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Daxter Information Thread
[updated: 5/22/06]
We now are looking at Sony's new PSP platformer Daxter and so far, it is shaping up to be one hell of a game. Daxter's gameplay is based off of which the Jak trilogy sported and Ready at Dawn (the developer) is definitely the right company to make it. Ready at Dawn, formed by Naughty Dog and Blizzard Ent. employees, have decided upon Daxter as their project, to tell the story of how Daxter rescued Jak from a terrible fate. Daxter basically started right after Jak and Daxter ends and picks up where Daxter runs away from those Krimson Guards. We will soon find out how Daxter goes through in this new adventure and fans of the series are eagerly awaiting this brand new title. Thanks for reading the Daxter Information Thread which starts here. General Information:
Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Developed by: Ready at Dawn in conjunction with Naughty Dog
Genre: Platformer ; Action/Adventure
Number of players: 1-2 (Adhoc) Multiplayer Price: $39.99 Free Walkthrough by Light_Jak: http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rlid=126506&rid=11
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Release Dates: US: March 14th, 2006
EU: April 19th, 2006
Features: Compatibility with Jak X via PS2/PSP connectivity Requirements: Version 2.60
Media Size: 1 UMD
Platform: PSP Rating: (Descriptors: Animated Blood, Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor, Mild Language) Game Engine: Ready at Dawn Engine v. 1.0 Demo Release: January 31st Demo Walkthrough: http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/psp/game/927355.html
Boxarts:
Photo Section
Websites
Official site: www.ottsel.com Developer site: http://www.readyatdawn.com/ Reviews
Light_Jak's Final Daxter Review Daxter is one of those games that leave you saying "Wow." when you have finished the game. Literally, before giving you my initial opinion on the game, I was left with a smile on my face after playing the game and it really proved to be a "killer app" for the PSP. So far, I am only 80% in the game and haven't gotten all of the precursor orbs but I have beaten the story and finally have an opinion about Daxter. Enjoy. Daxter is definitely top notch when going over gameplay. Daxter is basically set around the time between Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Jak II, the story depicts Daxter trying to save Jak and helping many others during the process. The mission system is back and better than ever in Daxter and many of you who have played Jak II and Jak 3 will be familiarized with this concept. Similar to previous games in the series, you collect various types of weapons during these missions and the more challenging the game gets, you are always set up with the appropriate weapon to help you defeat a certain task. I felt Daxter was challenging at times similar to Jak II and it got me frustrated at some points since it would be hard to get past a certain point or I would die multiple times because of one thing but it all played out well in the end. The controls are top notch as well and play out well. The camera controls with the L and R buttons but before you guys get any ideas, it is a great way to control the camera. You will get used to it after a while but ultimately I wish there was a second analog stick to operate a camera. Have to be thankful that they have included one as well, eh? Anyway, moving Daxter with the Analog stick may seem sensitive, it is appropriate for this type of game and you will come to enjoy it in time. In the dream sequences, it is easy to control although in some games, they don't give you the proper direction needed so you may have to play the dream a few times to get the overall gist of it. Weapons in Daxter consist of a Bug Spray device which will be upgraded with different attachments (such as the Hover technique you can use in the game) and your trusty fly swatter which will get the job done for you, no matter the type of bug. Special moves could be unlocked by initiating Dream Sequences where Daxter will dream about an adventure involving a movie-related plot. Mainly these sequences involved Lord of the Rings and The Matrix and the best part about it was that you would unlock something at the end of each dream. Vehicles in this game are a plenty for sure and they control fantasticly. Although in a level that is vehicle-exclusive, there are limitations for exploration in the level since some heights are unreachable. I also found it difficult to gather Precursor Orbs in a vehicle-exclusive level but there are only a couple levels like that so I am not one to gripe much about that fact. Bug Combat is a fun and great addition to the game. It basically plays out where you select an attack and you compare attacks with the enemy and one gets hurt more. I haven't had the chance to play Multiplayer but I am sure the CPU battles are enough to give me a generalization of the Combat feature. You can collect certain things during the adventure in Daxter such as Masks and other extras. Cheats can be unlocked by collecting Precursor Orbs and you will want to collect all of them to get 100% in the adventure. You can also connect to Jak X: Combat Racing (PlayStation 2) and unlock extras in both games, even more if you have 100% in Daxter and Jak X both. Finally, after you have finished the game, you may replay a level or a movie by selecting it in the "Secrets" menu. Daxter features the absolute best graphics on a handheld, let alone PSP. Personally, there is no game like this on PSP after playing so many games and reviewing so many. Ready at Dawn has proven that a PS2 looking game like Daxter can be done on the PSP and other developers should stop making excuses for producing a badly done job on graphics and they should try to make it look like a PS2 title. Seriously, playing Daxter for hours on end, can get you confused to whether you were playing PS2 or not. That is mainly the effect on what the graphics in Daxter gave me. Daxter features many graphical cutscenes that do justice to the PS2 series and the game is littered with very colorful environments. Character Models are top notch, even in-game, such as the Krimson Guard which are huge and intimidating when you catch sight of one. Daxter definitely has the upperhand in graphics and I really enjoyed viewing the detailed models and so much color, it is a beautiful sight. The musical score in Daxter is worth listening to rather than leaving the music off. The score is exquisite and definitely details the levels through the music which is surprising for me to say since I don't usually see this much. The composer of the score surely acknowledged the game's lighter feel side and incorporated that into the music. Sound effects aren't bad either and really give a feel to the game. The best part of the sound in this game, is that the environment matches the music always in the game and they did a good job giving the background a sound to make it stand out more. Whether the music plays or not, Daxter is the best game on PSP to date. If you want examples of the musical score and haven't played the game, feel free to resort to the GameSpot Daxter Download page: http://www.gamespot.com/psp/action/daxter/downloads.htmlDaxter is one of the finest games I have seen both on a handheld or a console. I heavily suggest that you play the trilogy first then start on Daxter because Daxter gives away a few spoilers to determine a few things in Jak II. The story in Daxter does its justice and you will see that it weaves in perfectly between Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Jak II. In a way, Daxter fills in that missing piece of the puzzle perfectly and everything in Daxter is spot on. Despite a few technical difficulties such as my game freezing once because of too many items on the screen at once, Daxter is the best game I have played in a while. That is saying a lot since I tend to judge games pretty harshly, I would say. Now, go get Daxter and play it for yourself! Get a PSP if you don't have one since it is worth getting one just to play this game. Overall Rating: 10/10 (Near Perfect) IGN Review - Score: 9.0 March 9, 2006 - Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and Sucker Punch have become a triple-threat for Sony after having created a trio of trilogies for the PS2. Naughty Dog's Jak and Daxter first set the bar for great platform gaming on the system and very few releases have topped it, with almost all of the series' competition coming from sister companies Insomniac and Sucker Punch. While the Jak series has thrived on its excellent design, humor also plays a large part of its success, most of it coming from Jak's sidekick Daxter. The little orange Ottsel has thus far only lent a helping hand to his buddy, but now the little guy gets a starring role in his own game on the PSP, the aptly and simply-named Daxter.
