Well, here's another game from this century and from a system that is still being produced albeit in much smaller numbers than it was a few years ago. Jak and Daxter sure doesn't feel that new anymore though. It seems like since then the characters have been in dozens of games and have moved on to the venerable mascot phase. How old am I that Jak and Daxter doesn't even feel new anymore? They were the hot new game characters back about ten years ago. They even replaced Crash Bandicoot as Naughty Dog's main property. It's similar to what happened in 1991 when Sonic replace Alex Kidd as Sega's mascot. That's a real thing. You can look it up if you don't believe me.
I noticed a couple of interesting things about this game. The first one is that nobody that I talked to liked it. What's the problem with it anyway? I mean, it's not Banjo-Kazooie or anything, but it's a pretty good 3D platform game. Is it because Daxter is annoying? If this is a problem you can turn off the hints and shut him up for the most part. Besides, isn't it nice that Max Casella, aka Vinnie from Doogie Hower, is getting paid? I always liked that guy. Maybe in the super violent world of Playstation 2 this game just isn't adult enough. Of course I spend most of my time playing old kid friendly games, so it's not much of a problem for me. I'd sure like to know why everybody hates this game so much when every publication I read loves it.
The next thing I noticed is also my biggest complaint with the game. This game is too easy, and it goes by way too quick. I don't mind an economical story line. This one's pretty simple, although it doesn't always make sense. The main villain is voiced by Dee Snider, but he's only got about 10 lines in it. You'd never even notice him if you didn't read it in that awful fold-out map style manual. I don't know why they didn't just get some generic Naughty Dog employee to do it if the character was going to be in it so sparingly and with so little promotion. Did everybody know this 10 years ago? I sure can't remember
The real problem, however, is that the game is just too easy. The only real danger in it is tripping over all those power cells you're going to find. This is the main goal in the game, and they are simply everywhere. There are different tasks for finding them, but they mostly boil down to walking along a path until the power cell shows up. There are some that are more difficult to get, but they are easily skipped if you want to beat the basic game. You only need 72 out of 100 to make it to the final level. Also, when you die you start back at the nearest entryway with all the things you collected still intact. This is likely to be the favorite part of many people out there, but it just seems a little too easy for me. If you're going to do this why have a life bar at all? It seems like there should be consequences for death. At least there are a few difficult boss fights in it.
I would say that I beat this game in about 10 hours, which was a shame because I was really starting to get into it. I like how it plays like one big world instead of a bunch of individual levels connected to a central location. On a whole the voice acting is good, and I like the Mark Mothersbaugh music even if it's not quite up to the caliber of the old Crash Bandicoot games. The good certainly outweighs the bad in this one. I just wish that it was more of a challenge. There's a roll jump in this game that helps you get to far off ledges. I had no idea this existed until after I beat the game. I had to skip an entire level because of this, but I still beat the game easily. That's gotta tell you something.
Now if I know game series than the sequels are probably harder. They should also be easy to track down since everybody buys these games, but nobody seems to like them much. Also this is 2011, and just about any Playstation 2 game can be found for 5 bucks or less. They're cheaper than most Atari games. I guess now would be the time for me to start building up my PS2 collection. Let's see, I've got 13 of them. I guess that only leaves me about 2000 more to get. Looks like I'm well on my way.
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