make it stand out.

Ultimately, the problem with Jak X is that the underlying game is utterly generic. Strip away all of the characters and you're left with a racing game that borrows from the genre, but doesn't give anything back.

If this is the series' swansong, it goes out in the luxuirous manner in which the series was born – in a well-produced, moderately thoughful and firmly enjoyable instalment of an established genre – a manner that won't go unappreciated but will just as likely go unremembered. [Dec 2005, p.110]

The result is a fast, flashy exercise in steering, shooting, and squinting. [Dec p.93]

To enter the racing genre successfully, you need to have some boiling hot IP, promotion that would make EA jealous, or some gameplay twist so innovative that the next bored developer will rip you off instead of vice versa. Jak X has none of those.