One thing about Daxter that I welcome with open arms is its strong adherence to old-school platform gaming. While Sony's own Jak, Ratchet and Sly franchises have inched more and more toward straight-up action games with each release, Daxter's gameplay is almost wholly based on platforming. Sure, there's quite a bit of fighting, but it plays a second, drowned-out fiddle compared to the game's platforming aspects. It's not just the simple return to skillful jumps and level navigation that makes the game so damn good and refreshing, though -- it's the overall design of almost every aspect of Daxter that puts it a tier above most everything else on the system. This is an extremely polished game through and through. Like its granddaddy Jak series, the game features extremely refined controls. It's an absolute pleasure moving Daxter around the world, as everything from the refined acceleration and deceleration when stopping and going again to in-air movement, input response and essentially the entire control mechanism has been fine-tuned to no end. Daxter's movement ties directly into his animation set, and this too is rather phenomenal. Every facet of his being moves in some way during every action; from his ears flopping a bit while he runs to his tail wagging to and fro as he scurries about, Daxter's animation set is on-par with his own on the PlayStation 2, which is to say it's some of the best in the industry. The first time you climb a wall and notice the almost lizard-esque subtleties in his body movement, you'll be sold. Speaking of climbing walls, key to Daxter's gameplay is its level design, and developer Ready at Dawn has created great set pieces to test the little guy's abilities. The level layout really is paramount to any platformer's success and Daxter features areas that not only work great from a gameplay perspective, but they make sense in the scope of the world as well. While things start out rather simple with gaps you need to jump over, or a series of ledges you need to navigate to progress, things get more complicated (and better) as the game goes on. For example, during one section you need to heat up springs that hold platforms in order to rotate them into position, and then hop onto and off of them before the spring recoils to move on. In a fish factory, you'll need to both create and melt large blocks of ice in order to create platforms, making for a bit of puzzle-solving. One of my favorite areas of the game is a train station sequence where you need to hop from train to train as they speed along, dodging obstacles while picking up Precursor Orbs as you go. It's cool from a gameplay perspective but it's also a visually exciting scene as well. There are a few, albeit rare, sections of the game where your route is hidden from view, maybe unintentionally so, especially early on before you know what you're looking for. Quite a few areas in the game are connected via air ducts that you need to crawl through, and some of these are situated in areas that are rather hard to spot, like at the top of clothes cabinets and such. I found that it was harder to spot some of these at the beginning of the game than the end, maybe because I'd learned to search for them if I didn't see an obvious way out of an area, but more likely because some of the early placement is a little awkward. Aside from his skillful jumping and climbing abilities, Daxter's most important asset in the game is the bug spray canister he acquires near the start of the game. Aside from stunning enemies, Daxter's light weight allows him to use it as a propulsion device to reach new heights and float over large gaps. A flamethrower attachment later on turns this into a more deadly device and one with a little more kick for flying, but its original form is equally useful throughout the course of the game. There are plenty of sections where very large gaps separate you and your destination, farther than a single boost could carry you, but picking up green blobs of bug spray refiller mid-air will keep you afloat for longer. The catch here is that you'll find Precursor Orbs along the way, so you'll risk gravity's wrath if you stray to nab them. One thing that's a slight bit disappointing, at least for the experienced gamers out there, is that Daxter is a little on the easy side for a fair bit of its length. Up until about halfway through the game, I was cruising through areas will little to no problem. Things pick up mid-way and you'll find some challenging moments here and there, but it's nothing that anyone who's been gaming for a while will have any problem passing. That's not to say that it's not fun 100% of the way through, as it is, but the game does feel as if its challenge was toned down a bit to cater to a wider audience. One thing that makes the game fairly easy is its checkpoint system. You don't have a finite number of lives so you can try a task over and over again until you pass, and the checkpoints in the game are so close together that you'll really only need to cross a small section before you've hit another. But, there's a very bright side to this as the close checkpoints allow you to pick up again from anywhere in the game thanks to the ability to save at any time. There are autosave areas just to make sure you're set, but you have the ability to manually save, restart the game and then pick up again a very short distance from where you left off. This is incredibly nice considering that we're talking about portable gaming here. Being able to save anywhere is also important because there aren't really individualized "levels" in the game per se, as the entire world is connected and streams as you roam about. Indeed, Daxter is essentially load time-free once you're in the game. Loading areas are sectioned off by doors, so sometimes you'll have to wait a few seconds for a door to open, but a series of moving cranks and gears helps fake the fact that the door is simply in the process of opening rather than that you're waiting for the UMD to spin a few more times. Great stuff here, no question. Daxter's use of streaming is hardly its most impressive technological aspect, however. This is one tremendously great looking game, and its audio is certainly no slouch either. From a distance and on the PSP's little display, the game mimics the look and feel of its console brethren extraordinarily well. Granted, there aren't passersby roaming about the streets like on the console, nor are there nearly as many vehicles chugging along through the air, but the environments themselves look fantastic. Rolling out into one of the outdoor missions, you'll find foliage effects for grass, very detailed trees, running water and more, all drawn well off into the distance. Daxter himself looks pretty damn good for what's capable on the PSP, and I've already talked about the animation quality so you know that's top notch. There are occasional moments of slowdown, but these usually only occur when you're progressing through the city as things load and you're only moving from point-to-point, so it never actually hinders any of the action at all. Really, Daxter is just a great looking title and one of the prettiest on the system so far. And as mentioned, its audio is stellar as well. Sound effects are great for everything from footsteps to the sound of Daxter's electronic fly swatter pounding on robotic bugs. Bass is aplenty and will test your headphones' ability to reach deep into the tactile area of the low-end. The best aspect of the game's audio however is its soundtrack, which is stellar. Matching the feel of the scores from previous games in the Jak series while putting a slight comedic spin on things, Daxter's soundtrack is just cool. It fits perfectly into the game's metallic world while keeping most of the instrumentation to the analog variety and out of sampled synthesizers. Awesome stuff. Though the Jak series has always had a fairly strong and involving storyline, Daxter has intentionally taken a different approach to things and its story comes off rather underwhelming. After boasting (read: lying) at the local bar about his heroic exploits, Daxter is convinced to squash a few bugs after promise of compensation. This starts him off on his adventures as an exterminator, and that's about as deep as the story gets for most of the game. You're simply sent out time and time again to get rid of a bunch of bugs, and that's it. Now, there are bigger things behind all of this, and the game does stray a bit to culminate in Daxter's rescue of Jak that you see at the beginning of Jak II, but most of the game is simply a series of bland tasks set ahead of you. Doing the job of smashing bugs is great fun, but the bulk of the story really isn't all that compelling.
Though the game is certainly very linear, there are a few asides that mix things up a bit, like Daxter's various dream sequence mini-games. By collecting Precursor Orbs throughout the game, you'll unlock dreams that Daxter can "partake" in by sleeping. Each of these mock some pop culture film, from the Matrix to Indiana Jones to Lord of the Rings, and they're worth a chuckle or two. They all essentially work in the same fashion where you time marked button presses to get rid of incoming enemies, and they sort of wear thin after a while, but you do earn unlockables for beating each one, like an extended health bar or new fighting moves. So, they're cool in short bursts and it's nice that you earn stuff by completing them, but I doubt you'll be trying to top your best scores for very long. Another diversion is the multiplayer-capable Bug Combat. Throughout the game you'll find hidden bugs for use in Bug Combat, as well as potions and enhancements that you can use on them to boost their attributes. The game works something along the lines of paper-rock-scissors meets Pokemon as you're able to essentially breed a stable of beasts and then use one of three combat types to take down your opponent. It's a reasonably interesting mini-game as the three attacks work in a cyclical fashion (claw beats fire, fire beats shield, shield beats claw), plus you have the ability to change your attack choice at the last second, allowing you to overtake your opponent. You can play this either against the computer or with a friend via Ad Hoc, where both players can bring in the bugs they've earned and upgraded throughout the game. Closing Comments
Daxter is simply an outstanding PSP game that brings back the old-school platform gaming the industry has been shying more and more away from. Sure, its story is kind of ridiculous and even a little boring, but the events that said story lead into are fantastic. From the great level design to the ultra-refined controls to the excellent production values, Daxter is a game every PSP gamer should check out. GameSpot's Daxter Review
Daxter may be the fifth game in Sony's flagship Jak and Daxter franchise, but it's still responsible for many firsts. It's the first game in the series that doesn't star Jak, the once-mute-turned-brooding protagonist. It's the first game in the series to appear on a system other than the PlayStation 2. And it's the first time the PSP has ever looked so good. Simply put, fans of Jak and Daxter who were disappointed that the latest console release, Jak X: Combat Racing, strayed from the franchise's formula need not be disappointed any longer. Daxter is every bit as entertaining as its PS2 counterparts, looks absolutely stunning, and manages to pack the full console experience into a handheld without being dumbed down in the slightest. Frankly, the bar for PSP games, in terms of graphics and gameplay, has just been raised. Though Daxter is a little formulaic, especially for those familiar with previous Jak games, the formula works, and it works surprisingly well on the PSP.
