Your Jak & Daxter impressions

Since I haven\'t seen any thread of the impressions on this game yet, I thought I share mine and ask for yours in return.

I got this game last week and have been playing it since then (devoted my entire weekend to it) and I think it\'s fantastic. Since Naughty Dog first announced the game, I was looking pretty much forward to it, especially after enjoying all of the Crash games on PSX.

IMO the graphics are outstanding. The animations of Jak and especially Daxter are amazing and probably the best I\'ve seen in a video game up to date. It\'s just like watching a disney cartoon, just much more entertaining. The humour is excellent also.

Walking through the "sandover village" over to the beach and watching how everything moves (butterflies, seagles etc) is just fun. You can swim anywhere you want and the way daylight changes and lightning is done is very impressive. I\'ll rate this game among the most impressive on PS2 right now.

No aliasing, no flickering on my screen. One of the only games that really puts this AA issue to end and I hope developers can follow the lead Naughty Dog has taken.

The other thing that really impresses me is the "no-loading times". When I first read it, I didn\'t think that the graphics would be that great and I though that the consequenz would be that you would have a pretty long start-up process at the beginning. I was wrong, and everything is very quick. It loads the date from the mem.card and after a few seconds the game is up and running and you won\'t have not one loading-time until you end the game. That\'s pretty impressive and I didn\'t think it was doable until I popped in this game.

The gameplay is very good. It feels a little... mmh.. yeah, a bit like Mario, but it\'s definately one of the first of its kind that I\'ve have played. The landscapes are well done and all look different. I most enjoyed the snowy pass which is very big and different from the previous levels.

My only gripe is the bosses, which really lack. I am at the last level now, but have only encountered 3 major bosses. But it\'s not too much of a loss, since I most enjoy running around with Jak.

The sound too it superd (from a quality point-of-view) and sounds amazing on my hifi system.

Anyway, all in all, I give this game a 9.8! After I play through this game, I\'ll start from start again, and gett all the extras and explore all the possible places in this game.

Any thoughts and impressions?

Well,

Not for anything, but there are still some shimmering/aliasing issues. It\'s not a major gripe, but the effects of the PS2 syndrome are still there. Pay attention to objects on the floor as the camera rotates, and you will notice the aliasing effect. It seems developers are getting better with hiding aliasing, but completely removing them doesn\'t seem possible (though Baldur\'s Gate is the cleanest looking PS2 game by far.)

I will agree however, the rest of the graphics are outstanding, the texture work is amazing for a PS2 game, and the huge enviroments are lovely. The day/night transitions are great.

My main gripe of J&D\'s presentation is the music. I think the music is underwhelming. Compared to the music they use in the trailers, the music is completely uninspiring. It has the Crash-type music, which I loathe. I really wish ND would have worked harder on the soundtrack.

Originally posted by datamage
Well,

Not for anything, but there are still some shimmering/aliasing issues.

What is aliasing....? I\'ve heard it too many times... but never really learned what it is...

Oh and I agree on the Crash thing..... It seems a little too much like Crash Bandicoot..... But I really don\'t care... I loved Crash... Now all they need to make is Jak Team Racing... Sweet...

Seriously... I loved those cart games...

I got my copy the day it came out and it\'e hardly been out of my machine...
I like the way you can warp back to get the last few flies and orbs as it\'s just one big game...instead of levels...
The graphics blew me away as despite the fact it\'s cartoony like Spyro and Crash the enviroments look beautiful and it you look far into the horizon the detail just looks as good as the land right near you...
At first my only gripe was that you couldn\'t actually die on it as you don\'t have lives but after a while I realised if they had done the lives meter the game would be almost impossible...
Daxter adds to the games humour the way he just puts down the creatures or people you help and every now and again his tips help you from dying...
The no loading times thing was great as was the speedy save to memory card sequence as well as you can just get back into the game without waiting ages like they did with Crash Bandicoot 4.
I\'m only 60% into it and yeah it seems like a lot but when you consider I\'ve missed a lot of orbs it adds to the game as you have to collect every last item to complete the game properly...
The Gameplay side of things to me felt groundbreaking as even though they took elements from Link Mario and Crash, the size and difficulty of the game just adds to the already huge longetivity count...
If you read the interview you learn a lot more bout the game and as they say there will be a J&D2 then I\'m alrady excited!
I\'d give this game 9.7 as the only gripe I have is that when you die in some places you have to work your way up again and again and again...
It\'s frustrating but to be honest I\'d much rather struggle than just finish it in a week or so...

I reviewed this game on PSEra.com, here\'s a link to it:
http://www.psera.com/bin/showreviews.cgi?id=11

and here\'s a snippet...

Without a doubt, the best thing going for this game is its immense environments. When you first open up the manual, it reads almost like a journal entry or an old-time letter written and left for the present and unfolds into an immense poster of the world as a hand-drawn map. The map alone seems very small taking place on a large chunk of land. That is to say, until you complete a good portion of the game and discover that you have only bypassed maybe a fifth of the total land mass.

Well, hope you all enjoy the review, it\'s very short, sadly, but there\'s not much you can say about a platform game that hasn\'t already been said.

I said in my previous post I\'d much rather struggle on it than complete it in a week, and guess what?!?...
I\'ve completed it in a week!
Have I just contradicted myself or what?
It\'s still a massive game and at the time of writing I\'m now 85% into it, so a few more days and I\'ll be returning it for another game.

I have seen the game in action and I must say that it has some of the most fluid animation, and huge outdoor areas i have ever seen in a videogame. Plus, it looks like a fun game to me:)

Im getting it soon, as soon as I get the money