Jak 3: New Hands-On Impressions  We go hands-on with a recent
version of Naughty Dog's forthcoming sequel - is the old Jak
magic in tact?  Sequels in the videogame industry are nothing
new. What's more rare is for a company to radically alter the
direction of a series, and yet that's precisely what developer
Naughty Dog did with Jak 2: Renegade. While the first game was
essentially a standard platformer - albeit a well-executed one -
more along the lines of the company's previous Crash Bandicoot
games, the second instalment darkened the tone and deepened the
gameplay. If Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was Naughty
Dog's Mario Sunshine, then Jak 2: Renegade was its platforming
Grand Theft Auto, and despite this divergence the series was
better for it.  We recently got to spend time with Jak 3, the
next entry in the critically and commercially successful
franchise. Fans of Jak 2 will be pleased to know that Naughty
Dog has stuck to its ground this time. The build we played is an
early developmental snapshot,