JAK AND DAXTER FULL
JAK AND DAXTER SERIES
JAK AND DAXTER PS2
JAK AND DAXTER FREE

Like pretty much everyone else at the time, Naughty Dog was clearly influenced by the monumental success of Grand Theft Auto III.

JAK AND DAXTER SERIES

That said, over its past few games, Naughty Dog has created some open environments that do feel like itвЂ™s carrying the torch of its past, particularly in the Western Ghats of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and the Downtown Seattle chapter of TLOU2.ДЄs the Jak and Daxter series progressed over the life of PlayStation 2, its gameplay and tone changed dramatically.

JAK AND DAXTER FREE

ThereвЂ™s a lot to do in each area, and youвЂ™re kind of free to uncover and tackle things at your own speed, as opposed to most of Uncharted, which sends you down well-dressed metaphorical (though sometimes literal) train tracks.

JAK AND DAXTER FULL

But where the Uncharted games are clearly rooted in the full sensory experience of exploration, which isnвЂ™t surprising given its Indiana Jones / Tomb Raider / pulp inspirations, Jak and Daxter primarily conveys this sensation of exploration through its mechanics. You can see even more of UnchartedвЂ™s DNA here in the humor and setting. In fact, the whole game feels like a sprawling Disney adventure, complete with colorful worlds, expressive animation, and a bunch of memorable characters to meet along the way. After being transformed into an ottsel (think an otter and weasel hybrid), he becomes a cross between AladdinвЂ™s Abu and MulanвЂ™s Mushu. Though Jak is a silent protagonist in the original game, Daxter more than picks up the slack. This also started the studioвЂ™s focus on strong stories and characters in all of its projects. Whenever we stared in awe at some grand spectacle or tiny detail in Uncharted and The Last of Us, that DNA can be traced back to Jak and Daxter. This really kicked off Naughty DogвЂ™s penchant for pushing its current hardware as far as possible at the time. Just wildly impressive stuff for 20 years ago.

And the complete lack of loading screens on the main continent meant that you could travel from the opening village to the final boss arena in one seamless trek. If you climbed to a high enough point, you could see pretty much every single area in the game, exactly where they should be. But where something like Super Mario 64 was broken up into small, disparate chunks that could be entered via the hub of PeachвЂ™s Castle, the entirety of JakвЂ™s world was presented on a single landmass that made sense geographically. A majority of the game took place on a massive continent filled with all the standard biomes weвЂ™d come to expect from our 3D character platformers - bright beaches, dense forests, dangerous volcanoes, frigid tundra. Jak and Daxter was a technical marvel at the time. The original Jak and Daxter felt like SonyвЂ™s true answer to the massive, genre-defining success of Super Mario 64, as well as a clear statement that Naughty Dog was a premier studio capable of much more than just Crash Bandicoot games.

JAK AND DAXTER PS2

From Grand Theft Auto III and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, to Ico and Silent Hill 2, that second year in the life of the PS2 is when the console came into its own and solidified its trajectory towards becoming the bestselling home console of all time. Jak and Daxter hit the PS2 back in 2001, a year that gave us so many incredible experiences. And for as indisputably successful as Uncharted and TLOU have been, thereвЂ™s a side of me that wishes the talented team would go back and take another stab at the world of Jak, Daxter, and the Precursors. But before they traveled the globe looking for treasure and spun tragic tales of revenge, Naughty Dog made a name for itself in the world of colorful 3D platformers: first with the Crash Bandicoot trilogy on the original PlayStation, and then with Jak and Daxter on PlayStation 2. Uncharted and The Last of Us are two of the defining franchises of the past couple console generations, and they helped cement Naughty Dog as one of the top-tier developers in our entire medium. Over the past decade, SonyвЂ™s premiere studio wrapped up its PlayStation 3 Uncharted trilogy with Uncharted 3: DrakeвЂ™s Deception, won countless awards with The Last of Us, delivered one of the best side stories ever in The Last of Us: Left Behind, brought Nathan Drake back in the gorgeous Uncharted 4: A ThiefвЂ™s End, and helped cap off the PlayStation 4 generation with The Last of Us Part II, which again won countless awards. YouвЂ™d be hard-pressed to find a video game developer whoвЂ™s had a better decade than Naughty Dog.

Jak and daxter