Oh, the early days of PSP. When everyone thought it would insta-bomb, and game developers were actually making games for it. This was far before the game drought we Sony handheld gamers find ourselves in now, and before industry heads realized that no one was buying their movies on UMD. Here we find Daxter, made by now famous PSP developers Ready at Dawn, known for their God of War games.
Daxter takes place in the last few months before Daxter actually rescues Jak from Baron Praxis' laboratory. For those who didn't play Jak II, it takes two years from Daxter's quick getaway (along with the line "I'll rescue you in no time!") to Jak's escape, for comedic effect and to explain how Jak had changed so much from game one to game two. Now, the original speculation was that Daxter was hard at work trying to figure out a way to get his bestest best buddy out of the slammer, and Praxis' facility was just so hard to sneak into that it took two whole years for Daxter to figure out a way in. In this game, however, it is shown to us that our main character this time around completely forgot about saving his friend and was content to spend the rest of his days just going to bars and telling tall tales. This makes him go from plucky comic relief to complete jerk-ass who just waits around for something to hapen to him. Hell, our in to playing the game is a guy Daxter ran into just after escaping. The beginning of this story would make much more sense if it took place a couple of weeks after Daxter's separation instead of over a year and a half. Anyway, Daxter finds a job as an exterminator killing all sorts of bugs, but especially the Metal Heads- I'm sorry, "larger bugs". There's no way around it though, these enemies are the Metal Heads from Jak II, just on a smaller scale to match Daxter's. They have the same pointy design and the same golden eggs in their skulls as the Metal Heads, but they can't call them Metal Heads, because that would make no sense in-universe. I mean, if the Metal Heads had been able to infest the entire city with these bugs, they would have taken over already. So why have the Metal Head orbs then? Why not make it something else? Like a pod from the thorax?
I'm getting picky though. The game is fun and lets you travel through a good portion of Haven City, and some outlying areas like an eco mine and the shipyard. Daxter is armed with an electric flyswatter (more powerful than it sounds) and a bug gasser that runs on green eco... at least it looks like green eco. It's some sort of fuel for the device on his back that can also be lit on fire to create a flame thrower and some how pressurized to form sonic blasts (again, I have no idea how it works, but it knocks back enemies just fine, so I'll just stop). But again, if you're going to use something that looks like something that has already been in the series, just make it that thing or make it look different. It's not that hard! And it doesn't confuse us fans any further than it has to. (Deep breaths here, it's going to be okay) The device can be used as a regular spray device or as a sort of jet-pack to propel Daxter through the air.
There's a set of minigames that start up after each day when Daxter goes to sleep based on various popular movies like The Matrix, Lord of the Rings and Braveheart. These add a little variety to the game, but quickly become boring and tedious to the point where you don't care if you get the gold trophy, you just want to get back to playing an actual game.
It's definitely a fun game (frustrating design choices aside), but has little replay value other than collecting all the Precursor Orbs around the game to unlock little secret movies.
6/10
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