Now we understand the Crash Bandicoot conspiracy. Naughty Dog fed us pretty much crap with Crash, but it did help the PSX. Also we were brainwashed into liking Naughty Dog. After the Crash series "Crashed" and burned, we were skeptic but willing to trust Naughty Dog with a new game, and Now we have it. J&D is very fun game, very easy action/borderline RPG.

You are Jak, and with your friend Daxter, you travel to the forbidden island for a bit of mischief. But you're friend Daxter falls into a pool of Dark Eco, the most dangerous substance in the Universe. Daxter comes out of the pool no longer [human? elf?] but now an Ottsel, a mix of Otter and Weasel. Oddly enough he looks very similar to when he was normal. Anyway, you must now gather Power Cells, artifacts left by the mysterious ancient race (The Precursors) to power your journey to the north, and find the Sage of Dark Eco, Gol, who may be able to help change Daxter back. The game is Bango-Kazooie like, though Daxter doesn't help you with attacks at all. He is however, hysterical.

As you wander the world you're in, you soon discover a suspicious and alarming growth of Lurkers, evil creatures that appear throughout the land. You also discover that the other Sages, Blue, Yellow and Red are missing. You look into it to find that Gol has become evil and wants to take over the world. Big surprise there. Use the Eco, the universal energy (different colors give different powers) to find Power Cells and get to Gol to stop him.

The game is very easy. You have limitless lives, most of the lurkers die in a single hit, and the game is short. I finished it 100% with minimal strategy guide consultation in 17 hours of gameplay. And I think it was left running for 2 hours once while I was away from the PS2. The game fools you into thinking it is hard, because at about 8 points during the game, it will take you 20 minutes to overcome a single obstacle. Either it is an annoying jump that has to be timed and run perfectly or little annoying things that push you over into a pit and kill you.

The best part about the game is Daxter. On at least 3 occasions, he gave me advice on how to beat some harder monsters and overcome traps I couldn't understand how to beat. And all the time when you die, he'll say something charming right before you black out. Things along the lines of: "I'll say something very touching at the funeral...Like HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET CHANGED BACK NOW?!" and "Jak... uh... can I... have your bug collection?" He never fails to make you laugh right before you die. He also does awesome little dances everytime you find a Power Cell. Either he'll do an ally-oop into Jak's backpack, or he'll do an air guitar solo, or he'll do the robot (my personal favorite). Enjoy his antics 101 times as you collect the Power Cells.

What liked: Daxter and all his dance moves, and all his witty remarks. Riding the Flut Flut. Final Boss is about 30 minutes of amazing fun.

What disliked: Pointy ears. The whole of the gameplay is finding Power Cells. There's no sidequests, except the ones that get you Power Cells, and no mini-games, except the ones that get you Power Cells. It gets old.

What to expect: Easy gameplay. Falling down chasms, a lot of frustration, but nothing really hard per se. Lots of fun things; But then you get a Power Cell and the repetitiveness settles back in.

What not to expect: Crash Bandicoot

What's so different from this and other games of its genre: Some interesting characters, and very nice environments.

Ratings on:

Control: 9 - Very easy to learn, and soon you'll be making your own attack combos to smite Lurkers. They're overall simple, and when you ride the Flut Flut or Zoomer, it takes all of 1 minute to learn the new controls.

Graphics: 7 - Not the best for the current time, nothing realistic like Metal Gear Solid 2. Effects are all really nice and the animation is very fluid. Large exploreable environments. The only real downside are the people, who look kind of chunky when it goes up close.

Sound: 8 - Not much real music, but there is some background music that adds a nice effect. Nice wind up on the mountain, nice bubbling for the lava. Pretty realistic, and very nice voice acting. The voices fit well and the dubbing is very good.

Style: 6 - The plot is pretty original, and the world and environments (eco, Precursor ruins) all very nice. Loses a couple points for repetitiveness.

1st hour: Hm... pretty boring beginning, but it's looking interesting. Fun gameplay and it's cool talking to all the people in the first town.

3rd hour: Already past the first village. You can swim in the water, even in the ocean. I seem to be pretty deep... HOLY SHIT! A giant orange shark came out of nowhere and ATE ME! That sucked, I literally jumped out of my chair the first time this happens.

10th hour: Already at the game boss's "dungeon". Looks like it's going to be really horribly frustrating (and it was).

1st week: Done. Short and Sweet. Daxter is awesome. I already loaned it to a friend.

#1 reason why I hate this game: The annoying bits riddled throughout the game.

by NinJew