Customer Reviews

Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I am a huge fan of the Jak and Daxter series, and have been waiting a LONG TIME for this new entry in the series. Imagine my disappointment when I pop it in my PS2 and do not see a Naughty Dog logo. "Oh dear god..." I said aloud.

What I experienced was basically a watered down version of the other games. The graphics are shiat, because its a PSP port. It would probably look better on the PSP. The controls are slow and clunky, not fluid like they should be. The camera control WILL KILL YOU. OFTEN. The mini-games strewn about for finding Precursor Orbs are tedious, boring, and just not that cool. Just imagine trying to play the original games, except half of your control doesn't work, and that's kinda like what playing this is like. Also you can only see out of one eye, and its your bad eye.

The good things about this game? Well, the story is new Jak material, so thats a plus... The air combat is pretty cool, as well as the skill-tree thats new to the series. Basically, you collect black eco from enemies and spend it upgrading your attacks. That part is actually pretty cool. Daxter now transforms with dark eco, which is pretty fun, but tends to last a bit too long.

All in all, again I wait for another entry to the series. My hopes are that Naughty Dog (the actual MAKERS OF THE SERIES) will be back again at full force to deliver a game on the PS3, something that will rival the great Uncharted series, and maybe finally put Jak and Daxter in the spotlight, so everyone will know how great a series it is.

Final Review: D

Disappointing and no where near the caliper of Jak 1, 2, or 3.
I had been waiting for this game for a long time and when I put it in, I could tell immediately this was not going to be good.
Graphics, gameplay, missions....just about everything is not up to the standards of the Jak series.
But, just my opinion.

I have been a fan of the Jak and Daxter series for as long as I can remember. It's one of the first games I played and no doubt one of my favorites, so I was so exited for this one. Especially because High Impact Games did a good job on Ratchet and Clank Size Matters. I did not get what I expected.
Right, so the story. All the eco in the universe is going away so Jak needs to stop it. It's actually not that bad, but not nearly as extremely EPIC as the other games. There are some twists. It may be confusing if you don't know the Jak universe. (I suggest you play games 1-3 and don't buy this)
The gameplay is split into 3 sections. First is running around with Jak and shooting things and platforming. It's alright. The weapons get WAY too weak later in the game. You can't have Dark Jak or light Jak, instead you have Blue, green, Red, and yellow eco powers. There are still a little fun, but not as awesome as the others.
Second is the Dark Daxter parts. in THEORY Dark Daxter seems awesome and I would be, but not how the did it. It consists of repetative mashing a button and boring puzzles. These parts are a chore.
Finally the flying. Personally I don't like driving in games, but I loved the driving bits in Jak 2 and 3. If you like flying, you'll probably like it. It's not that bad. BUT, if you don't like driving and/or aren't realy good at it prepare for all heck to break loose. I spent sooooo long trying to get past some of the latter driving. They are so annoying. Argh... even some other parts are annoying like this ape boss thing that is almost impossible!
You can upgrade your ship and powers. If you do end up getting this for some weird reason then upgrade alot. Even then it can still be annoying. Jak 2 was hard, but....
Over all this is not reccomended. Especially if you are a Jak fan or on PS2.

although this company wasn't naughty dog this time, its still turned out to be a good game. it is REAALLY underrated. the graphics are still pretty good and gameplay is awesome(heh dark daxter). overall, its a pretty good buy

This game makes me wonder what on earth the developers were thinking. And the testers! You should be ashamed of yourselves! How'd you let it get to game store shelves in this shape?!? Where's the Quality Assurance?!? Arghhh. Well, the game is not very good compared to the previous four Jak & Daxter titles, which I *adore* (hey, I even named my orange tabby cat Daxter!). But although I play the other four over and over, I didn't feel like playing this one more than once (which is a shame since I paid $30 for it. $10 or $15 would've been more like it.)
Here's the negative stuff:
- The graphics during gameplay are not up to the quality of the other J&D games. During the mini-games when you play as Daxter the graphics are just plain terrible.
- The camera control is rather poor, which made me nuts. It changes throughout the game, too, so at best it's ok, but sometimes you can hardly move it and that makes it very difficult when you're fighting enemies and also when jumping on platforms, etc. - you fall a lot more 'cuz you can't move the dumb camera properly!
- The weapons do not seem very powerful and as for the upgrades you buy for the planes, it's confusing to figure out what does what.
- There are a couple of missions where it's hard to figure out what to do, and one in particular (near the end when you're shooting some planes around a tower) Kiera gives you verbal & written directions on the screen that are just plain wrong! If you follow her directions you'll never beat that mission.
- Some of the gameplay areas seem copied from J&D 1...or Ratchet & Clank!
- Like Jak 2 & 3, this has a Hero Mode, but if you play it and buy armor you are stuck with that armor. I bought Jak the best armor and it was so distracting to see him running around in this fat red suit with black spikes I couldn't keep playing. There did not seem to be a way to change it.
- Another comment about the planes - when buying upgrades, I could not tell which plane I was buying upgrades for and so I generally used the same plane over and over. Jak X: Combat Racing made it very clear what you're buying for which car. Why wasn't the same thing done here?

Good stuff:
- The story line is very good and I like the new characters (nice pirate theme)
- The new worlds are pretty interesting (except the one you arrive at first, which seems ripped off from J&D: The Precursor Legacy...and was done much better then)
- The cutscenes are excellent quality - graphics, story and voice acting are all superb. Wish the rest of the graphics were this good.
- The variety of weapons and variety and type of upgrades is good (although I did not like that you had to buy one of each color eco before you could purchase from the next level)
- Incorporating flying instead of driving was interesting, although by the end of the game it was a tad much. I liked "Daxter-jacking" (Dax parachutes to an enemy plane and can break in and steal items) although even that got annoying after a while.

