The mantis is an enemy in Jak II and Jak 3. It is a metal head first found in the Metal Head nest in two consecutive missions "Break barrier at nest" and "Attack the Metal Head nest". They made a reappearance during Jak 3 in the Great Volcano during the mission "Find satellite in volcano". They again appeared in the palace ruins in the mission "Break through ruins".
Characteristics[]
Mantises at the nest.
Concept art.
Mantises closely resemble real life praying mantises with their raised raptorial forelegs postured as if "praying". They have a very small insectoid head, with a grouping of mandibles.[1] Their skull gem is embedded on the top of their head instead of the usual forehead region, and is surrounded by only two small eyes.[2] They are hunch-backed, with a small abdomen, two insect-like legs used for jumping high distances, and a tail ending in a point. They have various bio-mechanical traits such as various metal plated sections and purple skin. They are very similar in overall biology to the hosehead.[1][2]
Mantises do not have any particularly noticeable behavior, other than that they typically only jump around; up high, flipping from side-to-side in mid air, and back-flipping. They use this only as a confusion tactic opposed to combat.
Combat[]
Jak firing the Gyro Burster at a group of mantises.
The mantis' preferred way of attack is to jump around a lot, which tends to confuse its enemy. It will then randomly jump close to its opponent and attempt to strike it, which if the enemy moves around much should mostly be enough to avoid their attacks. To actually kill them you don't want to rely on precision aiming, this takes time and you will be temporarily halted, giving the mantises time to strike you. Usually firing blindly using the Blaster or Scatter Gun is good enough to kill most mantises, as they will at this point die in only one hit.
Another solution is to use the Blaster's aerial wastelander combo which will most likely hit one or two due to its rough auto-aiming in a full circle. In Jak 3 the Beam Reflexor is the best weapon as the reflected shots automatically home in on their own, which easily defeats the mantis' maneuverability.
The mantis is the only metal head type that has been fought by Daxter, other than Metal Bugs, although they still died in one hit.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Naughty Dog. Jak 3. (Sony Computer Entertainment). PlayStation 2 (2006). PlayStation 3 (2012). PlayStation Vita (2013).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Naughty Dog. Jak II. (Sony Computer Entertainment). PlayStation 2 (2004). PlayStation 3 (2012). PlayStation Vita (2013).