Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Naughty Dog returns to gaming with their first non-Crash effort. Can the house that Crash built survive without it's trademark mascot?
Published: March 18, 2002
One of the biggest problems with having a library as strong as the PlayStation 2's is that there are so many good games that truly great ones don't get the same chance to shine as they would if released into a market where their competition wasn't nearly as fierce or the number of titles released around the same period weren't so numerous. I'm convinced that Mario 64 on the N64 had such an impact because it was, well, an amazing game first and foremost, but it was released at a time when the system was first getting started, and still stands as one of the system's best games. Sure, it's a testament to the design and programming skill of Miyamoto and his team at the big N, but it also helped that there was a largely lackluster set of titles available alongside and well after Mario 64's release. The PS2, on the other hand, has seen titles that have literally bested almost every genre offering on the PlayStation, and they've done it in the first year or so, no less. The problem with all these great games is that there are undoubtedly games that get lost in all the commotion.
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy may not have been the first game to really open up the possibility of the free-roaming adventure game, but it's certainly the first one to do it in a truly next-generation way. From the way the game renders an entire world that you can explore from one end to the next without a single loading screen, to animation that literally trounces anything ever seen in any videogame, to game design that keeps things interesting despite being what some would call "just a fetch quest," this is a perfect example of the next generation in videogames, and whether or not people realize it, it's a benchmark for all other games of the genre to strive for.
The premise for Jak and Daxter is simple: while disobeying their elders, youngins Jak and his friend Daxter are goofing around a substance called Dark Ico. Through a little accident, Daxter is knocked into a vat of the inky ooze. He survives the dip, but is transformed into a muskrat looking creature, cocky 'tude still intact. The elder of your village, Samos the Green Sage, doesn't quite know how to change him back, however, and so it becomes an epic quest to track down a sage wise enough to find out how to turn Daxter back. It's a simple device to introduce a variety of different locals, and it works perfectly. The core of the gameplay revolves around getting Precurser Orbs, which are scattered all over the world, sometimes out in the often, more commonly hidden behind an objective of some kind like breaking the tethers tying a zeppelin down or herding moles into their holes. These orbs power equipment used to get you to the next big section of the world, and in this way you're able to experience the world in chunks at a time. You can always go back to the very beginning, but rather than overwhelming the player with options, the objectives afford a little more structure.
One of the biggest things that J&D boasts is diversity among the different areas you'll visit. Volcanic craters rife with sputtering lava flows lie just a short lift ride away from snow-heaped mountains eternally buried under a gorgeous particle snowstorm, and both lie just minutes away from a village carved out of seaside rock. Best of all, you'll never see a loading screen as you transition seamlessly from one area to the next; it's all done in the background without so much as a hint that anything's being loaded up.
You take the reins of Jak with Daxter in tow to provide one-liners that somehow never seem to get old. Daxter is an annoying character, but intentionally so, and instead of being irritating, he's just downright hilarious. One of the first things you'll probably notice upon picking up the controller is how easy it is to get Jak to do anything you want. He flips, rolls, spins, jumps, dives, crawls and punches with just a few simple button presses. There are no complicated controls to wrestle with or timings to learn - Jak just moves and plays completely naturally, and that's the key to making the game work. You never, ever feel like you have to wrestle with the controls because everything is so easy to pull off. You might die because you didn't hit the enemy in time, but it won't be because of any delay on the on-screen action's part. And you'll die in J&D. A lot. Luckily, there's unlimited lives, which gives you incredible freedom to just screw around, jumping down pits and taking leaps of faith that may or may not get you to where you're going.
If Jak and Daxter were just average looking, perhaps the game wouldn't be so engaging, but both them and the inhabitants of their world are so detailed and unique that you can't help but be sucked in, even if you hate games like this (which I do). The character designs are deliciously different, from the way Samos flits around with two tree stumps tied to his feet and one in his hair to the absolutely adorable Keira with her cute and chipper voice, pointy ears poking out from a mane of green hair, bare tummy action and big ol' oversized goggles. They're all popping with movement on top of all this initial detail, so even the most pedestrian of comments or actions gets an extra kick with subtle finger movements.
The world of Jak and Daxter is dripping with personality in just about every area, too. Mountains aren't just craggy peaks and straight lines; they have substance to them, with undulations in the rock face and snow caught on little outcroppings. That goes for all the environments, where you'll be hard-pressed to find any straight lines at all. Everything has a very organic, imperfect look that gives the world so much more authenticity, and I've never really seen it done to this scale. Best of all, there was no skimping the texture work, where literally everything is slathered not just in beautiful high-res texture work (Naughty Dog always had a knack for making games that that that nice, filtered look on the PlayStation, despite the PSX not having any real filtering), but gorgeous lighting that changes depending on the game's time of day. It's a trend that I'm starting to notice more and more often, and console games are all the better because of it.