Taking place directly before Jak II, Daxter follows the story of the so-named hero during the years that his buddy Jak was imprisoned, learning how to be an angst machine. Fortunately for you, it appears Daxter had plenty to do during that time: getting to star in an adventure all on his own to save Haven City from nefarious and dastardly...bugs. Yup, bugs. And to nail the point home, Daxter's primary weapon is a fierce...electric...flyswatter. From the game's entire premise to some of the more minute details, you'll experience a lot of the series' typical brand of irreverent humor, maybe even more so in this game because Daxter has always been the driving force behind it, and now you don't have to worry about sullen Jak bringing the mood down. It's in this way that the game is particularly endearing--not because it's unique or innovative, but because of how cohesively and effectively it takes an existing franchise and gives it a new spin. If you've played either Jak II or Jak 3, you'll feel quite at home with Daxter, because the layout of Haven City and the mission-based structure of the gameplay are identical to those of the previous games. When the adventure begins, Daxter is...well, he's telling tall tales in a bar again, but shortly thereafter he begins employment at the Critter-Ridder Extermination Company. Since it's the only remaining exterminator shop that Haven City has left, and since there's suddenly a real infestation crisis (two problems which are not unrelated), Daxter has his hands full trying to pull his weight and prove his worth to the Critter-Ridder shop manager, Osmo. In each level, you have several objectives to complete. There's the main objective that has been laid out for you, which might consist of killing enemies, destroying insect hives, or collecting objects. As you're playing through, you can also choose to do two optional secondary objectives, which are reminiscent of Jak games of old, collecting Metal Bug gems and precursor orbs. Though the mission is generally straightforward, completing the secondary objectives can sometimes prove to be a real challenge. Fortunately, you only need to clear the main objective to progress the story, so you can always return to collect all the items later. Playing cleanup is also easier later, since you'll often have better weapons and moves to get through the level more quickly. In fact, the way this works is done extraordinarily well, giving you quite an incentive to play through again to hunt for all the items. The two tools at Daxter's disposal are his previously mentioned (very fierce) flyswatter, and an insecticide sprayer that gets some righteous upgrades in the later levels, to become a flamethrower and then a sonic blaster of sorts. Daxter is also able to do some light platforming, including double-jumping and scaling climbable-looking surfaces. The dynamic that is most interesting, however, is that his sprayer also serves as a propulsion device, allowing Daxter to hover or boost up in the air, giving him more distance and height than merely jumping would allow. Although this is mighty reminiscent of the water pump from Super Mario Sunshine, the mechanic works extremely well, if not better, in Daxter. You'll spend most of the game switching between the sprayer as a weapon and the sprayer as a platforming device, and it all works quite effortlessly. Most of the gameplay has you proceeding from one area to the next, fighting, and maneuvering around various enemies and obstacles, and fighting large bosses, but there are some alternate gameplay elements along the way. One is the zoomer, which Daxter uses in a couple of different missions to chase down enemies or objectives that would be out of reach if he were simply on foot. There are a few other great mechanics, like the level that requires you to jump across the tops of moving trains, or the level that is practically taken out of Metal Gear Solid. Though none of these mechanics are particularly original, they're varied enough to keep you on your toes for the duration of the game. Also, as you collect precursor orbs, you'll be able to unlock dream sequence minigames. Each dream sequence borrows heavily from well-known movies, a couple more than once, like The Matrix, Indiana Jones (why did it have to be snakes?) and The Lord of the Rings. Though all of the game's minigames consist of virtually identical gameplay, tasking you to properly time hitting the PSP's directional pad and face buttons, they're a nice break from the run-and-gun gameplay, and they offer you the ability to unlock additional moves, like an uppercut, or to increase Daxter's health meter. One of the immediately obvious things about Daxter is the game's stellar presentation. The graphics are simply beautiful. The animation quality both inside and outside of the cutscenes is as rich as it ever has been before. And you'll wander through several different gorgeous environments, even if most of the game's later levels are repeats of the earlier ones. The game also manages to run pretty large environments with minimal loading times and almost no loss of frame rate whatsoever. Whatever formula was used to get Daxter working so efficiently on the PSP should be used as the model for PSP games from here on out. If a game like Lumines is the equivalent of peeking through the keyhole of the PSP's graphic capabilities, Daxter kicks the door in. The sound is equally impressive, not missing a beat (literally) when it comes to detail. When you jump on the scooter, you'll hear the engine rev up until it reaches a nice steady gurgle. Every aspect of both the sound and music is fine-tuned, so you'll notice how effective the combination of buzzers, moving doors, and music presents something even as simple as the ambiance in an elevator. The voice acting is also outstanding, and Daxter is once again voiced by Newsies-star Max Casella, who nails Daxter's humor and awkwardness perfectly. The game's most noticeable flaw is that it might take awhile to get used to the control and camera. 3D platformers are notoriously tricky when it comes to both these elements, especially on handheld systems. Both the camera and the control scheme are implemented about as well as can be expected (but not flawlessly) so it might take you a little while to get accustomed to moving around. And though the game is quite linear, sending you directly from one mission to the next, some of the levels are so open that you might backtrack a little more than you'd like. In some respects, this gives the game depth, but in others, you might find the repetition tiresome. For the most part, though, the game is both easy to follow and open-ended, making the gameplay fairly long without being tedious. The single-player is rich enough to make the game worthwhile, but there is also a multiplayer mode, bug combat, that makes for a nice diversion. Essentially, as you play through the game, you'll find additional hidden pickups for use in multiplayer. These pickups are caged bugs, spells that you can assign to them, and boosts that will bump up their stats for the fights. After you've collected the items, you can exit out and play the bug combat mode, which is a turn-based version of rock-paper-scissors in which you can fight either the computer or a multiplayer opponent. Aside from collecting the items to make your bug as powerful as possible, there's little purpose to the bug combat. Still, it's a nice addition to an already solid game. There are also a few extra unlockables that you'll get from perfecting the game and/or hooking your PSP up to a copy of Jak X: Combat Racing. The most elusive pickups are a bunch of masks that Daxter can wear. They're pretty difficult to find, but you'll probably bump into the Jak mask just in time to rescue him from prison. The addition of all these extras, cheats, and little goodies gives Daxter a richness that many other games in the genre lack. Daxter follows the Jak formula closely, but in the absence of a Jak game in the end of last year, Daxter plugs the hole almost perfectly, by offering console-rich action-platforming gameplay that is almost better because it's on the PSP. Setting new standards for what the PSP is capable of, especially when it comes to graphics, Daxter is going to be enjoyable for almost anyone, even people who might not normally be interested in the gameplay. If you're a PSP owner, platformer enthusiast or not, you simply can't go wrong with Daxter. Articles Dev Diary 1 by Didier Malenfont It seems like only yesterday I was finishing my work on Jak II at Naughty Dog and looking for offices for what became Ready At Dawn Studios. Time flies when you're having fun, as they say, and I guess we've had a lot of fun because I don't quite know where the last couple of years have gone.
Daxter has been a great challenge in many ways -- new platform, new team and still all the pressures of living up to the Jak and Daxter series. I think the fact that I was a part of the first two games of the series only added to that pressure since I knew better than anyone here how high the stakes were. Looking at the game as we're about to wrap it up, I can say that I never thought we'd rise up to the challenge so well. We like to call Daxter the first portable PS2 game and let me tell you, it's not just talk. The game looks absolutely stunning, even better than some home console games, and plays exactly like a full-blown 3D platformer. We kept chuckling hearing some developers complain about how they had to change this or make compromises on that to make their games on the PSP, but this was not the case for Daxter. This is the real thing in every way.
Last week we finished our first demo of the game. It contains our intro movie and two playable levels. Choosing which levels to give away as a demo is always a challenge. You want people to be able to experience a little snippet of your game, but be able to imagine what the whole thing looks and plays like. In the end we settled on the brewery level and one of our dream levels. The plot in the game features Daxter working as a pest exterminator to help fight an invasion of metal-bugs, smaller version of Jak II's metal-heads, and explore the city to find a way to free his buddy Jak. The brewery is one of the local places in Haven City that Daxter gets to explore in our game and try to rid it of all those nasty bugs. It's a great level because it uses a lot of mechanics from the game and contains some great platform challenges.
The dream level was also an obvious choice for us. Those levels were kept under wraps, even at E3 when we showed the game for the first time, and now is the time for everyone to see what they are all about. To be honest, a lot of people think this is one of the coolest parts of the game and I would tend to agree. They're a lot of fun. If you want to know, the dream levels were initially a second design that we had for the Daxter game. It was so cool that we decided to include it somehow in this game, and that's how the dream levels came to be.
We've also finished a preview disc for the press to get their hands on. It will let them play the first seven levels of the game and will provide a good look at what we've got in store for them. Making all those 'special' discs are always a blessing and a curse for game developers. On one hand, you get to generate a lot of excitement for your game by letting people play it for themselves, you also get to find a lot of issues and problems with the game that you might not have known before. On the other hand, they usually take a lot of time to polish and get right, just when you have practically no time to spend on anything else but finishing the game. It's tough, but it's motivating to know that people are finally going to get to play the game and see what we've been up to.
We're one week away from alpha and just a few weeks away from the game going off to the stores. Just like the last two years, I'm sure the time will fly by like mad, but I also know that we'll have one of the most impressive games I've ever had the chance to work on.Source: http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-portable/ready-at-dawn-project
/678029p1.html Dev Diary #2 by Jon Jones Daxter PSP is so close I can taste it!
The last few weeks have been incredible. I've gotten to see the game literally come together before my eyes, and the fruits of our labor are almost ripe. I still can't believe what a fun game we have on our hands. And one you'll soon have in yours.
Here at Ready At Dawn, I'm what's called a Foreground Artist. I never knew quite what that meant. Near as I can tell, if it's in the game and it moves, I might have had something to do with it. Beautiful women, fast zoomers, deadly weapons, treacherously twirling platforms, spinning traps of doom, more beautiful women... I work on a bit of everything. Especially, you may have guessed, beautiful women.
Right now I'm working on a scene that calls for an entire room to collapse under Daxter's feet. Walls, floor, ceiling and all. Due to the limitations of the automatic physics simulations that would make my life easier by calculating which objects smack into each other and where to bounce if they do, I had to hand-animate the whole thing. All 150 objects. Whee! All part of the fun.
Better yet, I found out it needs to be done yesterday so we can plug in the sounds. Juicy sounds to make you feel you're really inside an enormous room collapsing all around you when, in fact, you're merely holding a very sexy little piece of hardware in the palm of your hand. This game's sound and music are amazing... play with headphones!
The best part of Daxter PSP, though, is how HUGE and varied the game is. It really is set in the Jak universe in terms of pure fun, variety and scale. Spiritually it's closest to Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy in its pure, ridiculously fun platforming excitement. I've genuinely never been this stoked about something I've worked on.
You wouldn't believe how much of the game we've been hiding! You've only seen a small fraction of the levels that are shipping with the game. Each one is dramatically different from the last, taking Daxter through different places like a giant rusty oil tanker, a five-star hotel bedecked with luxuries, a heavily infested strip mine, an enormous palace full of deadly traps, a lumber mill full of deadly machinery, and a heavily guarded prison. And that's just a sampling of what's in store…
Overall, we have a surprisingly lengthy game here for a handheld. I'm a gamer just like the rest of you, and this is one of the funnest and best-looking games I've ever seen. You will definitely get your money's worth here. You'll forget you're playing a handheld. I've been looking at it for a year and a half and I still do!
Just wait until you guys get to see bug combat, the wireless multiplayer game woven into the main storyline. We just started talking about it, and you'll read about it soon, but it's a whole new game all with its own custom gameplay and gobs of new art. Just you wait… it really is amazing, and we can't wait for you guys to pit your bugs against your friends!
