I tried Jak II for about 45 minutes (which got me 5% finished with the game).

Jak talks now. There seems to be some "attitude" in this game (probably not a surprise, considering the GTA influence); Jak's first words are something like, I'm gonna kill the Baron! Daxter, however, acts about as goofy as before.

I guess I've finished three missions that had stages (and maybe a couple that didn't have stages).

One good thing is that the mission stages are mostly linear (sort of like Ratchet and Clank). The first one is like an unobtrustive tutorial; you have to use Jak's various moves (all from the first game, except now the roll move is on the L shoulder button) to get through some jumps.

There's more substance to these early stages than in Jak 1, but I suppose Maximo is harder at the very beginning.

Unfortunately, I suspect the game's Grand Theft Auto layout will do nothing but hurt the game. Instead of simply going from one action stage to another (an approach that I'd say wasn't broken and didn't need fixing), you get to wander over an enormous, convoluted map to reach the next stage. You can go a little, but not much, faster by stealing a hovercar rather than walking. But if you accidentally steal a patrol's car (easy to do, since you're stealing a car that's above you), or bump one while you're driving, you get to go way out of your way to try to ditch the cops.

If you don't attract the attention of the patrols, there's nothing of interest on the map. It's just a place to wander around.

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."
-Orwell