Arguably the most impressive aspect of J&D out of all of this detail, though, is the animation. There's more to see here visually than in any Disney movie, and I've never, ever seen a better example of more fluid and varied animation in any cartoon or game. Period. During the real-time cutscenes, the characters mouths are super-enunciated, but match up perfectly with they're saying. Their tongues curl to the roofs of mouths to form the "el" sound, their lips poke out for "sh" sounds, and this goes for regular in-game characters too.
It's one of those things that you can't really describe (but I'll try, of course), but the smoothness and personality in the animation touches on every aspect of everything moving on screen. For instance, Jak doesn't just stand around lifelessly when not moving, he bounces from foot to foot before finally settling onto his heels. Of course, when he stops to breathe, that's when Daxter takes a break as well, leaning against Jak's head, wind rustling cloth, ear and tail alike. After a couple seconds, the two slip into a slick acrobatic stunt where Jak tosses Daxter under his legs and up into the air, where Daxter makes a one-hand landing on Jak's forhead. Leave Jak hanging from a ledge for long enough and Daxter jumps up onto the ledge, pulling on Jak's arms with overly-exaggerated tugs. It's little things like these (and that's only one of the idle animations) that show massive attention to detail.
The effects help round out the non-musical aural package, adding subtle punctuations like the soft "scratch-scratch" of grass getting kicked up and an ethereal, metallic bounce when Jak runs on Precuser-built surfaces. The voice acting is quite literally flawless, with every character bursting with personality, though nothing's too over-acted or annoying. The various grunts, squeaks and pops from enemies do their job, helping add punch to the fantastic animated reactions.
I'm a big fan of the plucky, upbeat music that Mark Mothersbaugh has done for the Crash games, (as well as a ton of TV shows like Rugrats and movies like Mystery Men) and it's nice to hear him and the team at Mutato Muzika kick out something the flows in the same vein. Most of the music has slight tribal undertones, but there's plenty of variety, too.
I can't stress this point enough: even if you don't like games of this type, you MUST give Jak and Daxter a shot. Naughty Dog has done so many things to advance the genre that you owe it to yourself to experience this game. I can't guarantee that you'll love it as much as I do, which is why I can't recommend everyone dash out to the stores to buy the game, but if you were at all a fan of the Crash games, this purchase should be a no-brainer. Again, as I mentioned before, Jak and Daxter was released at a time where there was a wealth of really, really good games. Now that the dust has settled on the biggest years in gaming history, here's a perfect opportunity to pick through all the big releases for a game truly worthy of your $50. Hidden under the MGS2s and GTA3s (and if you don't own both of those already, shame on you) is a game just as deserving of attention, if not ownership.
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy may not have been the first game to really open up the possibility of the free-roaming adventure game, but it's certainly the first one to do it in a truly next-generation way. From the way the game renders an entire world that you can explore from one end to the next without a single loading screen, to animation that literally trounces anything ever seen in any videogame, to game design that keeps things interesting despite being what some would call "just a fetch quest," this is a perfect example of the next generation in videogames, and whether or not people realize it, it's a benchmark for all other games of the genre to strive for.
The premise for Jak and Daxter is simple: while disobeying their elders, youngins Jak and his friend Daxter are goofing around a substance called Dark Ico. Through a little accident, Daxter is knocked into a vat of the inky ooze. He survives the dip, but is transformed into a muskrat looking creature, cocky 'tude still intact. The elder of your village, Samos the Green Sage, doesn't quite know how to change him back, however, and so it becomes an epic quest to track down a sage wise enough to find out how to turn Daxter back. It's a simple device to introduce a variety of different locals, and it works perfectly. The core of the gameplay revolves around getting Precurser Orbs, which are scattered all over the world, sometimes out in the often, more commonly hidden behind an objective of some kind like breaking the tethers tying a zeppelin down or herding moles into their holes. These orbs power equipment used to get you to the next big section of the world, and in this way you're able to experience the world in chunks at a time. You can always go back to the very beginning, but rather than overwhelming the player with options, the objectives afford a little more structure.
One of the biggest things that J&D boasts is diversity among the different areas you'll visit. Volcanic craters rife with sputtering lava flows lie just a short lift ride away from snow-heaped mountains eternally buried under a gorgeous particle snowstorm, and both lie just minutes away from a village carved out of seaside rock. Best of all, you'll never see a loading screen as you transition seamlessly from one area to the next; it's all done in the background without so much as a hint that anything's being loaded up.
