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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Posted by Naughty Dog in Video Games July 16, 2009 at 03:58:08 AM

As a few of you may know, there is a new Jak and Daxter game coming out, entitled "The Lost Frontier". This new game looks stunning in it's PSP trailer, but doesn't look like a JnD game much. I think it's because Naughty Dog (the creators) handed it over to High Impact games. So, I decided to write this review as a tribute to the original, and in my opinion, the best.

Jak and Daxter is about a boy and his Ottsel who go off to find a cure for his friend, Daxter. The Ottsel. You see, Jak and Daxter had "borrowed" the fisherman's speedboat to go to Misty Island and Daxter had fallen into a vat of "Dark Eco". Instead of dying a horrible death, he popped right back out as the orange rat-like creature.

You control Jak, the silent protagonist of this game. In Daxter's own words, "He gets to do all the cool stuff, like pilot A-Grav Zoomers." The aim of the game is to collect Power Cells for different mechanical inventions, like the Zoomer's heat sheild or the boulder lifter. There are also orangey pinky egg shaped objects floating around the place called Precursor Orbs which can be exchanged for Power Cells.

This game is very nice for it's age. It has an open world setting with NO loading screens whatsoever. The aforementioned A-Grav Zoomer is fun to tear around on, but there are only limited spaces you can ride it.


Later in the game, you get to ride a Flut Flut bird who thinks Daxter is it's mama. You can jump really high and far on him, and in some cases, can bog through tar on it.

There are 4 main kinds of Eco: Blue, Green, Yellow and Red. Blue eco makes you go faster, and when it's being channeled through you and there's machinery with a blue lightning bolt near by, something is bound to happen.

Green eco recovers health. It comes in small ball forms and big ball forms. 50 small ones recover a chunk of health, while it only takes 1 big one.

Yellow eco lets you replace the punch attack with a shooting attack. You can take out enemies from a distance. This even has a minigame based on it!

Red eco increases your strength. There are some lurkers on Misty island that take 2 hits to kill. Well, 1 hit with Red eco will sort them out.

There are also 2 other kinds of eco. Dark eco comes in crates, large puddles and silos. Falling into a large area will result in an instant death.

And the there is Light Eco. The effects are largely unknown until Jak 3. It is only seen being used in the 2nd last cutscene of the game. Daxter has to choose between using it on himself or using it to save the world. He chooses to let the world be saved with the line "Hurry up before I change my mind!" Uses a Yellow eco style blast be unleashed... well, until Jak 3.

It has a gripping storyline and is top-notch revolutionary for its time (2001). If you have access to a copy of this game, get it ANY WAY LEGALLY POSSIBLE.

For a plot diagnosis, check Wikipedia.

Rubber Chicken rating: 10 Rubber chickens out of 10!

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