On the whole I'd say skip it and play the other Jak and Daxter games in the series - the *good* ones by Naughty Dog! But if you can get The Lost Frontier for cheap, go ahead.

what a shame is pretty much all I can say, what a shame that Jak and Daxter, once one of the greatest series of the last console generation have now befallen to the same fate that Naughty Dog's previous hit series Crash Bandicoot had

a good comparison for all the Crash games after Warped and now Jak and Daxter The Lost Frontier would be all of Steven Seagal's direct to video movies after his theatrical career hit the skids, but a more accurate description for Jak and Daxter The Lost Frontier would be Superman 4: The Quest For Peace, like the infamously awful 4th Superman movie, Jak and Daxter The Lost Frontier is the 4th game in the series (any spinoffs don't count), it's made by entirely different people and the budget has been reduced drastically, the graphics are absolutly awful, not even coming close to comparing to the graphics in the second game and that came out in 2003! heck I even prefer the graphics and in the first game and THAT was 2001! I know this is still PS2 hardware and it's technically a port of a PSP game, but there's still no excuse for it to look this bad

there's a laundry list of other issues other than the graphics of course, but I don't feel like going over every detail, instead I'll wrap this review up with the scant few things I liked, well I liked the premise of the game at least, the open ended flying sections are a natural progression from the urban, desert environments of the second and third games and I did have some fun flying around, but that's about it

Jak and Daxter deserve much, much better, I just can't understand why Naughty Dog can only do one series at a time, Insomniac managed to continue the Ratchet and Clank series well into the current generation while also developing the Resistance series of games, so what's Naughty Dog's excuse? are they too small to handle more than one game at a time? possibly, but at the same time I find it hard to believe that a development team with such a long history of success would still be so small that they couldn't develop more than one project at a time, come on....

Naughty Dog ought to be ashamed of letting such potential go to waste, while I love the Uncharted games, a PS3 Jak and Daxter would have been incredible

When this little abomination hit store shelves, I was excited. I had beaten all the previous games in the series and being a huge fan of it and Naughty Dog franchises, I was pumped. I had received this game as a gift and as I unwrapped it to place the disc in my PS2, I noticed the lack of the Naughty Dog logo.
At first, I thought nothing of it and tried to stay positive about the game I had been waiting a long time to play. Oh, oh, oh.....I have never been more wrong. Looking at the intriguing world designs of Jak 3 and even Jak X, this game's environments are very forgettable. But that's the least of my complaints with this. The controls are not fluid or even the same as the previous titles. The rolling jump, which was a key way I used to move around, was completely absent from gameplay. I can't tell you how many times I tried to jump a ledge only to run off the side of the cliff because that feature was taken away. And the camera was so hard to control. And when you did have control, a little, it'd still fight you all the way.
Storyline wise, Keira is trying to become a sage in her father's footsteps and what not when they come upon a city in the sky or something along those lines, I really could care less the entire game feels like a really bad fanfiction. The points are weak, what little points that were attempted. Mike Erwin not portraying Jak was heartbreaking, however it's understandable why he'd want nothing to do with this title after reading the script. The whole Dark Daxter aspect was basically the Tasmanian Devil and to be honest, really lame. Dark Daxter shouldn't even be able to exist if you look at the original Naughty Dog storyline and how Dark Eco really works. You can't just mutate a mutation just because you feel like he should have power for the sake of it.
I really hope that if Naughty Dog decides to make a proper continuation of the series, they'll gloss over this disaster and completely ignore the contents of it. It'd be best for the fans and the franchise. However, with Naughty Dog being busy with Uncharted and now The Last of Us, my hope for a true continuation is waning.

i am a huge fan of this series, played every game except Daxter cause i lake a psp, i was excited to get ahold of this game. and i was disappointed with it, very disappointed. if your new to the series or just looking for a time killer, go ahead and get it, if your an old fan, dont buy it. it does not live up to the other games. :/ i was so happy when i sold it. thats just my opinion. maybe other fans have different opinions.

This game was a complete waste of money. From beginning to end I was waiting for the game to get good, but it never did. I cant imagine the PSP version being any better. There isn't really anything positive to say about it.

I L-O-V-E Jak and Daxter. Looooooooove it. I had been anxiously waiting the next game in the series since I can't remember when. Earlier this year, I was browsing through new games to buy when I found TLF had come out in sept '10. What?! Why wasn't I told? Where were the commercials, the promoting, the advertising? It had been out all these months and I hadn't been playing it yet. SACRILEGE!!! Then I bought it. Let me say that in all honesty, it's not a bad game. But if you're a loyal follower of J&D, you're gonna be disappointed. The graphics are not on par with at least the first game. The shooting mode is not as smooth as before, and there are certain features missing (not the least being the roll jump. WTH?). I felt there was waahaaaaaaay to much aviation in this game, it's like half of the action. But one very interesting note is that the different color eco has made a comeback (it had mysteriously disappeared in Jak II). Just like in the first game, each color: blue, red, yellow, and green; does different things. So, while I'm not a fan of this particular game, I would give the new makers another shot if they were to try harder to give the fans of J&D the level of quality that they're used to, because this series is too awesome to die away so mediocrely.