Daxter Hands-On
Jak’s loud little sidekick takes the fight to the… er… bugs
Tags: Daxter (PSP) Categories: PSP Previews, Previews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jan 23rd, 2006
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Let’s face it, Jak doesn’t bring much to the personality pie of the Jak and Daxter games. The strong, silent type thing he did in the first game was just cliche, and the “now darker with more X-treme!” tweaks to his so-called personality in the later titles weren’t anything special, either. No, all this time the real star has been hiding in the shadows… mostly because he’s so short that even small animals accidentally step on him.
But now, Daxter is heading into his own, and judging by the latest demo of the game Sony had playable at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, the little ottsel’s adventure promises to be every big as engaging as his cohort’s larger-scale adventures.
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For those who need catching-up, here’s the skimmy. The game takes place shortly before the events of Jak II, and Daxter is doing everything he can to try and find his imprisoned buddy, but an infestation of metalbugs prompts Daxter to become an exterminator, in the meantime looking for clues as to Jak’s whereabouts.
The version of the game I played at CES looks pretty far along, and graphically the game definitely looks like a J&D title, with whimsical characters and environments and fantastic animation, and maybe it’s just me, but the controls seemed a bit more tightened up since I played the game back at E3 ‘05. Daxter’s primary weapon is a flyswatter that he can use to combo attack enemies (bugs, natch), and he also weilds a can of bugspray that can be used for variousthings, primarily to stun the critters so Daxter can whack ‘em. However, the game mechanics are actually a bit more involved than that.
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One of the things that was particularly amusing was how Daxter’s weapons could be applied in different ways to assist him. The bugspray, for example, can be used on an open flame to turn it into a makeshift flamethrower, or deployed while jumping to act like a jetpack. Better yet, these two techniques can be combined for extra oomph to shoot Daxter into the air while deploying flaming death to enemies below. The way it’s worked into the game seems pretty clever, and I look forward to seeing what else our sarcastic hero has up his sleeve. Also interesting is the concept of dream sequences worked into the game, like the one shown that tosses Daxter into a bad Matrix parody.
It should be mentioned that there are still a few things that need a little more work, like an unhelpful camera, and the fact that it’s sometimes not apparent what you need to do to proceed. Still, the game is coming along nicely, and fans of platforming action will likely be pleased with what Daxter has to offer when the title is released a few months from now.
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Tags: Daxter (PSP)
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jan 23rd, 2006 and is filed under PSP Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