Keep an eye on store shelves for Daxter
Source: http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-portable/ready-at-dawn-project
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Eurogamer Interview with Didier Malenfont Eurogamer: Tell us a little about Ready At Dawn. Who set the company up, and what did you do beforehand? Didier Malenfant: Ready At Dawn was founded by Ru Weerasuriya, Andrea Pessino and myself. Our three initials is how the company name came about because we couldn't think of any names that we liked at the time. Both Ru and Andrea worked at Blizzard, most recently on Warcraft III, I worked at Naughty Dog finishing Jak II. All three of us were good friends, but funnily enough we never worked together before. But the idea of the company kind of grew out of our common passion for console games and wanting to push the envelope like our previous employers have been known to. Eurogamer: How did the Daxter project come about? Didier Malenfant: As soon as the PSP was announced, I started talking to Naughty Dog and then Sony about doing a Jak & Daxter game on it. But what I pitched them was, rather than a port of one of the existing games, to take the franchise into a whole new direction and give centre stage to, in my opinion, the best character in the series: Daxter. The project just snowballed from there as everyone, from Sony to Naughty Dog to the people we hired at Ready At Dawn was so enthusiastic about the ideas we were coming up with. Eurogamer: How much involvement does Naughty Dog have with the project, and what form does that involvement take? Didier Malenfant: They are very involved. These guys are obviously very close friends of mine so this was the perfect collaboration from day one. It means we can have access to any asset we want from the previous game, but most importantly it means they keep a very close eye on how the game is evolving. They don't feel like they have to hold back if there is something in there they don't like or they don't think is up to the standard of the series. You could say they're our biggest fans and at the same time our biggest critics. Eurogamer: Who's writing the script for the game, and can we expect cameos from any popular J&D characters? (Basically, is Pecker in the game? Because we love Pecker.) Didier Malenfant: We've been very lucky to have Dan Arey, Naughty Dog's Creative Director, offer to write the script for our cut-scenes himself. This guarantees that fans of the series will find the same style, humour and witty-ness they've been used to in the past. The point in time at which the game takes places was a big headache for us as far as re-using characters. The problem being that most characters from Jak & Daxter are not in Haven City, and Daxter hasn't met characters from Jak II yet. We've come up with a couple of ways of solving that so expect some cameos, at the same time this lets us introduce cool new characters that you don't find in the Jak games. We tried to think of a way to integrate Pecker (we love Pecker too!) but don't expect to see him in this game, unfortunately. Eurogamer: Given that you're dealing with the two years that Jak spent incarcerated, was it difficult to fit your story in to the Jak & Daxter trilogy? Didier Malenfant: The setting for the story was put together by Ru, Andrea and myself when we were first pitching the project. It was the perfect time to place our game, with Daxter left on his own. The first thing we decided was that, being Daxter, he would probably wander around for a bit, maybe going from bar to bar or something. Then he would have to start finding a job because you can only survive for so long with no stable source of income. So we coupled that with the gameplay mechanics we wanted for the game and came up with the pest exterminator concept. This fit very nicely with the fact that the Metalheads were, at that point, scouting the city in search of the Heart of Mar. So that's how our Metalbugs came to be. It all kind of came together really easily. Eurogamer: The cut-scenes are very impressive, particularly the fur effect. Is it true there will be 20 minutes of cut-scenes in the final game? How long does it take you to make one of those? Didier Malenfant: We've heard so much about the fur at E3, people were blown away by the effect and didn't believe it was done in real-time. I even heard that Daxter might end up getting fur in Jak-X... who knows? As far as the cut-scenes, we're probably going to be close to 20 minutes by the time the game ships. Cut-scenes are very time-consuming because they require a lot of modelling and animating time, plus we need to schedule the voice recordings and make sure we have all the actors lines in time to start animating a new scene. Ru, our art director, was directly involved with all the cinematics for the games he worked on at Blizzard so we've got a lot of experience there. Eurogamer: Are you surprised by the lack of platform game competition on the PSP given the amount of PS2 platformers? Didier Malenfant: I can't say I'm that surprised. 3D platform games are hard to do and even harder to do well. I think a lot of people got a bit worried about trying to do a full blown 3D platform game on a handheld and pulling it off visually, as well as technically. That's one of the thing I'm the most proud about our team here and what we've achieved with Daxter. This is the first time you'll be able to hold a true 3D platformer in the palm of your hand, no compromise were made on the graphics or the camera system. In fact, most people think it's a PS2 game when they see the game. Eurogamer: Have you had any particular problems bringing Daxter to the PSP? Didier Malenfant: The biggest challenge initially was of course the technology. We spent a lot of time making sure our engine would be able to push all the polygons we wanted to display on the screen. I can tell you there are a lot of times I wished we would have just done a puzzle game instead! Eurogamer: Obviously the last couple of Jak games have introduced more weapons and vehicles. Will you be taking a similar approach, or sticking to the spray-pack and Dax's various hand (or tail) to hand combat moves? Didier Malenfant: Daxter will feature some vehicle sections where Daxter goes crop-dusting locations outside of Haven City. We also plan on upgrading his spray gun throughout the game giving players a more powerful weapon to go after the Metalbugs. And of course, Daxter being Daxter, it's not always about hard work and bug fighting. He will also be sometimes allowed to fall asleep on the job, which will allow players to find out what Daxter dreams about in special mini-games. Eurogamer: Tell us a little about the combat system. It looks slightly more complex than a simple button-masher. Didier Malenfant: The combat system allows you to link enemy-hits into combos, with Daxter pulling more and more acrobatic moves as the combo progresses. The finishing move, if you keep the combo going long enough, is a very satisfying downward 'splat' on the last bug, complete with loads of Metalbug-goo and such. It's a lot of fun to pull off. Eurogamer: Mario Sunshine seems like an obvious influence for some of the level design, and Jak obviously. What else would you say influenced you? Didier Malenfant: Actually, what influenced the gameplay mechanics early on was games like Luigi's Mansion, rather than Mario Sunshine. We wanted very simple mechanics that you kept throughout the game and that we could expand on via upgrades. I've always been a big fan of simple, tight mechanics with a small move set, rather than provide the players with dozens of moves or weapons that, for the most part, never ever get used. Eurogamer: What would you say Daxter does that no other platform game does? Didier Malenfant: Daxter has this 'Ottsel mode' which allows him to creep up on enemies and take them by surprise, but also climb up walls or wall-jump. Daxter, being an animal, is a lot more agile than regular platform character. This makes for super fast gameplay and very cool looking moves. Just take a look at Daxter crawling on the ground or climbing up a wall, it's the first time we've ever seen this done properly as a quadruped and not just as a biped character with special animations. What I mean by that is that Daxter moves and turns around properly on four legs, it's not just a hack. And visually, it's pretty stunning. Eurogamer: What sort of multiplayer options are you planning? Didier Malenfant: There will be an ad-hoc multiplayer mode in Daxter. We're not quite ready to talk about which part of the game it will affect though. Eurogamer: Will you be working in any PS2 or perhaps even PS3 connectivity? Didier Malenfant: We are the first game to include PSP-PS2 connectivity by allowing players of Jak X on PS2 to connect their friend's PSP with Daxter and unlock things in both games. Given the close relationship we have with Naughty Dog, it was a great opportunity for us to give those extras to gamers and fans of the franchise. For example, you'll be able to unlock new drivers in Jak X who are in fact characters found in Daxter. It's going to be a lot of fun. Eurogamer: The PS2 titles had a system of letting you unlock various cheats by collecting eggs. You've got the eggs in there, hidden away, so what sort of things will players be able to unlock? Didier Malenfant: Yes, Precursor orbs are back in Daxter. We basically have two main things for players to collect - the orbs are used to unlock items, and the skull gems you collect when defeating enemies can be used as a currency in the game. I don't think we want to give away all the unlockable things in details, but I can tell you it will basically be a collection of mini-quests in the levels and secret items/features in the game. Eurogamer: The game's E3 demo said it was 30 per cent complete. When do you anticipate launching the game? Any chance it'll be ready for the European PSP launch on September 1st? Didier Malenfant: The game is coming out in spring 2006. Eurogamer: How representative was the E3 demo of the way the game will play and feel? Didier Malenfant: Our core move set is locked down so I guess you could say it was exactly how the game will play and feel. We got some awesome feedback at E3 with people stopping by to check the game out and then getting 'stuck' until they saw everything that was in the demo. Everyone loved the game, and not just for how good it looks but also for how smooth and addictive the gameplay is. Eurogamer: Finally, are you working on any other projects besides Daxter? Didier Malenfant: We've got loads of ideas, things we'd like to do. But no, we only work on one game at a time so Daxter is all we have on our plate right now. Eurogamer: Okay, really finally this time: assuming Daxter is a success, is a sequel something you would like to work on, and how do you think would you work that in to the Jak & Daxter series? Didier Malenfant: Of course, assuming the game is well received, we'd love to keep on pushing Daxter in different directions. We've got some ideas but until then, we'll have to see if people love the final product as much as they loved the preview we showed at E3. It's a very ambitious game but with the team that we've managed to assemble here, I'm very confident we'll be able to pull it off. If E3 is any indication, this is going to be a major title on PSP. Daxter is due out exclusively on PSP next spring. Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59625
