This game makes me wonder what on earth the developers were thinking. And the testers! You should be ashamed of yourselves! How'd you let it get to game store shelves in this shape?!? Where's the Quality Assurance?!? Arghhh. Well, the game is not very good compared to the previous four Jak & Daxter titles, which I *adore* (hey, I even named my orange tabby cat Daxter!). But although I play the other four over and over, I didn't feel like playing this one more than once (which is a shame since I paid $30 for it. $10 or $15 would've been more like it.)
Here's the negative stuff:
- The graphics during gameplay are not up to the quality of the other J&D games. During the mini-games when you play as Daxter the graphics are just plain terrible.
- The camera control is rather poor, which made me nuts. It changes throughout the game, too, so at best it's ok, but sometimes you can hardly move it and that makes it very difficult when you're fighting enemies and also when jumping on platforms, etc. - you fall a lot more 'cuz you can't move the dumb camera properly!
- The weapons do not seem very powerful and as for the upgrades you buy for the planes, it's confusing to figure out what does what.
- There are a couple of missions where it's hard to figure out what to do, and one in particular (near the end when you're shooting some planes around a tower) Kiera gives you verbal & written directions on the screen that are just plain wrong! If you follow her directions you'll never beat that mission.
- Some of the gameplay areas seem copied from J&D 1...or Ratchet & Clank!
- Like Jak 2 & 3, this has a Hero Mode, but if you play it and buy armor you are stuck with that armor. I bought Jak the best armor and it was so distracting to see him running around in this fat red suit with black spikes I couldn't keep playing. There did not seem to be a way to change it.
- Another comment about the planes - when buying upgrades, I could not tell which plane I was buying upgrades for and so I generally used the same plane over and over. Jak X: Combat Racing made it very clear what you're buying for which car. Why wasn't the same thing done here?
Good stuff:
- The story line is very good and I like the new characters (nice pirate theme)
- The new worlds are pretty interesting (except the one you arrive at first, which seems ripped off from J&D: The Precursor Legacy...and was done much better then)
- The cutscenes are excellent quality - graphics, story and voice acting are all superb. Wish the rest of the graphics were this good.
- The variety of weapons and variety and type of upgrades is good (although I did not like that you had to buy one of each color eco before you could purchase from the next level)
- Incorporating flying instead of driving was interesting, although by the end of the game it was a tad much. I liked "Daxter-jacking" (Dax parachutes to an enemy plane and can break in and steal items) although even that got annoying after a while.
On the whole I'd say skip it and play the other Jak and Daxter games in the series - the *good* ones by Naughty Dog! But if you can get The Lost Frontier for cheap, go ahead.
Disappointing and no where near the caliper of Jak 1, 2, or 3.
I had been waiting for this game for a long time and when I put it in, I could tell immediately this was not going to be good.
Graphics, gameplay, missions....just about everything is not up to the standards of the Jak series.
But, just my opinion.
I'm so glad it came out. I have been watching videos of the game for days. I a'm a fan of the Jak games cause Ihave all of the Jak games except for Jak And Daxter The Lost Frontire. Fighting the eco pirates looks awsome! The new weapons look awsome! It's funny when Daxter goes all over the place when he is shooting the gun.
"The title says it all. If you were looking for the next installment in a great series... Look elsewhere."
"One level up from the other games in the series, with even more game play."
