Video game fun

It’s been quite a while since I’ve enjoyed a video game as much as Jak & Daxter. The secret’s out: I love platformers! Mario 64 enticed me to buy the N64 system, Rayman 2 ultimately made my decision to buy a Dreamcast a no brainer. If Jak & Daxter had been out for PS2 at launch, I would have picked up the system! I’ve certainly been enjoying my PS2 console a lot of late. Gran Turismo continues to see play time weekly in my system, as does Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. Althought it occasionally got tiresome, I eventually even completed Escape from Monkey Island. I rented Jak & Daxter on Saturday hoping for some of that magical platformer fun, and boy did Naughty Dog ever deliver! The game is just full of happy-happy fun goodness. A great story (as far as adventure stories go..), fun characters, beautiful level design, and a great sense of humor.

While I just about always “finish” adventure games, I rarely 100% them. Although I beat the final boss with 86 power cells to my name, I’m happy to say that I actually had a lot of fun going back to clean each level to obtain all 101 power-cells, and all 2000 precursor orbs. In fact, the urge to 100% the game was too great to resist, with the promise of a special ending waiting for me once I had finished the job. Getting all the power cells was far from tedious, and the game continued to amaze with such variance in quests for the power cells.. It’s what sets Jak & Daxter above anything else out there, and it’s why the title steals the “best platformer ever” title away from Rayman 2 in my books. This is what gaming is all about: Fun!