Game REVIEWS

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier

  After a long 4 year break, Naughty Dog, the creator of the Jak and Daxter series, released the latest installment: “Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier”

  This story takes place shortly after “Jak X: Combat Racing”. It starts off with Jak, Keira, and Daxter, trying to fix the current eco shortage that is caused by an incident in “Jak 3”. The shortage of eco is causing weird and destructive weather on the planet, killing it slowly, so the three set off to the “Brink” (edge of the world, where the precursors never finished) to find more eco. They didn’t really know how to address to this situation, and if that was not bad enough, they are attacked by sky pirates. Jak runs onto a wing of his hellcat to defend his aircraft from being raided and Keira takes over the controls. Another pirate lands on to their ship, in front of Keira. With her quick thinking, she tilts the hellcat tipping the pirate over. This causes Jak to lose his balance and change the position between him and the pirate. In a desperate attempt, Jak tries to use Dark Eco to retaliate, but fails. Daxter, trys to save Jak, shooting at the pirate but misses and accidentally shoots the ship. This causes them to crash onto an island at “the brink”, where they have to find all Eco possible to fix the plane to move on.

  This game has the same quick wit game play style and animation as the original; and as always, you take control of Jak with Daxter on his shoulder. The game is entirely free roaming, Jak jumps around and fights with his fists punching everything and everyone in his way. It is also an open world game, at anytime you can go to any land. One can roam around to collect precursor orbs (eggs); it allows cheats and extra items to be unlocked for the game: unlimited ammo, items for Dark Daxter to wear, etc. Along his journey, Jak finds and uses guns, which have been seen in the previous games.

  Jak can no longer turn into dark or like Jak, instead he is given new “abilities”. The dark eco Jak collects, in this game, are use as if it was “currency”; exchanging it for updates such as his skills and health. The red eco creates an orb of energy, if Jak shoots it will create a large energy blast destroying obstacles or damaging enemies. Green eco can be used in many kinds of situations: allows him to run on liquid/ dark eco without getting hurt, a shield to protect him from enemies’ attacks, and create paths where there is none provided for Jak. Blue eco slows down time: when fighting against enemies or just objects to proceed ahead. Lastly, yellow eco gives him the ability to jump higher by creating a jet pack like item to reach new heights (where yellow eco vents are).

  Jak has always fought by himself, while Daxter does small mini games or sneaks in to open doors for you, but not this time. After the release of a PSP game of Daxter, more fans want Daxter to have a bigger role in the game. As the fans wished, demanded, the creators gave Daxter “abilities”. Daxter can now become Dark Daxter, a huge (compared to his normal size) hairy “monster” that throws dark eco energy, smashes objects and the ability to turn into a tornado. Definitely makes this little character more interesting, but not fully worth it.

  A New feature to this game is the flying ability. Jak flies around on his hellcat for dogfights and travels around in a large ship. Unlike objectives on land, where your objectives are shown on the map (telling you where to go), it is not the same when you are in the air. To reach to the location you want would not be listed for you on the map if you are flying and to move to a new location you must first land on the Phantom Blade, luckily new areas are directed to you with a large star (and as you are doing all that, you are in dogfights).
System: Playstation PSP and Playstation 2
Publisher: Naughty Dog
Category: Action
Available Now
 

  There are a lot of mini games/quests, such as taking jobs from a merchant or racking/dogfights with other pilots, for you to complete in the game, mostly to get all weapon upgrades; and precursor orbs are found randomly on stages. The last little add on is customizing your planes. As you progress in the game Jak earns new planes to fight with and allows him to customize them. To customize you have to take scraps part from enemy planes by harpooning Daxter onto the enemys’ ship to steal and destroy.

  “Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier” is great for old fans and fans of the series, but does not rise to the “die-hard” fans expectations. I, personally, was hoping to beat things up as Dark Jak and fly around with Light Jak, but both are not available in this title. Another downside is this story has holes; it does not completely explain or follow the original stories, for example:  How can Daxter, who fell into a pit of dark eco and turned into an Ottsel, become Dark Daxter? He has toucled Dark eco before as an Ottsel and nothing happen, yet all of a sudden he turns into Dark Daxter?  This was never really explained.  I was a pretty big Jak and Daxter fan myself, from when “Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy” came out back in 2001 and continued to play the series since then.  This new title lives up to the series, but still leaves you hanging, in so many ways: wanting more of the game and asking questions about the story.

** Written by Christopher Del Castillo