Number 28: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Naughty Dog 2001
Intro:
The game begins well, establishing characters and motivation quickly with live-rendered non-interactive clips. The menu is a typical list over consistent graphics.
Getting Going:
The items in the world were explained, but I didn't hear much explanation about player movement and attacking, so when Daxter told me to punch the posts up, I had to experiment and fish around for a while to figure out Jak's upper-cut punch. I could see that being a much more desperate issue for less patient or knowledgable players (like the kids this game seems oriented towards). Goals are explained well from the start, but getting from here to there isn't explained well, leading to a little confusion. Special functions are displayed on the screen, like talking to people or interacting with things.
Fun:
Smacking the tar out of boxes and simple enemies in a cartoony platformer with smooth control and fluid motion is a lot of fun in Jak and Daxter. Making the player collect 50 little green dots to recover only one third of their health seemed a little tight at first, but the amount of boxes and enemies makes it seem almost doable for children, and the sparse offerings of each container introduce undo survival stress than pressures players to experiment less and think more defensively (despite infinite lives and nearly constant auto saving). The minigames range from frustratingly peculiar to control to being fun enough to make me forget that I've done the same thing six times to get it right.
Visuals:
Very pretty and cartoony environments, fitting to the fluid and bright cast. Characer design is suprisingly diverse, when everyone is supposed to be the same sort of creature. The mist of Misty Island is very ugly up close: falling into it reveals that it is a flat, 2D plane that collides with the jutting rock platforms with little grace.
Intelligence:
Enemies are pretty dumb and straight forward, but they know when to attack and when to just chase the player down. They're attack patterns seem to be as simple as converging on the player. Puzzles aren't especially creative or new.
Immersion:
There is no loading screen, though the elevator sequence in the Lost Precursor City is horrifyingly tedious (as opposed to the creative angles and lighting that made Metroid Prime's loading elevators fly by, despite being approximately as long). The consistent and diverse environment and character design makes the world easy to live in, and the seemingly urgent motivation of the plot keeps players on their toes and focused. I was solidly immersed until the frustrating timing puzzles and load time in Lost Precursor City were a sudden and unexpected jump in the game's difficulty.
Cameras:
The camera follows alright, but the player is forced to constantly adjust the camera on their own, which is a bit distracting and frustrating, especially in tight action where the player can't spare their right thumb just to get a better view. On top of that, looking up and down are extremely limited. The game's depth perception was a little off, and I found myself often attacking an oncoming enemy just a moment or two too soon, or attempting to jump gaps that were just too wide.
Controls:
I would have liked to see some in-game instruction on the controls. The controls are pretty typical platformer fare, with a few simple abilities and a few less simple special jumps. Running seems a little on the slow side. Jumps are a bit on the short side, but double jumping and long jumping help (though long jumps require a little lead room thanks to a preceding roll). Mostly tight and intuitive, the controls would have benefitted from a camera centering key.
Ideas:
Little here was really new, so it's hard to say much about the ideas. Collecting fifty green Eco to gain back one unit of health seemed a bit excessive. Blue and red Eco to momentarily up the player's speed or attack power seemed like a nice idea, but it really boiled down to a frustrating pose-pause every time a new gob was touched and a few running puzzles where the brief time the player is energized is the only limiting factor. Everything else was well executed, aside from the camera controls.
Memory:
This is a fun and smooth game, though it's weighed down a little compared to Ratchet and Clank thanks to its darker atmosphere. The relatively slow running speed and funky camera don't give this game the speed and intensity its fluid animation deserves. The premise and object are easy to comprehend, though the core progression mechanic (power cells) quickly becomes the motivation over the journey.
The game begins well, establishing characters and motivation quickly with live-rendered non-interactive clips. The menu is a typical list over consistent graphics.
Getting Going:
The items in the world were explained, but I didn't hear much explanation about player movement and attacking, so when Daxter told me to punch the posts up, I had to experiment and fish around for a while to figure out Jak's upper-cut punch. I could see that being a much more desperate issue for less patient or knowledgable players (like the kids this game seems oriented towards). Goals are explained well from the start, but getting from here to there isn't explained well, leading to a little confusion. Special functions are displayed on the screen, like talking to people or interacting with things.
Fun:
Smacking the tar out of boxes and simple enemies in a cartoony platformer with smooth control and fluid motion is a lot of fun in Jak and Daxter. Making the player collect 50 little green dots to recover only one third of their health seemed a little tight at first, but the amount of boxes and enemies makes it seem almost doable for children, and the sparse offerings of each container introduce undo survival stress than pressures players to experiment less and think more defensively (despite infinite lives and nearly constant auto saving). The minigames range from frustratingly peculiar to control to being fun enough to make me forget that I've done the same thing six times to get it right.
Visuals:
Very pretty and cartoony environments, fitting to the fluid and bright cast. Characer design is suprisingly diverse, when everyone is supposed to be the same sort of creature. The mist of Misty Island is very ugly up close: falling into it reveals that it is a flat, 2D plane that collides with the jutting rock platforms with little grace.
Intelligence:
Enemies are pretty dumb and straight forward, but they know when to attack and when to just chase the player down. They're attack patterns seem to be as simple as converging on the player. Puzzles aren't especially creative or new.
Immersion:
There is no loading screen, though the elevator sequence in the Lost Precursor City is horrifyingly tedious (as opposed to the creative angles and lighting that made Metroid Prime's loading elevators fly by, despite being approximately as long). The consistent and diverse environment and character design makes the world easy to live in, and the seemingly urgent motivation of the plot keeps players on their toes and focused. I was solidly immersed until the frustrating timing puzzles and load time in Lost Precursor City were a sudden and unexpected jump in the game's difficulty.
Cameras:
The camera follows alright, but the player is forced to constantly adjust the camera on their own, which is a bit distracting and frustrating, especially in tight action where the player can't spare their right thumb just to get a better view. On top of that, looking up and down are extremely limited. The game's depth perception was a little off, and I found myself often attacking an oncoming enemy just a moment or two too soon, or attempting to jump gaps that were just too wide.
Controls:
I would have liked to see some in-game instruction on the controls. The controls are pretty typical platformer fare, with a few simple abilities and a few less simple special jumps. Running seems a little on the slow side. Jumps are a bit on the short side, but double jumping and long jumping help (though long jumps require a little lead room thanks to a preceding roll). Mostly tight and intuitive, the controls would have benefitted from a camera centering key.
Ideas:
Little here was really new, so it's hard to say much about the ideas. Collecting fifty green Eco to gain back one unit of health seemed a bit excessive. Blue and red Eco to momentarily up the player's speed or attack power seemed like a nice idea, but it really boiled down to a frustrating pose-pause every time a new gob was touched and a few running puzzles where the brief time the player is energized is the only limiting factor. Everything else was well executed, aside from the camera controls.
Memory:
This is a fun and smooth game, though it's weighed down a little compared to Ratchet and Clank thanks to its darker atmosphere. The relatively slow running speed and funky camera don't give this game the speed and intensity its fluid animation deserves. The premise and object are easy to comprehend, though the core progression mechanic (power cells) quickly becomes the motivation over the journey.