GameSpot Preview (2/14/06) The last time we checked in on Daxter, Ready at Dawn Studios' first PSP project starring the Jak series' lovably annoying eponymous ottsel, we found a platformer that reprised its predecessors' platforming action with surprising effectiveness. But aside from the core platforming action, which really does seem like Jak with its own unique twist, we didn't know if there'd be anything else to back up the gameplay. Now we've gotten a further taste of what Daxter has to offer, including a wireless multiplayer mode, unique gameplay mechanics later in the game, and secrets and unlockable bonuses galore. All this seems to add up to a game that should tickle platformer fans' fancies on the PSP for some time to come. But let's back up a second and look at the inception of the project, which ought to strengthen the game's pedigree in the eyes of longtime Jak fans. Ready at Dawn president Didier Malenfant--who helped wrap production on Jak II one week and was shopping for office space for his new studio the next--says that the ideas for Daxter came about through his conversations with Jason Rubin, former head of Naughty Dog. The Jak creators gave regular feedback to the team at Ready at Dawn, and the game was even written and voiced by the same writer and actors (including Daxter voice Max Casella) who brought the original games to life. Anyway, back to all that content. Malenfant told us Daxter will be long for a platformer, with 18 levels (not counting the city hub between them), six "dream" levels, and three bosses that should amount to 10 to 15 hours of gameplay even for skilled gamers. We took a look at some of the later levels in the game and learned that generally each level in the game will feature some sort of unique mechanic. For instance, Daxter obtains an insecticide sprayer early in the game, and after a while he'll gain the ability to light the spray on fire, creating a flamethrower. In one level, then, you'll encounter a bunch of giant ice blocks, and you can use the flamethrower to melt these blocks to the appropriate size to use as platforms or to push around as necessary. In our previous look at Daxter, we saw the Matrix-style dream sequence that had us hitting button patterns in quick succession to make a Neo-styled Daxter fight off hordes of Agent Smith-looking enemies. We got to check out a few more of these dream levels in the updated build of the game we saw, each of which had some kind of classic movie hook that tickled our sense of nostalgia. One level cast Daxter as Indiana Jones, forcing him to whip oncoming spiders and snakes while dodging giant rolling boulders. Another was patterned after a certain epic battle for Scottish independence (OK, fine, it's Braveheart). The interesting thing about these dream levels is that they're not just for fun; completing each one successfully will award you a health bonus, a new movie, or some other upgrade that's relevant to the main gameplay. It sounds like Daxter will be chock-full of hidden things to dig up as you jump and swat your way through the many levels. Aside from the standard metalhead collectibles that return from the Jak games, you'll be able to find a number of masks for Daxter that you can then put on or take off at will. We weren't shown any of these masks so as to preserve the surprise, but they're said to reprise characters from certain other popular Sony franchises. Then there's the USB connectivity between Daxter and Jak X for the PS2. In Jak X, connecting the two will enable new drivers, such as the villainous Kaeden, as well as the best car in the game, the Daxtermobile (which looks like a four-wheeled giant Daxter head). You'll also get some new bonus goodies in Daxter through the connect, though again, we weren't able to find out what these will be. And then, speaking of hidden stuff, there's the bug combat. The huh? Well, Daxter has a two-player wireless game that's almost entirely separate from the core game. You'll be able to find various combat bugs throughout the game, as well as potions and tokens you can use to upgrade these bugs' abilities, and then you can drop to the main menu and take on all comers in a bug-versus-bug combat mode that's reminiscent of Yu-Gi-Oh! or even Pokémon. In bug combat, there are three kinds of attacks--spit, claw, and trap--and the three are connected in a rock-paper-scissors manner whereby each one beats one of the others and is beaten by the other one. Though we didn't get to mess with bug combat much ourselves, between the purportedly more than 200,000 possible bugs and the many ways to level up and upgrade them--not to mention the epic amount of trash talk flying between Ready at Dawn members engaged in the game--bug combat looks like it'll provide an interesting and competitive diversion from Daxter's core platforming. Daxter continues to impress us with its nearly PS2-level visuals and gameplay that's highly reminiscent of its forebears. Add all these new peripheral features to the mix and you've got one loaded PSP game. Will the game live up to its pedigree and the impressive list of features Ready at Dawn has laid out already? We'll find out when Daxter ships next month. In the meantime, check out a number of new gameplay movies and an exclusive developer interview on the game's media page, not to mention four tracks from Daxter's soundtrack. Source: http://www.gamespot.com/psp/action/daxter/news.html?sid=6144220 IGN Preview (2/14/06) Since the PSP launched, few developers have called their efforts true "portable PS2" titles. The reason, of course, is obvious: most titles lack the polish, depth and visual flair of an average PS2 title. But that's about to change. A new development studio, founded by Naughty Dog and Blizzard Entertainment veterans, wants to deliver PS2-quality portability with its first game, Daxter. The studio, of course, is Ready at Dawn, and it's not afraid of calling Daxter the PSP's very first "true" PS2 title. We've seen Daxter a few times already - first at E3 2005 and then at the Consumer Electronics Show last January. Both early showings impressed us quite a bit. And it wasn't just the quality of the visuals, though it's clearly a pretty game. It's the fact that Ready at Dawn managed to squeeze a complex game, in terms of mechanics and design, into a UMD without making many sacrifices. Play a level from Daxter, any level really, and it's pretty clear they've managed to pull off an impressive feat. Easily the most impressive thing about the game, at least initially, has to be the game's visual presentation. The quality of animation is as good as anything we've seen on consoles and, truthfully, it's better than most. This is true of normal gameplay, but also of the animated cutscenes, which the team rendered using the game's 3D engine. Furthermore, some of the shared environments between Daxter and Jak II, such as the sweeping cityscapes, share identical geometry and textures. So certain scenes don't just look like their PS2 counterparts, they actually are - very nice. Fans of the series will be happy to know all voice talent returns for every major character and the game packs 32 minutes of cutscenes penned by the same author as previous games. Now, since we've seen Daxter before and have written on it, we're going to stick with what's new, except for a brief recap which we'll get into right now. The game takes place between Jak and Daxter, and Jak II. We play as the sidekick Daxter, who takes a part-time gig as a pest exterminator. He does this for two reasons - it'll give him some coin, for one, but it also strokes his ego. Fans already know Daxter (who looks somewhat like a weasel) is the most obnoxious, **bleep**y sidekick in the history of videogames, so that's very fitting. Lastly, he takes the job to help him rescue Jak, who finds himself imprisoned at the beginning of the game. Daxter plays much more like the first game in the series, Jak and Daxter, than Jak II or Jak X: Combat Racing. This is because developers wanted to make a traditional platformer instead of a game that tried to mix too many genres while mastering none. As such, we spent most of our time with Daxter avoiding obstacles, exploring vast environments and killing bugs. Daxter has a lot of "platforming without platforms" as the developers like to put it, because much of the action revolves around hovering. Yes, hovering. Daxter can use his pesticide gun to levitate throughout the environments in short, 10-second spurts. Hovering is a skill in desperate need of mastering should anyone want to reach the end of the game. In one of the levels we saw, which takes place late in the game, we had to maneuver through a fish cannery by floating between giant blocks of ice. And they weren't stationary, either. They were actually moving on tracks, so our timing couldn't be off by much. Remember, there's only 10-seconds of juice (read: float action) before our pesticide guns need a refill, so it's easy to get stranded mid-air without practice. In addition to navigating a field of frozen fish, we also had to take our pesticide guns (modified with a flame attachment) and melt our way through icy corridors and tunnels. It's a very detailed stage - we could hear ice cracking throughout and see an icy mist permeating almost every room. Another stage, which takes place in a Lumber Mill, packs its own set of challenges. We had to jump over spinning blades and other lethal machinery, slide down crazy pipes and even hop on a lake of over-sized lily pads. This stage had a perfect example of the aforementioned "platforming without platforms" thing. Here's how it went down: we had to reach an item that took us far from the main stage by collecting a string of fuel orbs for our pesticide gun. Miss a single orb and the pesticide gun runs out of juice, causing Daxter to fall from the sky and into the lake below. This is just one example, but the game has tons of this kind of thing throughout. We even saw a few stealth elements during one of the last stages in the adventure. We actually had to sneak into a prison and avoid detection by the facility's wary guards. We had to slink into holding cells, hide under bunks and in air vents, and time our movements to avoid detection. It actually reminded us of the stealth aspects seen in Beyond Good & Evil. Another stage where it seemed like stealth would play a role was in a palace, where we had snuck in as professional exterminators. We had to make our way past flowing banners, vaulted ceilings and high-tech machinery while in disguise. This stage actually had a very impressive sequence involving a quaint plant nursery. After sneaking through a network of halls, we opened the door to said nursery and took in the sights. The room was stocked with a collection of otherworldly plants and trees, and sunlight filtered in from the glass ceiling above us. An impressive sight, to say the least. After taking a few steps in, however, the plants and trees retracted into the floor, revealing a pair of laser turrets and a large bed of spikes. We had to dodge laser fire and blast over the spikes to avoid premature death. A very cool sequence; and one that's indicative of Daxter's ability to surprise. As cool as all this may sound, there's far more in store. First up are the dream sequences. In a nod to seminal Hollywood movies, the game includes a string of mini-games themed after films such as Indian Jones and the Matrix. In the Matrix dream sequence, we had to fend off waves of attackers by pressing the appropriate button on the PSP. It plays very much like an old-school rhythm game, but it looks downright cool. Plus, it's a sure bet fans will spend serious time playing them all. Another cool extra, Bug Combat, looks to add a ton of replay value. Bug Combat is actually an illegal sport in the Daxter universe, much like **bleep**fighting here, but hey - it's fun. We found out that players will need to collect bugs throughout the game and outfit them with weapons and various attacks by finding hidden tokens. Once a bug is ready to roll, players can enter them in battle arenas to fight other bugs over the PSP's wireless Ad-Hoc functionality. Each player can modify their respective bugs in real-time, and there are apparently over 240,000 bug combinations, according to developers. The actual battle interface looked cool and not like it was designed as a last minute addition to the game. We suspect players will enjoy Bug Combat. A lot. In short, Daxter's looking hot. We've only played a handful of levels, so we can't dole out a verdict, but everything we've seen leads us to believe Ready at Dawn has a top-notch product in its hands. Plus, it sounds lengthy too - more than 12 hours of solid gameplay for the average gamer, according to developers. Source: http://psp.ign.com/articles/688/688304p1.html New GameSpy Preview Sidekicks never get enough credit, if you ask me. Batman, Fred Flintstone, and even Mario wouldn't be the same without the Robins, Barney Rubbles, or Luigis of the world. And if any sidekick was deserving of his own game, it would be Daxter the Ottsel from Naughty Dog's Jak & Dakter series. Daxter for the PSP has been developed by Ready at Dawn studios, an up and coming developer based in Southern California, and headed up by talented former employees from Naughty Dog and Blizzard. Strings may have been pulled in bringing the story of Daxter's epic rescue of Jak to the PSP, bridging the gap between Jak & Dakter and Jak II, but from what I saw during a recent trip to Ready at Dawn's studios, Daxter will not only prove faithful to fans of the Naughty Dog franchise, but it may well be the best looking game on the PSP.
