Not exactly. It's sort of like a combination of Crash Bandicoot and Mario 64, with some other twists. Yes, it was made by the people who made the PSone Crash Bandicoot games (not the PS2 game), and the earlier game's influence is evident, especially in the way the main character spins. However, Jak and Daxter abandons the Crash approach to levels in favor of creating a bigger world to explore. The basic goal is to collect "Power Cells," which are obtained by completing objectives - this is the part similar to Mario 64.
However, a significant part of the game is played on a "Zoomer," a flying thing used both as a machine to play many of the areas of the game and as a transportation device to get from one group of areas to another.
I cleared it (and cleared it completely - I got every single thing there is to collect) in about 5 days. It only took that long because I spent a long time trying to figure out how to get into one particular area, because I didn't know how to get the last 5 of the 2000 orbs in the game (which aren't necessary to get the best ending anyway) for a long time, and because some of the time was spent doing other things (like playing Final Fantasy X or Devil May Cry, eating, watching TV, traveling in the car, being at other people's houses, and sleeping).
Maybe I'm just incredibly good at platformers, but I found it rather easy. Probably both. Part of the reason for this is that this game is one of those games with a "self-adjusting" difficulty level, which means that if you screw up, it gets easier. Sometimes we would screw up, and so it would get easier. That difficulty level system is good for some, but I like my platform games hard.
The most interesting thing about this game is that there are NO LOAD TIMES. That may not seem like much for those of you using old-fangled cartridge based systems, but keep in mind this is a PS2 game. It loads the next area, sound file, movie, etc. during play, without slowing down. I only encountered slow down in about two places, and it wasn't much slower than usual. The rest of the time, it was perfectly fluid, and the environments look beautiful.
The only problem with the fact that there are no load times is that the music isn't very complex. I like good video game music (probably more than I should
), so this was a mild disappointment.
The story wasn't much, but I doubt anyone seriously expects a good storyline from a platform game in this day and age.
Finally, there's the matter of Daxter, an annoying guy who gets turned into an annoying little muskrat thingie at the beginning of the game. Some of the things he does are mildly funny, but eventually he gets a little annoying.
Anyway, Jak and Daxter is a good game, but I found it a little short. I would still recommend it to people with PS2s who don't want to have to search through bargain bins to find good PSone platform games (because there aren't many on the PS2).
(For a real challenge, try playing it in another language.
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