However juvenile they might seem, these changes worked because the children who’d grown up on Crash Bandicoot were becoming angry teenagers themselves (myself included). Compounded by the addition of aggressive Dark Eco powers which granted Jak his own rampage mode. Jak II made the decision to give him a voice and personality, albeit the personality of an angry teenager. Effective, but lacking in nuance and compounded by Jak’s inability to speak. In Jak & Daxter the story had been a simple affair: Dark Eco turned Daxter into an Ottsel, Jak must try to turn him back and stop the villains behind the Dark Eco.
#JAK AND DAXTER PS2 DARK ECO CRYSTALS SERIES#
The change in setting also gave the series the chance to flex its narrative muscles. Drawing inspiration from steampunk, the enclosed urban environment made it far easier for the game to funnel the player to the correct locations. It was a stroke of luck then that the sequel Jak II relocated the series to the dystopian setting of Haven City after a Precursor artifact propels them into the future.
In fact, the game’s environments might be too expansive as, upon revisiting, they can be somewhat unintuitive and confusing, especially without maps or objective markers. Each level was unique in its own design and could be progressively expanded through platform challenges and puzzles. The result was the rich and expansive levels of the first game from Sandover Village to the dark and complex Spider Cave, which the player could transition across without relatively little loading times. GOAL allowed each environment could compile and process new information without needing the game to stop and update.
#JAK AND DAXTER PS2 DARK ECO CRYSTALS CODE#
To accomplish this designer Andy Gavin created his own programming language, GOAL, which almost all of the game’s source code was written on. In an effort to break away from the linear gameplay and minimal story of its predecessor, the world of Jak & Daxter would also be presented as open environments that the player could navigate freely. Set around the primitive but idyllic Sandover Village, with a culture built around respect for the land’s natural energies, known as ‘eco’ and reverence for the godlike figures The Precursors. Initially labelled ‘Project Y’ the original concept art shows the influences of the game in Disney’s animated characters and Japanese Manga. Naughty Dog had already developed one of the original PlayStation’s best-selling games with Crash Bandicoot, and in 1999, Sony set them the task of designing a new intellectual property to be the mascot of its upcoming PlayStation 2. The cause of Jak & Daxter’s status as the unfortunate middle child lies in its development. Lacking the nostalgia value of Crash Bandicoot, the critical acclaim of The Last of Us or the relentless prominence of Uncharted. However, compared to the rest of Naughty Dog’s work with Sony it barely warrants a mention in gaming history. A colourful combination of platform challenges, vehicle sections, melee and gun combat that somehow never becomes overly complicated.
Having since consumed most of the series ( Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak III and racing game Jak X) I consider it one of the last great mascot platformers of its time. Existing in that perfect midpoint between the charming 3D platformers of the PS1 and the gritty open-worlds of Grand Theft Auto. While critics derided the game’s darker tone and obnoxiously angsty protagonist it was catnip to thirteen-year-old me. Having never played the original game I was somewhat reticent to take up the sequel, but I gave the game a chance and something just clicked. Ratchet & Clank: Locked & Loaded, Sony’s pre-eminent mascot platformer of the day and Naughty Dog’s Jak II. In 2003 a young Northern lad on the cusp of manhood managed to save up enough pennies to buy a shiny new PS2, conveniently bundled with two games.
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