Without going into too many details, Daxter is at his old tricks again, and has been trying to impress the locals with his boasting and claims of heroic deeds. Left dejected, he is approached by an old man named Osmo, who runs an exterminating company and needs Daxter's help to fight back a plague of metal bugs. A job's a job, it seems, and Daxter accepts, setting himself up for a daring adventure.
It wasn't all talk when Daxter was described as the first "portable PlayStation 2 game." Daxter looks incredible, full of lavish detail, high resolution textures and impressive fur shading, no more apparent than in examining Daxter's incorrigible hide during one of the many real-time cut scenes. It was explained to me that in some respects, it was easier getting more detail into a PSP game than in a PS2 title, since developing for a handheld means you wouldn't have to worry so much about draw distance, as the action predominantly takes place in the foreground. You wouldn't notice that any sacrifices have been made, though, as no quarter has been spared. The immense environments were just as polished as the character models, with an abundance of little details, down to the discarded spoon used by an inmate to tunnel his way out of the game's prison level. There also weren't any load times, as new areas were strategically streamed behind the scenes during gameplay.
Daxter appears to have held up in other regards as well. As he was in the original console games, Daxter is voiced by Max Casella of Doogie Howser, M.D. and The Sopranos fame. The writing was contributed by the same creative mind behind the Jak games at Naughty Dog, so the game's personality meshes quite nicely with the sort of humor you've come to expect from the character.
I played through a healthy number of the game's levels, and got a good look at what to expect from the retail release. First off, Daxter is above all else a classic-styled platformer, rooted in the basic mechanics of the genre. This means lots of traversing dangerous terrain, and the collecting of a multitude of different objective items, including the discovery of secret areas. Daxter's basic commands include jumping, swinging an electric flyswatter, and dropping to all fours. His primary weapon for use against the metal bugs, Daxter's flyswatter carries a potent charge, and when used in a series of attacks finishes enemies with a head over heels flip attack, ending in a powerful downwards swat that can damage several baddies at once.Like any good exterminator, Daxter will end up wielding a pesticide spray for most of the game, just like John Goodman in Arachnophobia, although the effect is in fact closer to Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, or Mario in Super Mario Sunshine. At first, the bug spray releases a toxic green mist that is used to stun the metal bugs, setting them up for a good swatting. This chemical is highly flammable, and can be ignited on any source of flame found through the game's levels, such as lit torches, or flaming enemies. Daxter will eventually receive upgrades to his spraying device, including a pilot light at the end of his nozzle, so as to always be able to generate a flame, or a sonic weapon upgrade, that functions very much like a short range grenade launcher, dealing considerable area effect damage.
Like many great platforming characters, Daxter can pull off a double jump, but he can also hover for a brief period of time, around 10 seconds or so, by redirecting his spray and using it to provide some thrust. The fire spray will get Daxter to greater heights than the bug spray, and using the sonic weapon during a jump is a great way to clear enemies beneath you, as it fires off a round at your feet. The hovering aspect of the game is key, and will be one of the mechanics that needs to be mastered to get past the game's many tricky platform elements. In fact, some areas of the game are platformer stages without platforms, requiring you to fly from point to point, gathering up floating spray refills to keep afloat, with a sloppy flight dropping Daxter to his death, and perfect trajectory leading you safely on your way.
I got around quite a few of the game's levels, and found great diversity in the level designs. One stage, the fish cannery, had an icy feel to it, with frosty vents emanating chilled air and the overall feel of being stuck in a giant meat locker, albeit one filled with nasty critters and plenty of treacherous pitfalls. Large blocks of ice are used as an innovative platform element here, as you can melt the overgrown ice cubes by pushing them forward with Daxter's flamethrower, or just melting them in place to create steps that lead to otherwise impassible areas. In keeping with the cold-as-ice theme, this level also included jumping from one small chunk of floating ice to another, and the small frozen islands even caught me by surprise, by tilting from one side to the other if you put all of Daxter's weight on the edge.
Another level took place in a lumber mill, complete with spinning saw blade hazards, and plenty of tree stumps to hop around on. Giant flying mechanical bugs introduced a new treacherous element here, but Daxter could neutralize them by activating bug zappers strewn throughout the stage. One of the best sections I saw was a hilarious homage to the classic Frogger game, where Daxter had to hop from one log to another as it slowly rolled down a river, avoiding hanging trees and other obstacles. While I was only able to check out a single dream level, it was interesting to see the direction that was taken with them. Coming from an original alternate game design idea for Daxter, the dream levels are basically the adolescent heroic fantasies of Daxter come to life, where his powers are larger than life and his cool factor just goes through the roof. The dream level I played was not-so-loosely based on the Matrix, with Daxter sending his feet and fists flying through swarms of enemies in a timing-based mini-game. Other dream levels will include other popular movie scenes and archetypes.
The game should be fairly long, with plenty to do, and an estimated clear time of about 10 hours, or more. Crop dusting levels in the game will break up the platforming and introduce vehicle-based missions. Daxter not only has to save the day by killing bugs in this adventure, but he must also collect Precursor Orbs found throughout the game. Getting a 100% completion in Daxter should be difficult, since many of the secret areas are very hard to reach. Remembering to drop Daxter to all fours to search under object terrain, and smashing apart every possible destructible environment object will go a long way towards this goal. Unlocked characters in this game can be used in Jak X: Combat Racing, and special masks for Daxter are unlocked in the same way. Collecting bug boxes throughout the game is another important goal, since this provides you with access to the mini-game, inspired by the Chocobo mini-games in the Final Fantasy series. Essentially, you and a friend will be able to take part in underground battles using metal bugs, much like **bleep**fights, although it may be more politically correct to correlate these events to something like Pokémon. Anyways, bug combat works like a multi-tiered game of paper-rock-scissors, where you make an initial attack option, and can then make use of a modifier token to surprise your opponent. The game is quite simple, but leads to a lot of trash talking and psychology, so it may end up being quite a fun little diversion.
