Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

Naughty Dog - 2001 - PS2/PS3/Vita

Remember when 3D platformers were a thing? Prior to playing Jak and Daxter, I couldn't even think of the last 3D platformer I played. I think the Mario games are kind of singlehandedly keeping that genre alive right now. But back in the late 90s/early 00s, they were all over the place. Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time were some of my favorite platformers from this era, but I somehow never played any of the Jak games. I was a little hesitant to try Jak and Daxter because I didn't have the best experience with the last Naughty Dog game I played. But a friend of mine was insistent that I must play Jak and Daxter, and I'm glad I did. It's absolutely worth a look if you dig 3D platformers.

The first thing that struck me about Jak and Daxter were the quality of the animations in the game. They're cartoony and exaggerated, but they bring the characters to life so well. Now it may be because I was playing the PS3/HD version of the game and it's hard to tell what they retouched and what was original, but Jak and Daxter may have some of the best animation work I've seen in a game. Which is astounding, considering the game was released in 2001. Great voicework too, which was also not the norm for games made in that era. The NPCs are all full of life and personality. It reminded me a lot of characters from Psychonauts, another excellent 3D platformer that everyone should play. It was strange because while the characters and game world had great personality, I felt the overall narrative/story of Jak and Daxter was totally phoned in. I mean the main villain of the game isn't even introduced until more than halfway through the game. Very weird. 

At a basic level, Jak and Daxter plays similarly to Mario 64. There are several "worlds" and each world has a certain amount of stars to collect, or "power cells" in the case of Jak and Daxter. One major difference though is that the world's layout is totally seamless in Jak and Daxter. For example in Mario 64, the castle sort of served as a hub world and each level was entered by jumping into a painting on the castle's wall. And while there's still "worlds" in Jak and Daxter, it's all seamlessly tied together as one giant island. No loading screens or anything like that, which was probably pretty technically difficult to do. I thought this was pretty cool, until I realized one terrible design problem: it takes FOREVER to get from one area to another. In Mario 64, you could just pause and select "exit world" or whatever. Here you have to walk all the way from one area to another, and the game world is pretty huge. It was super annoying when I wanted to go back and visit the earlier areas to pick up power cells that I had missed. So much walking. This game is in desperate need of a fast travel system. There are a few teleporters scattered across the island, but they're too few and far between to be that useful.

Mechanically, the game is pretty solid. Occasionally I felt like the double jump ability in the game felt unresponsive, but aside from that it's a pretty tight platformer. The levels are all very unique and have their own distinct personality. Some have mini-games or vehicle driving sections that can be completed for additional power cells. I feel that variety and cleverness in level design is really important in a platformer, otherwise your game starts to stale very quickly. Jak and Daxter nails this aspect of good game design. Upon entering a new area, I never knew what to expect, only that it would be different from what I was doing before. 

Summary:

If you miss the 3D platformers of yesteryear and have never played Jak and Daxter, it's worth a look. It's got a high amount of polish and style, but some gaping flaws in certain areas. It does character design well, but forgot to write a story for them. It has variety in level design and a huge open world island, but forgot to include a good fast travel system for it.  I'll be interested to play Jak 2 and 3 soon to see if they corrected some of these flaws and improved on the foundation they laid with The Precursor Legacy. 

Device 6

Simogo - 2013 - Mobile

As of this writing, Device 6 is only available as an iOS download, which is a shame. Now I know most phone games, and most deservedly so, have a stigma attached to them for not being "real" games. I find most phone games to be mindless time-wasters, but Device 6 is certinaly an exception. It's too bad that the only method to download Device 6 is an app store that's cluttered with a bunch of other throwaway games, but the real shame that Device 6 is iOS-only is that I have no Apple devices to play it on! I've wanted to play this game ever since its release last year when it got boatloads of positive buzz. I finally got a chance to play it this week after borrowing a family member's iPad, and let me tell you, the hype is real.

In Device 6, you control a girl named Anna, who wakes up alone in a castle on an island with no memory of why or how she got there. As you guide Anna through the castle, you'll discover lots of the castle's weird and creepy secrets. The narrative was very self-aware and sometimes humorous. There were parts that reminded me of The Stanley Parable. But it was also often creepy and abstract. I admit there were a few elements of the story that seemed to be over my head. I couldn't tell if it was just me that wasn't following the story well enough, or if the narrative wasn't doing that great of a job getting its points across. Either way, I think Device 6 is well written, it's just kinda... out there. Which isn't to say that it's bad, it's just very different.

