File Size: 1.35 GB
File Type: ISO
It's been awhile since Jak and Daxter teamed up for a proper adventure. The last true team-up was Jak III in 2004, then there was the "WTF" kart racer known as Jak X, and then the Ottsel struck out on his own in 2006's portable Daxter. After those titles, Naughty Dog ditched the PS2 and moved on to Uncharted on the PS3 while Ready at Dawn took its PSP skills to God of War: Chains Olympus. For awhile, Jak and Daxter drifted in the darkness.
Now, High Impact Games is bringing the duo back in Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, a platforming/dogfighting tale landing on the PSP and PS2 this week. For the most part, the title's a return to the simpler days of double-jumping through Jak and Daxter: The Precursor's Legacy (i.e. No Dark Jak), but some technical hitches hold it back from being a completely awesome experience.
Now, High Impact Games is bringing the duo back in Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, a platforming/dogfighting tale landing on the PSP and PS2 this week. For the most part, the title's a return to the simpler days of double-jumping through Jak and Daxter: The Precursor's Legacy (i.e. No Dark Jak), but some technical hitches hold it back from being a completely awesome experience.
The Lost Frontier picks up with Jak, Daxter, and Eco Sage-in-training Keira on the outskirts of existence. Seems the Eco of their world is in an alarmingly short supply, and our trio is trying to get to the bottom of what's going on. Soon, their trusted Hellcat plane is shot down by sky pirates, they meet an old dude with no memory, and Jak starts learning nifty new abilities.
See, because the Eco is all out of whack, Jak can't assume his Dark Jak form -- that all-white monster from previous games. However, throughout your journey, you're going to run into Precursor idols that will grant Jak amazing abilities. He'll be able to slow time, create a bubble shield, generate massive pillars, and create a glowing orb that explodes when shot. These moves play into one of the three main parts of this game -- platforming.
Yes, just like the first Jak game, there are a lot of platforms you need to leap to. There are poles to swing from, switches to throw, and so on. By the end of the game, Jak will have a small arsenal of weapons, but those take a backseat this time around to jumping from one ledge to the next. For the most part, this focus was great. I loved the original Jak game, so there were a couple of moments in here -- namely the puzzles that required me to make a shield, teleport, and think -- where I was able to sit back and just take in how much fun I was having and how much I had missed it.
Trouble is, the PSP is a crappy place to put a platformer; yeah, I said it. The lack of a second analog stick for camera control usually leads to issues, and that's exactly what happens here. Plenty of times the camera was locked to a position where I couldn't see how much room I had to make a jump. Other times, it was way too zoomed in and I couldn't see where the edge of a ledge was. Another drawback is the inability to lock on to bad guys or strafe. This means that I was often surrounded by baddies and just had to run at the screen shooting in hopes of hitting the enemies I knew were somewhere out in front of me.
These issues make The Lost Frontier frustrating when it doesn't need to be.
The next third of the gameplay pie is dogfighting, and it's actually pretty cool. In the beginning, I climbed behind the controls of the Hellcat and found it a bit too sluggish for my taste, but there's this solid customization element to The Lost Frontier that let me make the plane faster, stronger, and all-around more kickass. There are five planes to unlock by playing the missions or purchasing straight up. Each of these planes has weapon and ability slots. You can fill these slots with armor, machine guns, lock-on missiles, speed increases and so on, but you can also unequip the boosts and move them to other planes.
This is an awesome idea. There's a computer terminal in your pirate hangar where you can buy upgrades with the scrap metal you've earned in the sky. Now normally, I'd be very scientific about when to buy wing armor vs. when to buy lasers, but seeing as how I could put anything I wanted on one plane and know that I could remove it and add it to whatever other awesome plane I was going to get later, I just bought whatever sounded good at the time.
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