Daxter for the PSP has turned out to be an impressive first effort from Ready at Dawn studios. If you haven't already, make sure to check out our Developer Diaries from members of the Ready at Dawn team, and find out first hand what it was like working on Daxter direct from the source. Slated for release this coming March, stay tuned for the full review of Daxter here on GameSpy.Source: http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-portable/ready-at-dawn-project
/688270p1.html GameRevolution.com Preview The only thing more confusing than the PSP, with its dearth of games and wealth of weird multimedia options, is the nature of its biggest rising star, Daxter. The guy is an elf in an ottsel body, an ottsel being a cross between an otter and a weasel. On top of that, he works as an exterminator. Confused? Don't be. Daxter's heritage may be a bit tough to understand, but from what we played last week, his upcoming game isn't. Boasting a large, creative single-player campaign with all the humor, surprises and production values of its console kin as well as a quirky multiplayer mode, the self-titled Daxter is poised to be a must-have action-adventure and a great solo debut for Sony's strangest star. The story covers the two-year gap between Baron Praxis's dastardly elf-napping of Jak and Daxter's daring prison rescue, events touched on in Jak II. At a loss for ways to break his buddy out of jail, Daxter signs on with the Critter-Ridder Extermination Company. As a member of the bug-blasting elite, Daxter will take on missions all over Haven city for money while spraying his way closer to the truth behind Jak's disappearance. The title's feel and flow should be familiar to anyone who played the Jak and Daxter games for the PS2. Although Naughty Dog is off the case, the new developers at Ready at Dawn seem to have captured the witty essence of the series as well as the dynamic gameplay that made it such an addictive, entertaining ride. Much of the game works along the same formula found in the console trilogy. Players are given a huge open environment to explore, sans loading screens, plus a mix of quality platforming and wonderfully diverse mini-games. To go with his exterminator credentials, Daxter wields a pressurized bug-sprayer, which he uses to spray and stun his six-legged foes, then whack them with a trusty, electrified fly-swatter. The neatest aspect of this sprayer isn't its effect on enemies, but rather its effect on the game's platforming elements. Daxter can jump and use the sprayer to give himself flight for a limited amount of time, which he can extend by collecting airborne bug spray globules. The result is platform gaming without platforms. Instead, you'll fly through the air from one glowing green orb to another, dodging enemies and obstacles before ultimately landing on some faraway ledge. It's an interesting approach that's more fun and forgiving than endlessly hopping from precarious ledge to precarious ledge. Within this solid mix of platforming sequences and mini-games are nestled two seriously compelling features. After completing jobs for the bug company, Daxter will have the opportunity to take naps, which lead to dream levels. These cast Daxter as one of his favorite heroes in environments that are not beholden to the confines of Haven city or normal Jak and Daxter physics. We've only seen one such level, in which a Daxter-Neo hybrid fought a bunch of agents via a button-press mini-game, but we're excited about the possibilities. Clearly inspired by Psychonauts, Daxter's dream levels should provide interesting breaks in the game's normal action (which is far from static in the first place) to provide you with crazy interludes. During his waking hours, on the other hand, Daxter will occasionally find a 'Battle Bug." You'll be able to collect these bugs, customize them, then enter them into battle against those belonging to characters in the game as well as other players via the PSP's wireless functionality. Battle Bug combat is based on rock-paper-scissors. Every bug in the game has the same three attacks, but each can be customized with power-ups scattered throughout Haven city. Before a battle begins, you choose a bug and equip it with three tokens. These are also scattered around Haven City, and allow you to interrupt the battles to make a quick change to your strategy. It's an interesting twist that adds a layer of strategy to a simple but addictive mini-game. Daxter purportedly goes the extra mile to provide console-sized content on a handheld device by being interoperable with Jak X: Combat Racing. From what we've heard, players who complete 100% of Daxter will be able to unlock special vehicles and drivers, while Jak X vets will open up some new material in Daxter. With so much content, we expected to see some crunchy animations or framerate hiccups, but encountered none. Daxter hops, hovers and smoothly crawls his way through environments that would be right at home on a Playstation 2, without any hitches or loading screens to bring you back down to handheld earth. They even rendered the furry little weirdo's hair, something they never did on the console version. Even the series' signature voiceovers are intact, with Max Casella of Sopranos fame reprising the voice of Daxter, and Office Space's David Herman voicing his surfer-elf sidekick. If the writing and voice-acting are as good as we think they're going to be, Daxter will be a very funny game. Daxter may not be the likeliest champion for the PSP - elves in weird, varmint bodies rarely are - but he's shaping up to be one of the most entertaining. Instead of simply porting a classic series, Ready at Dawn has created a robust new game that demands all of the respect of its console counterparts, if not more. We'll see if it's truly deserved when Daxter weasels its way onto our PSPs this March. Source: http://www.gamerevolution.com/preview/psp/daxter GameHelper's Interview with Ru Weerasuriya Gamehelper: Thanks for sitting down with us. Could you please introduce yourself and list your position with Ready at Dawn? Ru Weerasuriya: Ru Weerasuriya. I’m the art director and a cofounder of Ready at Dawn studios. GH: Can you please describe the chronology of Daxter in the Jak and Daxter universe and tell us where in this timeline your game takes place? RW: Daxter takes place between Jak 1 and Jak II. In Jak 1 we met Jak and Daxter for the first time and the end of the game had them traveling to Haven City through a time portal and Jak getting arrested at the city’s entrance. Daxter runs away, and what happens then is we join them in Jak II two years later… what happens in Daxter is we cover what happened during those two years, more precisely, what happened during the last week of those two years.
GH: Tell us about training the fighting bugs. We know you can collect and train fighting bugs to compete with in-game characters or with your friends over WiFi, but you don't actually get to do it in the demo.
RW: The combat bugs is actually a way of playing with your friends, fighting against them with bugs you actually find in the game. You can upgrade them and boost them using vials… it’s a way of fighting your opponent in a manner a lot like a “rock, paper, scissors” game but with the added twist of letting you collect cards that give boosts, reverse your attacks, swap an opponent’s attack for yours, etc. It actually is a multiplayer component that you can actually boot up whenever you feel like it… and it gives you a lot of bragging rights as you play the game.
GH: In the game, some levels take place in Daxter's dreams, allowing him to be the action hero he always wanted to be. In the demo, the dream level is a Matrix-themed mini-game. Will the other dream levels be patterned after movies? Will they all be mini games, or more platform-based like the rest of the game?
RW: Yeah, that’s kind of where we went with this: we wanted to take pop-culture into Jak and Daxter and give people something to relate to outside of the actual idea that was there. There’s six of them in the game, and they’re all going to be mini games.
GH: Tell us about some of the upgrades to the sprayer. (In the game, Daxter is an exterminator, and his bug spray is used to stun enemies, hover a la Mario's waterpack in Mario Sunshine, etc.)
RW: Right, well, first of all you get the bug spray without anything but the ability just to spray; the first upgrade you get is the canister which actually makes it possible for you to hover, and the upgrade after that is the flamethrower and then the sonic gun. The flame thrower will give you the ability to kill enemies easier, but it also will give you an added height on your flame hover… the sonic gun does give you the ability to hit multiple enemies at the same time, and in the same sense that when you jump with the sonic gun you’ll get the same height with the flame thrower but with the added bonus that it will shoot down a shot; so if you have enemies under you while you’re hovering, you’ll shoot down to a damage area as you float.
GH: The visual style is absolutely gorgeous and totally in keeping with the established J&D universe...how hard was it cramming all that visual goodness into the PSP?
RW: It took a lot of creative thinking on the part of a lot of artists. We first of all had to match what was already there with what Naughty Dog had done with the past Jak & Daxter games. Beyond that, we had to adapt and bring something new to the table. So we found, again, very creative ways, through lighting, through texturing… we found ways to make the game beautiful. One worry that everyone had all the way through was that the PSP wasn’t going to be able to do that. And, uh, well, they were wrong. Something that Sony has done with the PSP is give people, developers, the ability to make games that rival those on the PS2. Too many people think of the handheld as being limited in a lot of ways and it’s not: I play my PSP at home more than my other consoles. As far as visual art goals, it was the concerted effort of a lot guys. They found how to, I guess, trick a lot of things into the game by using things like fogs, with things that pop in and out on the scenes, and one big part of making things look like this was lighting. Lighting was a huge step of making things look good and, as you know, Naughty Dog is one of the best companies out there at lighting; in this industry there aren’t many people as good as them and we needed to be as good at it as they are in order to make a Jak & Daxter game.
GH: So, we know that RaD is primarily composed of people from Blizzard. What exactly was your background with them?
RW: When I started at Blizzard, I was actually working on Brood War at the time and then moved onto the Warcraft III team when that was done. I was a game artist at the time and worked on concept, textures, models, and some animation on the game side. While that was happening, I started helping a friend on the side who was the cinematic director and helped out on the cinematic side. I helped him out with story boards and concepts for the cinematic team and two years passed while I did that… so from then on I basically became the concept artist, the storyboard artist, and map painter for the cinematic team for Warcraft III onwards, on World of Warcraft and Ghost.
GH: Daxter takes over numerous vehicles in the game. Can we expect racing-type levels?
RW: There’s actually quite a big range of stuff: there are chases… crop-dusting missions. There’s quite a few ways to use the vehicles. We’ve actually kept a little bit true to what Jak 1 had… but we went beyond that and did some racing/chasing versions of the various vehicles.
GH: What was the most important thing about making this game, for you?
RW: The most important thing was to give life to Daxter, to give more life to him. When you’re able to get a character in conjunction with another, they can always play off one another. Daxter creates the extra effect in this case. We had to ask, “how much life can we give him?” With the animators and background guys that worked on it, we were able to do this. Our struggle was really about making this fluid and amazing as any console game could possibly be.
GH: Do you think you pulled it off?
RW: I think we pulled it off. 
GH: Awesome. Again, thanks very much for taking the time to talk with us. Source: http://consoles.gamehelper.com/articles/891.htm GameHelper's Daxter Preview
The problem with heroes these days is that they are often so terminally dull. Stop and think about it for a moment: they’re either goody-two-shoes or brooding anti-heroes driven by the sorrow and grief that dominates their past. But they’re rarely any fun. Instead, the fun is often provided by their sidekicks, who tend to make jokes and sarcastic remarks while the protagonist plays the straight man and beats up the bad guys. For some strange reason, it just doesn’t seem to be an accepted practice to make these guys seem like they’re really all that cool to hang out with after the crime fighting is done. Even stranger, giving the plucky sidekick a starring vehicle is something that rarely turns out well- just look at the original Robin (I challenge you to find a single fan of any of the Nightwing comics). Ready at Dawn’s upcoming first game, Daxter, seems ready to buck that particular trend. The title takes place between Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Saga and Jak II, mainly following the actions of everyone’s favorite Ottsel and his eventual quest to free his best friend from the clutches of an evil government and its hideous experiments.
Daxter is the first Naughty Dog property to be worked on by an outside studio when Naughty Dog itself is still involved in the franchise (as opposed to what happened with the Crash Bandicoot franchise). This is probably due to the fact that Didier (pronounced “deedee-ay”) Malefant, RaD’s president, left Naughty Dog to start up his own company the Monday after Jak II shipped to stores. According to Didier, he set up shop in Orange County, CA because of all the game development talent in the area and joined forces with several people from Blizzard Software to create a new development studio. Obviously, the local talent has paid off because they are the first startup company to be made into a first-party developer by SCEA. I feel happy!
With Daxter, RaD wanted to return to the lighthearted nature of the franchise, which is why its plot takes place during the interim period between the first two games, before the series took a turn down a darker and more “mature” path. Not only does Daxter revisit the slapstick humor that marked the start of the series, but it also successfully returns to the platforming gameplay prevalent in the series’ early entries.
