Childhood Favorite

One of my favorite games is Jak and Daxter. I specifically grew up with the original ps2 version. The game oozes charm and I’d recommend it to anyone that likes 3d platformers. The animations have this cartoonish squash and stretch to them that i absolutely love too. The premise of the game is that there is this energy called eco that flows throughout the world, the bad guys want to flood the world with dark evil eco. It starts with Jak and his friend Daxter exploring and Daxter falls into a pit of dark eco transforming him into an Ottsel, a combination of a weasel and an otter. From there they try to reverse what happened to Daxter along with stopping the big bad. There’s collectibles too and collecting all of them nets you the true ending that leads into the sequel game.

The sequel is also one of my favorite games. The tonal difference between Jak 2 and Jak and Daxter is wild. I can understand why some people wouldn’t like this difference, it’s more dark than the original, but its still got its own charm to it. The whole game has this grimy feel to it, gone are the colorful wilds of the first game now its a dirty industrial city. The beginning of the game starts with Jak being kidnapped and tortured after the true end of the first game. The 2nd game adds guns and vehicles into the gameplay along with a new dark edgy form for Jak courtesy of the torture at the beginning of the game. It’s funny there’s people that call it a bad gta clone while that’s exactly what Naughty Dog was inspired by when they made this sequel. Although how they got from colorful cartoony 3d platformer to dark edgy gun play is a mystery to me. I’m not complaining though, I probably played the 2nd game more than the first game as a kid. The vehicles were really fun to drive and I’d spend hours just messing around driving.

I recommend this series wholeheartedly. The original series is on PS2, but it has had a lot of remasters. It is on PS2 of course, PS3, PS Vita, PSP, and PS4. There is a 3rd game too although i haven’t really played that one. I grew up with just the first 2 games and for the longest time didn’t even know there was a 3rd game. That’s why the remastered collection is great it collects all 3 main games together. There are 3 other games for this series too, Daxter for the PSP, Jak X Combat Racing for PS2/PS4, and Jak the Lost Frontier for PS2/PSP/PS4. So if you find you like the series you have some more to check out.

Jessi Bellows