So last Tuesday, this came out
The Jak and Daxter Collection collects all three PS2 titles - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, and Jak 3. I don't know why they went from Roman numerals to a standard 3 but
whatever.
Developed by Naughty Dog in their post-Crash Bandicoot, pre-Uncharted days, the first game launched in holiday 2001 (the Year of Fucking Amazing Games on the PS2) and was a huge success, followed by Jak II and 3 during holidays 2003 and 2004, respectively, both of which launched to high sales and critical acclaim. The first game follows the story of a mute boy (elf? Something? What's with the ears?) named Jak and his friend Daxter, who, after an unfortunate mishap, is now stuck in the form of an ottsel (which is a portmanteau of exactly what it sounds like).
In an odd move, the sequel saw a tougher Jak, who now spoke and sported a goatee for extra
'tude. Apparently the gameplay changed too? There are guns and cars now? Dark experiments done on the protagonist? A T rating?
I never did play Jak II (and thus didn't care when Jak 3 hit) because everything I saw about the change in tone struck me as Naughty Dog going all Poochy on the character. Now it's nine years later and I have a bit more of an open mind, so hopefully the sequels impress me.
In a trend that's becoming kind of annoying, this HD re-release came out at a time when there's no new property in the franchise to speak of, which means there's no thread here on PA, which means there's no place I can talk about it with others, so I'm hoping to rectify that problem here. I'm new to this franchise! Sorta. I played some of the first Jak and Daxter back in '01 and got as far as maybe...20 power cells? Something about it wasn't clicking with me at the time, but after getting the Collection today I'm really enjoying the first game and think it has held up pretty strongly.
However, there are annoyances. The actual platforming (the act of jumping from one platform to another) can be kinda bad, with awkward camera angles never letting me know whether I can make a jump or not. Also the double-jump controls seem to be kind of iffy sometimes. The fact that there's no real vertical camera control is kind of insane, as well.
But let's talk about those load times! I remember being impressed with it back in 2001, thinking "this is the future" but then it turned out that the future still had load times out the ass for every other game. It is absolutely nuts how seamless this game is. Even upon death, regeneration is instant. It is pulling some serious Super Meat Boy shit in a polygonal platformer, it's kinda crazy.
P.S. There were also three other games in the Jak and Daxter series - Jak X: Combat Racing, Naughty Dog's attempt at capturing their awesome CTR days with their new character (I never played it but heard it wasn't that great), Daxter (never got around to this) and Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, which, again, I haven't played, but was surprised to see that it looks like something along the lines of The Precursor Legacy. Feel free to talk about those too!
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I started but never finished all three games so I'm looking forward to getting them done this time around.
I've preordered the HD trilogy on Amazon, but it's not out until the 17th in the UK.
And Jak X? Well, my playthrough lasted about...thirty-five seconds. The infamous save corruption bug reared its ugly head the very first time it tried to save, right on the main menu. Never touched the game again after that.
I'm glad about this release.
The changes to the sequels were not something that looked good or fun. The new hardcore young adult Jak is odd.
Any major issues that may cause me to hold on to my ps2 copies?
They're not perfect ports by any means. They apparently runs at less than 720p and have framerate issues, but that's mostly because they were programmed in Naughty Dog's own programming language (an offshoot of Lisp). That said, they'll still probably be the best versions of the games.
I'm already at 42% completion on the first game in the HD collection. The seamless world was impressive back in 2001, and it's still impressive a decade later.
I started 2, but it was so different than the first one that it kind of turned me off to it. I'll give it another go later. Maybe I started it too soon after the first.
As for the HD collection, I'll wait. Like I said, I have all 3 (3 is actually sealed, so maybe I should buy a used one), and 40 bucks seems a little steep. Like someone else said, I'll wait until it's half price.
Like a lot of other people, I did not come away as impressed with Jak 2. I was willing to ignore the whole Angry Jak thing, and the game looked really nice, but I think I can safely say that I did not enjoy the GTA-style city. Driving around that place was not very fun, and most of the cars seemed insanely fragile. I made it through the game, but it left a bad enough taste in my mouth to not even try Jak 3.
I'll revisit them all when I get this collection...a few months from now.
Still, Jak 3 did things much better. The difficulty didn't bounce around as much, the world was much better thought out, everything was more fun, and Jak stopped being so damn grimdark.
Also, if you can only beat one of the games, make it Jak 3. Why? Can't tell you unless you want to be majorly, mammothly spoiled. But, if you insist:
WARNING: EXTREME MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cUlc6g2AcTc#t=80s
Sorry I couldn't find a better version of this. Oh, and try not to read the comments when you go there.
Jak II was the bastard love child of the top 10 sales chart of the time. They decided to take elements from Grand Theft Auto, Tony Hawk, Ratchet and Clank, and a solid dose of hipster angst and mix it all up in a pot. It was awful, because it felt like all these elements had been shoddily implemented in about a week each. The first game had rock solid platforming. The second game had shitty driving, shitty skate boarding, shitting shooting and mediocre platforming. It also had absurd spikes in difficulty. I recall the hardest mission being about 1/4 of the way through the game?
