Jak II/The Shadow

This page covers a sequence of missions for the Underground which you get after defeating the baron in his palace. You finally get to meet the Underground's mysterious leader, the Shadow.

Mission: Shuttle Underground Fighters

Location: Haven City (slums)

Follow the dagger icon to Underground HQ and go in.

Cutscene: Mission start

You find Torn with Kor and the kid from the beginning of the game. Torn is angry that you somehow stirred up the KG and you have to admit that you might have set off an alarm or two at the palace. You mention that Praxis is planning to doublecross the Metal Heads and Kor seems very interested in this, adding that the Metal Heads may be preparing to attack. You also ask why Torn didn't mention that Ashelin is the Baron's daughter, but Torn only says that since it's your fault the KG are on the alert, it's your job to help fix it. He wants you to shuttle 5 Underground fighters from where they're stranded in the city to 5 safehouse locations.

The basic mechanics are actually pretty simple, follow a green circle to either a pickup or delivery location, stop the zoomer to let the passenger in or out, then go on to the next circle. But there are a few details that you need to master if you're going to complete this mission.

First, this is a timed mission but the way the timer works is a bit unusual. You have one minute to pick up the first fighter, then one minute plus whatever time you didn't use for the pickup to make the delivery. So you have two minutes total for pickup and delivery but you can't spend more than one minute on the pickup. After you make a delivery the timer resets so the next pickup and delivery cycle works the same way.

The KG goes into alert mode when you make the first pickup, in fact it seems to be a kind of high alert since they will try to ram your vehicle and shoot at you more than usual. So drive on the lower level as much as possible. In the last delivery you have to go into the water slums and driving in the lower level isn't practical there, so switch to the upper level when you get there and do your best to avoid traffic.

As with the Collect Money for Krew mission, you shouldn't run out of time unless you seriously miscalculate your route or your vehicle is destroyed, so don't drive so fast that you run into walls or other traffic and damage your vehicle; the KG will do enough damage to it without your help. The last pickup and delivery seem to take the longest so if you do run out of time it will probably be on that run. Also as with the collection mission, keep an eye on the condition of your zoomer and keep an eye out for fresh ones if it starts to smoke. Switch zoomers on the pickup legs since you don't have to worry about getting your passenger to the switch as well.

The one=seat zoomers won't work at all for this mission since there simply isn't enough room for a passenger. The slightly larger model might work in theory but it's still to fragile to be very useful here. So use either the wide-body model or the twin-hull model, the first one if there's a choice.

You're most vulnerable in this mission when you're making a pickup, since your vehicle is standing still waiting for your passenger to get in while any nearby KG can attack at will. So it's critical to speed up this process if you can. To do this you have to notice something that seems like common sense but you may not be paying attention to it. Unlike real life, whichever side you get in your vehicle becomes the driver's side and the other side becomes the passenger's side. Like real life, your passenger will only get in on the passenger side. So when you make your pickups, remember which side you're on and park the zoomer so the passenger side door is right in front of the passenger. This should stop the awkward "passenger dance" where you're trying to turn the zoomer so that passenger will get in quickly but the passenger fails to get the message and circles the zoomer in the wrong direction. For the first two pickups you 'll probably want to have your passenger get in on the right, which means that you need to get into the zoomer on the left when you get in outside the Underground HQ. It's tempting to get in on the right at the start since that's which side you're on, but the investment of a few extra steps to go around the zoomer at the start will pay off in the long run.

Mission: Protect Site in Dead Town

Location: Dead Town

Reward: Vulcan Barrel (start)

Follow the dagger icon to Underground HQ and go in.

Cutscene: Mission start

Torn says that Metal Heads have moved into Dead Town. The last time that happened there were people there, but the Baron left them to die; it was the Shadow that saved them. There is a sacred site there and you must protect it from the Metal Heads. Torn gives you the Vulcan Barrel weapon mod to help you.

Follow the old building icon to the Dead Town gate and go through. As promised the place is now swarming with Metal Heads. You're probably itching to try out your new weapon, but be aware that it's an ammo hog and the blue ammo refills for it are actually less common than yellow and red refills. In fact you don't get any more blue ammo until about half way through this mission.

The wooden disks you used to go south the last time you were here are gone now, so scale the ledges to a platform and continue northeast. You meet the most annoying enemy in this area, a Metal Head that neighs like a horse and throws balls of purple flame at you. The flame is easy enough to dodge but it makes it hard to fire back.

Turn right and hop on a trail of wooden disks to a small island. Clear a pair of the horsey Metal Heads before stepping to the next island since a swarm of smaller Metal Heads is waiting to pop out of the ground, or you can whip out Dark Jak to take care of all of them at once. Hop onto the wall here and follow it left. It leads to a large building and if you check to the right you'll find KG crates with your first blue ammo refills. Now you have to so some room to room fighting as you make your way through the building. You end up in an alley on the northwest side of it.

Cutscene: Mission end

You can now see the sacred site that Torn was talking about. It turns out to be Samos' hut. If you've played the first game it will be very familiar to you, but if you haven't you'll only know it from the opening cutscene. It's not the same as when you left it behind though, but a ruin. So it appears that the Warp Gate you went through at the start of the game didn't take you to a distant land, but forward in time.

It's not quite clear how to get back now, and Daxter repeated telling you that you need to go back to the city doesn't help. Go to the ledge at the southwest end of the alley and drop down from the northwest end; you should land at the spot where you first saw a horsey Metal Head. Then follow the golden beam of light to the exit.

When you get back to the city Daxter makes a remark finally getting to see the Shadow.

Mission: Catch Scouts in Haven Forest

Location: Haven Forest

Reward: JET-Board (start)

Follow the dagger icon to Underground HQ and go in.

Cutscene: Mission start

You see Torn first and tell him you used to know someone who used to live in that old hut. But then you spot Samos himself only now he's calling himself the Shadow. He doesn't recognize you though and gets a bit miffed when Daxter doesn't give him the deference he's used to. In fact he looks quite a bit younger than the Samos you knew; the beard is much shorter and his hair still has some green in it. He's also pretty busy so he stops you from making any more comments on his appearance and puts you to work. He wants you to go to Haven Forest and eliminate the Metal Head scouts that appeared there recently.

Follow the mountain icon to the Mountain Temple gate and go through. Somewhere on the way you here the voice of the Stadium mechanic tell you that she's left the JET-Board at the Temple entrance and since you're working for the Underground she's going to let you keep it.

You pick up the JET-Board as you enter the temple. Use the warp gate as before to get to the top of the hill, then look for a platform in a golden beam of light to carry you to a new area, Haven Forest.

The forest is divided into two sections; you start in the northwest section and there is a much larger section to the south and east. They are connected by two tunnels, one of which has a stream flowing through it.

There is one scout in the northwest section and the remaining are in the main section. It's pointless to say exactly where since they move around and you'll have to chase them anyway. But they appear as green circles on the area map and you may notice that the ambient music has more percussion when you're close to one. They look like big birds and the idea is to chase them on the JET-Board until you touch them. You'll need to jump and grind here but the rest of the training from the Stadium challenge won't be used. You must use the JET-Board since they fly faster than you can go on foot and they seem to be immune to gunfire.

Now that you have the JET-Board you may find that getting around the city and other areas in the game is much easier. Just be careful not to run into any KG while riding since they will go into alert mode.