Tag Archives: jak 3

Game Series

Jak and Daxter: I Miss the Simple Days

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Screenshot by Flickr User: PlayStation.Blog
Screenshot by Flickr User: PlayStation.Blog

I didn’t already write a post about this, right? I don’t think I did….  Anyway, some time ago, I wrote a post comparing the “Jak and Daxter” and “Ratchet & Clank” series, and I thought it was high time I gave you guys a more in-depth look at the “Jak” series, one of my favorites, and yet, at the same time, one of the most disappointing.

Because, like so many other series, this one started out so very good, only to turn so very bad.  The first game, “Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy”, was very short and simple, but it still remains as one of my favorite games.  I don’t even know what it was that made it so great, but I just love it.  It involves Daxter falling into a pool of Dark Eco, which turns him into an orange half weasel, half otter creature called an ottsel, and Jak and Daxter set out on a quest to seek out the Dark Sage to try and get Daxter changed into a human again.  Simple concept, but the humor and the gameplay was just wonderful.  I thought this game had the funniest minor characters I have ever seen, and the game was just pure fun.  It really just involved a lot of collecting, but you got to explore cool locations and use different types of Eco that gave Jak different abilities.  And riding that zoomer was awesome. Continue reading Jak and Daxter: I Miss the Simple Days →

General Commentary

Great Games I Almost Missed

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Image by Flickr User: Cinder6
Image by Flickr User: Cinder6

Sometimes, I like to think about how things would be if I made different decisions.  Like, if I had never decided to buy the PlayStation 2, my first venture outside my previously Nintendo-only domain, what games would I be playing now?  What would my collection look like?  I’m sure we all have times where there is a great game we didn’t plan on getting, but we ended up playing it because of what a friend said about it or because it caught our attention in the store during a search for a completely different game.  And when this happens, I often think about how close I came to missing out on such a good game.  And maybe we all do that, or maybe it’s just me.  Because I think too much into things sometimes.

And when I get to thinking, I realize all manner of things.  If I didn’t just happen to spot “Okami” and “Vexx” and decide to give them a try, I would have missed out on some fantastic games.  And “Portal 2”, actually, was thanks to good things Cary and Hatm0nster said about it, or I would have never bought the game.  (Thanks, guys.)  Seriously, I saw it in the stores, and all I thought was, “That game sure has a weird cover”, and that was that.  Then, I heard people talk about this game, looked it up one day, and there it was, a game I had seen before and just simply passed by.  Small world.  Or just, small video game section of the store.  I dunno.  But, it’s weird.  Also, thanks to more good reviews on blogs I’ve read, I bought “Chrono Trigger” and “Chrono Cross”.  Never heard of those games before, but now I own them, and I really look forward to playing them. Continue reading Great Games I Almost Missed →

Uncategorized

Glitches Involving a Disappearing Act, With no Magicians Responsible

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Today’s addition to my little glitch series is a common one, when things just mysteriously vanish.  Mysteriously.

Sometimes, the world falls apart around you: This happens in “Spyro” games I played on the Cube.  For me, it was quite common in “Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly” for the ground to disappear in the second world, the farm level.  So I’m walking along, and then the ground is just suddenly gone, wheat and barns and scarecrows, not to mention little, purple dragon, floating in midair.  No harm is done, but it’s rather frightening to see oblivion right there below you.  And once Spyro was riding an elevator down from Cloudy Domain in “Spyro: A Hero’s Tail”, and the world decided to disappear from below him, leaving just an expanse of yellow.  Rather worried at the apparent coming of Armageddon taking place below me, I had no choice but to continue riding the elevator down.  It eventually arrived on the ground, and everything was now black, except for Spyro, the elevator, and a distant Moneybags’ shop.  Unsure of what to do, I attempted to glide towards that shop, my single beacon of hope in a world apparently come to an end.  Here, Spyro did not meet any invisible ground.  He fell to his doom.  And I reset the game and rode that elevator nevermore. Continue reading Glitches Involving a Disappearing Act, With no Magicians Responsible →

General Commentary

Games That Inspire Adult Tantrums

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Several posts ago, I wrote about how many video games seem to be getting easier now than in the past.  This made me think of games on the other side of the spectrum.  Not really difficult games, though, as you’d expect.  Difficult games can be good for those who like a challenge.  But, what I had in mind was games that were difficult in a bad way.  Some of us like a challenge, while others prefer games that are simpler and more relaxing.  But, I would have trouble believing anyone enjoys games that are just, well, ridiculous and unfair.  That make you toss your controller across the room and tug out all your silky locks.  And scream completely new profanities at the images on the scream that made you behave this way.  You know those kinds of games, don’t you?  Don’t feel ashamed if a game has reduced you to insanity one time or another.  It happens.  But, boy, do I despise those kinds of games.

“Donkey Kong Country Returns” is one game that automatically springs to mind.  While the old Super Nintendo “Donkey Kong Country” games could be pretty hard, they never inspired such absolute loathing as this game.  This game has moments of fun.  It looks beautiful.  But, I hate it.  I just hate it so much.  It is ridiculously hard sometimes.  You know that Super Guide I mentioned in an earlier post, that completes the level for you if it’s too hard?  While it’s silly to have a game that plays itself, I do understand why they added it.  Because some levels can’t be completed using the skills readily available to us carbon-based life forms.  But, I have a tip for you, game developers.  DON’T make the levels so hard that they can’t be completed using the skills readily available to us carbon-based life forms in the first place!  What a radical notion! Continue reading Games That Inspire Adult Tantrums →