Jak 3 I recall being somewhat better. The platforming had more of the focus back. The driving was implemented better, with more responsive controls and less frustrating driving sequences. The atmosphere of the game just felt more genuine and less "ME TOO!"
I still think the only game of the series to have aged remotely well to be the first one however.
Yeah, as much as I enjoyed Jak 3 at the time I think the only one I could bring myself to play again is the first one. To an extent I can understand why they 'tuded up Jak in the sequel since Jak's so bland in the first game, but everything else works so well.
Man, I rember spamming the spin-kick shot on Jak 2's final boss like no tomorrow. I also remember each game liked to screw you over if you ever went into water. FUCK WATER.
Basically, my summary of the series is like this:
Jak and Daxter: "What, this is all I get for finding each Power Core? FFFFFFF"
Jak 2: "Finally! I can take more than 3 hits before death! Well, not much more, but hey! Wait, why is this game so annoying? OMG, these stupid enemies won't stop shooting me! AND THESE ONES WON'T GET OUT OF MY FACE! Oh hey, I beat them.... This game is kinda fun."
Jak 3: "EEEEEEEEHHHH. MEEEEEEEEH. Wait, why did the black-haired girl from the first two games take a back seat? And why is the red-head the 'love interest' now? Are you fucking kidding me? And what's the deal with this stupid final boss? *Sigh*."
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Dunno how you can claim it killed the series when we got Jak III. And Daxter. And Jak X: Combat Racing. And Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier. And PlayStation Move Heroes featuring Jax and Daxter.
People give enough of a shit to keep the series and characters going. Otherwise, it should have faded into obscurity long ago.
Let me repeat that, because it deserves repeating. They ported the most recent Jak & Daxter to the PlayStation 2 in 2009.
The series has been put out to pasture on mobile systems. It's dead. Or undead perhaps.
At any rate, they scrapped that and are doing the fungus zombie thing instead.
To be fair, they ported a lot of PSP games to the PS2. It wasn't a "Nobody gives a shit about Jak and Daxter" problem. It was a "Nobody gives a shit about the PSP" problem.
Source:
...why? Goddammit, not everything has to be all brown and realistic. There's people out there willing to buy stuff that's more creative and whimsical! Honest!
I agree. Some of the cartoony shenanigans that happened in that series was fucking epic. The scene in Jak II where you controlled Daxter to run away from a hungry giant spider? PRICELESS.
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
Half that (the bolded bit) and half "we've put a crapload of time, effort and money into our current engine, animation system and mocap studio, why would we start from scratch?"
Also, Last of Us isn't a zombie game. Yeah there are the fungus zombies in it but there's just as much of a focus on raiders and the like.
I played and enjoyed the first and second. I may need to download the third one.
Game-play wise, it's definitely on the same page, and they improved the gun mechanic quite a bit. On the downside, the vehicle combat is... okay, I guess. I just didn't want that direction for the series... though vehicles have been in all 3 games, come to think of it.
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Which are a frequent hallmark of zombie movies/tv shows/games. :P
I don't think it's a matter of them being lazy, I think it's a matter of them buying into the thought that cartoony games don't sell on the PS3. Which, given the utter shit sales of Rayman Origins, could be right.
Now I've made myself depressed.
Never played the sequels because I was boycotting the terrible trend of adding generic rage to main heroes that was going on at the time.
Fortunately, Ratchet was there to comfort me and tell me everything was going to be ok.
That said, I hope to pick this collection up as I actually want to give the games a fair shake.
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I was just skimming this thread so I don't know if this has been addressed or not, but the PSN version of Daxter actually runs at 333MHz, as opposed to the 222MHz that the UMD version runs at, so you don't need CFW. The developers were able to get clearance for 333MHz from Sony as a result of the sometimes dodgy framerate of the retail version before uploading it, and as a result, the framerate is silky smooth.
Jak 2's main problem was that it could get really, really difficult. That was fixed in 3.
Yeah. The one stage where you had to go to that... ummm... factory? The one with the ocean nearby? Anyway, it was one with a major boss fight that with the stage itself, I got my ass handed to me multiple times.
The hardest part about Jak II was the same problem as Jak & Daxter: The small life meter. 3-4 hits before you die is harsh. MEGA HARSH. It helped that some of the enemies were slow as molasses, or that some had a slow aiming time before firing their guns, but damn, you could die quickly in that game. And some of the missions were downright unfair.
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Not to mention, the controls are terrible on the PSP. You get a few eco-based powers, but they are a pain to use. IIRC, you have to use the dpad to switch weapons and to switch eco powers, so god help you if you're trying to move and switch abilities at the same time. And without a second analog stick, you're stuck with the shoulder buttons for camera control. I assume the PS2 version controls much better.
If you get a chance to play the PS2 version, I wouldn't recommend it, but avoid the PSP version.