Episode 109 - Just Comic, Not a Relief - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

I’ll say something really teary at the funeral, like “Welcome to
NOCLIP!” Welcome to the podcast! This week, we’re going to be
talking about Jak and Daxter, which has been on the list for quite
some time. Jak was one of the first of the 3D platformers that
defined the genre during the PS2 era, and like many of its
contemporaries, is one of the games that’s quick to come to mind
for a lot of people when talking about the console. Unlike games
like Ratchet and Clank or Sly Cooper, though, Jak is light on
gimmicks, predominately taking the style of game Naughty Dog
established in Crash Bandicoot and expanding it out to offer more
freedom and more character. The game’s fairly simple design, mostly
revolving around using 3D platforming to get collectables, is what
helps it hold up today. We’re going to be talking about world
design and the benefits presented by having all the levels exist in
a single contiguous map, the cartoony aspects of the game and its
characters, and we dissect the true purpose of the bolted shut mine
carts in the Volcanic Crater level. Thank you for joining us this
week! On occasion, we get to go back to our original list of games
we made for the podcast years and years ago and find something that
we finally think it’s time to cover, and this was one of those
games. Does it hold up? Yes and no, really. It holds up about as
well as you could expect given the decades since its original
release, but it still feels worth returning to if you haven’t
played it before. Do you agree? Let us know in the Discord or in
the comments. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Dragon
Age: Origins, but without Chad, so I’m sure that will entice all of
you to join us for that episode!