Jak X: Combat Racing is Naughty Dog's fourth title in the multi-million unit selling Jak franchise for Sony. Combining lightning-fast racing with a variety of weaponry and a do-or-die feel to it -just watch the new TV ad campaign- the new title is currently blazing into stores this week. GameSpy recently got to fire a few questions at Naughty Dog, and Richard Lemarchand, Jak X's Lead Game Designer, was kind enough to answer them.



GameSpy: In particular, which racing titles have proven to be the most inspirational in the development process?
Lemarchand: We wanted to capture the insane, high-speed action, and the easy pick-up-and-play feeling of a classic arcade racer, but at the same time we wanted to have the depth of play and the kinds of customization and personalization features that you'd find in a racing sim. Finally, we wanted to add the destructive mayhem of a vehicle-combat game into the mix. We think those elements have combined well to create a kind of game that hasn't really been seen before!

GameSpy: What prompted a move in this direction for the series, and how do you feel about those who would detract and say that you're repeating the pattern Naughty Dog did on the last console (several Crash games followed up with a racing title)?
Lemarchand: While we were finishing Jak 3, someone told us that the physics-based vehicle gameplay we'd cooked up for that game was really fun -- fun enough to support a game of its own! We agreed, and since Naughty Dog had also wanted to make an online game for a while, the idea for Jak X: Combat Racing emerged very naturally when we put those two thoughts together. The fact that we'd repeated the pattern of a great adventure trilogy followed by a kick-ass racing game is purely coincidental!

GameSpy: At this point, as the PS2 reaches the dusk of its lifespan, which title does the dev team feel most fond of, in terms of labor, personal life, and events transpiring during production? And no saying Jak X is the best just because it's dropping soon!

Lemarchand: Each member of the team has their own personal favorite episode in the Jak series, but I can honestly say that Jak X: Combat Racing was the game that was the most fun of all the Jak games to develop. We always work very hard here at Naughty Dog, but we've refined our production techniques so that the team didn't have to pull quite as many insanely late nights as they have done in the past. Also, working on a title that was both multiplayer and online was a whole mess of fun -- we had no choice but to challenge each other to regular smackdowns in order to test the game, and sometimes we burnt a little too much midnight oil playing together!