So how do you take a small sidekick in an oversized universe and make him a relevant hero? Well, to start things off, you give him his own story instead of trying to carve out a spot for him in the one which already exists. When the game begins,we find Daxter wallowing in his own ego-drenched hallucinations in one of Haven City’s seedier bars, no closer to having freed his best friend. Broke, but still spouting the stories of Daxter The Mighty Hero, our intrepid Ottsel is offered a job exterminating metal bugs (a smaller version of the Metal Heads from Jak II), which he takes to with gusto. Not only does he end up combating these arthropods with an electrified fly-swatter, but he also gets a can of bug spray later on (which he later gets to upgrade to a portable flame-thrower). This story works well to introduce new gamers to the series, but it also serves to take those already familiar with the franchise and place them into a game that could easily stand on its own without the support of its sibling console titles.
Dude, I know Kun Fu... well, maybe.
Aside from the standard platforming/stealth/combat missions in which Daxter finds himself, there are also going to be six dream sequences to accompany the eighteen other levels and three boss battles. Each of these dreams casts him in the role of a movie hero, essentially showing how he perceives himself as a great adventurer. Having spied a whiteboard on one of Ready at Dawn’s office walls, it seems that some of these levels will be based on The Matrix, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Braveheart, and Lord of the Rings.
Daxter’s gameplay and controls are incredibly solid. Seriously, everything about the gameplay felt good. The movement, the combat, both the automatic and manual control of the camera, and the vehicle missions… all of these seemed like they were incredibly polished, finalized, and easy to utilize, despite the fact that the game is more than a month and a half away from release.
One of the problems that seems to plague platform games is their short length. According to Didier, though, this won’t be an issue with Daxter because, “this game is freaking long,” with a length easily surpassing ten hours and probably lasting somewhere close to fifteen, though that would depend on players’ skill levels. There will even be a multi-player function that will let players pit captured bugs against one another in a “bug-fighting” mode (think of Pokemon battles in which the creatures can be upgraded with various potions and you basically have the idea of how the system works). While this sounds like it might be pretty generic, the game actually assembles these battle bugs out of random parts, and there are more than 200,000 different types of combinations available so it seems like players won’t get tired of seeing these various creatures.
Here there be buried treasure, matey!
The other manner of extending Daxter’s longevity is the USB linking features with Jak X Racing for the PS2, with each game unlocking content in the other: Jak X will unlock bonus vehicles, weapons, and costumes in its PSP counterpart, while completing 100% of Daxter will unlock the Daxtermobile in Jak X (according to Ready at Dawn, this will be one of the most powerful vehicles players can get). The game’s sound is great, also. This should come as no surprise, given the high level of polish that is prevalent in every other aspect of Daxter. As always, Max Casella (better known as Michael Bolton in Office Space) returns to voice the titular Ottsel with gusto and will keep players in stitches. The music, which I guarantee you will appreciate, is done by James Scott and is incredibly varied and appropriate, successfully complimenting each mission in the game.
For the first game from a freshman studio, it would be understandable to have concerns about the quality of Daxter.. However, after playing with a near-final version of the title it is safe to say that this looks like it’s going to be a great game and you would be well served to add it to your PSP library. Daxter ships for PSP on March 14th. Source: http://consoles.gamehelper.com/articles/892.htm G4's Daxter Preview
Sidekicks always get the short end of the stick. While the heroes always get the girl, the glory, and the sequels, the selfless individuals who stand by their side get… well, nothing. Someone at Sony clearly felt the same outrage over this injustice and soon PSP owners will be able to give at least one sidekick his due thanks to the imminent release of Daxter.Nary a Jak in Sight As small, obnoxious, whiny, foul-tempered, leering rodent sidekicks go, Daxter is one of the best. His role in the Jak series is small in comparison, but finally the furry little cretin gets to set out on his own and kick some serious butt. Bug butt mostly, since he finds himself working for a down-and-out extermination company in Haven City. The game is actually a lead-in to Jak II, and has Daxter ultimately looking for his imprisoned friend in a strange sci-fi city. The original Jak and Daxter was one of the first platformers for the PlayStation 2. It was gorgeous, fast, huge, and best of all, incredibly entertaining. So, it makes sense that one of the first platformers on the PSP is related to Sony’s quintessential series. While not quite as big, fast, and gorgeous, Daxter is shaping up to be an excellent 3D platformer for Sony's little handheld. Rodent to the Rescue! Playing as Daxter lends the game a very different feel than the previous games in the series, because the furry, orange ottsel moves like the rodent he is. Watching Daxter scurry under tables or up walls on all fours is a strangely amusing sight, and the cinematics play up his lack of character (and judgment) to hilarious effect. Daxter runs around the levels jumping, hanging, swatting, and spraying (bug spray, not his own scent), while searching for hidden goodies. There are also vehicles levels, like a bug spray spewing hovercraft, which add a nice sense of variety to the gameplay. Overall, even in the beta version we tested, the gameplay elements seem rock solid, and should instantly appeal to fans of both the series and the genre at large. The game’s excellent visuals and audio are another selling point. Daxter is a great looking portable game, full of strange levels, bright colors, detailed characters and animation, and a solid audio presentation all around. Scurrying Home Soon Finally, the game will support four-player Wi-Fi matches, although specific modes are sketchy. It will even link to Jak X: Combat Racing on the PS2 to allow you to unlock hidden goodies in both games. Expect the rampant rodent running to start this Spring. Source: http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/53411/Daxter_Preview.html Daxter Reloaded - GDC 2006 Report! When Daxter was released 10 days ago, it was a critically acclaimed success, which was a welcome sigh of relief for the president of Ready At Dawn Studios. In a postmortem of Daxter, Didier Malenfant broke down the game process with what he called a "No B.S. insight on what it takes to make a AAA title." He also tried to provide insight behind creating Ready At Dawn Studios, which was only formed in September 2003 and is now enjoying success with its first title.
Didier, a former Naughty Dog employee began Ready At Dawn with Andrea Pessino and Ru Weerasuriya (former Blizzard employees) in September 2003. He also related that all three left on good terms with their former companies, which helped them in acquiring the Daxter title. The game was spawned out of an idea that was pitched to Jason Rubin from Naughty Dog at E3 2003 shortly after the PSP was announced. That one meeting snowballed from there into a fully fleshed out project that Sony and Naughty Dog were fully behind. In fact, Didier related with some well-deserved pride that Ready At Dawn created two firsts with Daxter: they were the first studio that SCEA had signed a startup as a first party developer, and they were also the first external studio that had received any Naughty Dog property to work on.
This put the thirty person staff at Ready At Dawn under a lot of pressure to live up to the Naughty Dog legacy, which could be extremely daunting for a company's first project. Fortunately, Naughty Dog was more than willing to work with the fledgling company, providing plenty of help as well as some of their employees to help flesh out the style of the game. In particular, Dan Arey wrote the dialogue for Daxter, ensuring that the comical style of the console games was transferred to the portable, and Bob Rafei helped preserve the art style of the franchise.
An interesting part of the session was when Didier went through the five phases his team experienced during the project, such as the initial rush to sign the project with Sony and Naughty Dog, while at the same time ramping up the hiring process and building design tools. At this point, Didier also wound up showing off a number of never before seen trailers for the game, many of which were prepped for E3 2004 or shown as a demo to update certain stages and where their progress was at that time. Didier mentioned that these kinds of "behind the scenes" peeks at the game process were his favorite things with games, because he felt that he got a sense of where a game came from. He also mentioned that many of the demos were a great way to evaluate which features remained in the finished game and which ones were eliminated. As an example, he showed the tanker and brewery levels, which he stated had been remade at least twenty times, either because they didn't work well or there were other features that couldn't fit into the final version.
Didier also mentioned the pitfalls and advantages that his team discovered. For instance, the Ready At Dawn team didn't get the actual PSP development hardware until late 2004, and that some of the procrastination or reluctance to cut features almost made them miss their deadlines. However, they did discover certain advantages to the process that Ready At Dawn went through, such as patiently hand picking every single hire for the company and working on the quality of the project to the point that they were totally satisfied.
While he would've liked to have had more time to fix certain game elements, such as adding more people to the city streets, eliminating the auto-save slowdown or adding to the vehicle and bug combat, Didier looks forward to the future projects that Ready At Dawn are working on, such as licensing the engine of Daxter to other companies, increasing and creating a good quality of life for his employees, and coming up with a more challenging title for the PSP.
Credits
IGN
GameSpot
1UP
SCEA
carbonox_ratchet
Skyler .H.
GameSpy
MGSmaster2
JAK 1 2 3 X
downlink II
Orange Lightning
Jak_Master
Yahoo Games
GameRevolution.com
punk rockin primate
G4
GameHelpers
Special Thanks: Patriot
Cannon Fodder
Expect this thread to be updated as more articles flows in. Please feel free to PM me to have me add any articles that concern Daxter. Thanks for reading this information thread and I really hope it steered you toward buying the game if you were skeptical about doing so.
Written by: Light_Jak, Jak Eco 2, Game-Sage101, Dark_Dax, downlink II, and Jak_Master Message Edited by Patriot on 03-01-200609:50 PM
Message Edited by Light_Jak on 11-01-2006 06:06 PM
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I didn't catch that earlier.
Thanks for catching that, I forgot why I put it there. 