You take the reins of Jak with Daxter in tow to provide one-liners that somehow never seem to get old. Daxter is an annoying character, but intentionally so, and instead of being irritating, he's just downright hilarious. One of the first things you'll probably notice upon picking up the controller is how easy it is to get Jak to do anything you want. He flips, rolls, spins, jumps, dives, crawls and punches with just a few simple button presses. There are no complicated controls to wrestle with or timings to learn - Jak just moves and plays completely naturally, and that's the key to making the game work. You never, ever feel like you have to wrestle with the controls because everything is so easy to pull off. You might die because you didn't hit the enemy in time, but it won't be because of any delay on the on-screen action's part. And you'll die in J&D. A lot. Luckily, there's unlimited lives, which gives you incredible freedom to just screw around, jumping down pits and taking leaps of faith that may or may not get you to where you're going.
If Jak and Daxter were just average looking, perhaps the game wouldn't be so engaging, but both them and the inhabitants of their world are so detailed and unique that you can't help but be sucked in, even if you hate games like this (which I do). The character designs are deliciously different, from the way Samos flits around with two tree stumps tied to his feet and one in his hair to the absolutely adorable Keira with her cute and chipper voice, pointy ears poking out from a mane of green hair, bare tummy action and big ol' oversized goggles. They're all popping with movement on top of all this initial detail, so even the most pedestrian of comments or actions gets an extra kick with subtle finger movements.
The world of Jak and Daxter is dripping with personality in just about every area, too. Mountains aren't just craggy peaks and straight lines; they have substance to them, with undulations in the rock face and snow caught on little outcroppings. That goes for all the environments, where you'll be hard-pressed to find any straight lines at all. Everything has a very organic, imperfect look that gives the world so much more authenticity, and I've never really seen it done to this scale. Best of all, there was no skimping the texture work, where literally everything is slathered not just in beautiful high-res texture work (Naughty Dog always had a knack for making games that that that nice, filtered look on the PlayStation, despite the PSX not having any real filtering), but gorgeous lighting that changes depending on the game's time of day. It's a trend that I'm starting to notice more and more often, and console games are all the better because of it.
Arguably the most impressive aspect of J&D out of all of this detail, though, is the animation. There's more to see here visually than in any Disney movie, and I've never, ever seen a better example of more fluid and varied animation in any cartoon or game. Period. During the real-time cutscenes, the characters mouths are super-enunciated, but match up perfectly with they're saying. Their tongues curl to the roofs of mouths to form the "el" sound, their lips poke out for "sh" sounds, and this goes for regular in-game characters too.
It's one of those things that you can't really describe (but I'll try, of course), but the smoothness and personality in the animation touches on every aspect of everything moving on screen. For instance, Jak doesn't just stand around lifelessly when not moving, he bounces from foot to foot before finally settling onto his heels. Of course, when he stops to breathe, that's when Daxter takes a break as well, leaning against Jak's head, wind rustling cloth, ear and tail alike. After a couple seconds, the two slip into a slick acrobatic stunt where Jak tosses Daxter under his legs and up into the air, where Daxter makes a one-hand landing on Jak's forhead. Leave Jak hanging from a ledge for long enough and Daxter jumps up onto the ledge, pulling on Jak's arms with overly-exaggerated tugs. It's little things like these (and that's only one of the idle animations) that show massive attention to detail.
The effects help round out the non-musical aural package, adding subtle punctuations like the soft "scratch-scratch" of grass getting kicked up and an ethereal, metallic bounce when Jak runs on Precuser-built surfaces. The voice acting is quite literally flawless, with every character bursting with personality, though nothing's too over-acted or annoying. The various grunts, squeaks and pops from enemies do their job, helping add punch to the fantastic animated reactions.
I'm a big fan of the plucky, upbeat music that Mark Mothersbaugh has done for the Crash games, (as well as a ton of TV shows like Rugrats and movies like Mystery Men) and it's nice to hear him and the team at Mutato Muzika kick out something the flows in the same vein. Most of the music has slight tribal undertones, but there's plenty of variety, too.
I can't stress this point enough: even if you don't like games of this type, you MUST give Jak and Daxter a shot. Naughty Dog has done so many things to advance the genre that you owe it to yourself to experience this game. I can't guarantee that you'll love it as much as I do, which is why I can't recommend everyone dash out to the stores to buy the game, but if you were at all a fan of the Crash games, this purchase should be a no-brainer. Again, as I mentioned before, Jak and Daxter was released at a time where there was a wealth of really, really good games. Now that the dust has settled on the biggest years in gaming history, here's a perfect opportunity to pick through all the big releases for a game truly worthy of your $50. Hidden under the MGS2s and GTA3s (and if you don't own both of those already, shame on you) is a game just as deserving of attention, if not ownership.