In an industry that has far too many clones, copycats and sequels, Device 6 is proof that there is still a very deep well of creative narrative and fresh new ideas that modern games are just beginning to drill into. From a presentation standpoint, Device 6 is completely unlike anything I've ever played before. The narrative is presented to the player as text on a screen that the player scrolls across using finger swiping motions. The text will sometimes change it's positional location or rotation based on what's happening in the story. For instance if Anna walks down a flight of stairs, the text will slope diagonally downward. And if Anna has a decision on which way to go, the text will branch off in opposite directions, allowing the player to choose which way Anna will go by swiping their finger in the desired direction. While you swipe your finger to move the text, the sound of footsteps can be heard. If Anna arrives at a door, a door opening sound effect is played while the text scrolls. Occasionally pictures are shown alongside the text when Anna sees something of importance. These pictures frequently contain clues to puzzles and often employ a very cool looking parallax scrolling effect. The audiovisual presentation of this game is so unique and gives the game a very distinct style

Device 6 has excellent puzzle design, but it's different from the puzzles in a game like Braid. In Braid, all of the puzzles had to do with manipulating objects or locations in the game engine. Device 6 presents you mysteries and then offers you clues in the narrative or in the pictures included with the narrative. It's just as brilliant, but in a different way. It reminded me of old school adventure games like Myst which I used to love as a kid. Just like in Myst, I had a pen and paper out to take notes with the entire time I was playing Device 6. Not a lot of games are designed that way anymore. The only thing slightly negative I can say about Device 6 is its length. It's pretty short. I knocked it out in about 3-4 hours. Usually I'm a fan of shorter game experiences, as long as they're priced right (Device 6 is currently $3.99). But I enjoyed my time with Device 6 so much that I was left wanting more when the ending came. I guess that could also be a good thing though, depending on how you look at it.

Summary:

If you like puzzle games, unusual stories, or games that are completely unlike anything you've ever played before, you must play Device 6. It's just so unique and different and oozes creativity and style. That alone should be reason enough to play it. Just be aware that it's pretty short and pretty weird. I hope its developer, Simogo, will eventually port Device 6 to platforms other than iOS so more people get a chance to play this. In any case, Simogo is now on my "cool developers" list and I'll be looking forward to their next project.

The Wolf Among Us

Telltale - 2013 - PC/PS3/X360/Mobile

Looking back at some of the things I played last year, I think Heavy Rain might be one of the most important games I played. It was a flawed game, but I enjoyed it immensely. I loved the focus on interactive storytelling and the fact that it was not necessarily worried about being a "game-y" game. It opened the door for me to play other excellent interactive narrative games like 999, To the Moon and Gone Home. But despite the fact that I know I love these types of games, I still had to be sold on The Wolf Among Us. I belonged to the very small camp of people who wasn't completely blown away by Telltale's breakout hit, The Walking Dead game. Although I admit it probably had more to do with the setting and themes of the story than the actual quality of the game. No more zombies for a while, okay popular media? I'm burned out on zombies. But I'm happy to report that The Wolf Among Us won me over and it feels just as fresh and compelling as Heavy Rain did the first time I played it.

The Wolf Among Us is based on the Fables comic book series which I had never heard of prior to playing this game. The basic premise of Fables, and consequently The Wolf Among Us, is that fairy tale characters are real and have adopted magical human disguises to live alongside normal people. TWAU follows the lives of several fairy tale creatures, or "fables" as the game calls them, who are living in a small community called "Fabletown" within New York City. You play as sheriff Bigby Wolf (The Big Bad Wolf) whose job it is to protect and maintain order in Fabletown. Not too long into the game, one of the fables in Fabletown is murdered, which puts Bigby on the trail of a mysterious and dangerous killer

I really liked the setting and themes in this game. It places fairy tales, which we usually think of as light-hearded children's stories, in a dark, gritty and seedy New York City. It deals with mature themes like murder, drugs and prostitution. The narrative loves to dance in morally gray areas and force the player to make morally ambiguous choices throughout the game. The fables themselves are also really interesting and are brought to life through great voice acting. Being not familiar with the Fables series lead me to wonder which fairy tale would be introduced next, and it was always cool to see this game's dark twist on a classic character. In contrast to what seemed like a budgetary and game engine constraint in The Walking Dead, the comic book art style really suits TWAU. I especially liked the purple, black, magenta and yellow neon color palettes that were used during the nighttime scenes in Fabletown.

Mechanically, TWAU plays very similarly to The Walking Dead or Heavy Rain. Most of the game is spent watching a scene play out and then making dialogue choices with the occasional quick time events mixed in. The dialogue choices are where TWAU excels. Making difficult decisions in a short amount of time was the thrilling part of the game. The quick time events were... not. I get that they're included to provide tension during the action sequences in the game, but I didn't like that messing up too many QTEs just put you in a game over fail state. You then have to replay the exact same sequence over again. I much preferred the Heavy Rain implementation of QTEs where messing up a button prompt didn't give you a game over, but instead had a negative effect impact on what your character was doing in the story. That's way more intense to me because I feel more resigned to accept the result of my QTE fest and not just simply repeat it over until I get it right. 

Summary:

Overall, I found The Wolf Among Us to be another excellent interactive story game if you're into this sort of thing. And if you've never tried this kind of game before TWAU is a great place to start. I really enjoyed the characters, setting and themes in the game. Like Heavy Rain before it, the story occasionally stumbles and some of it feels like filler, but overall it's written pretty well. I would love to play a "season 2" of this game similar to what Telltale has done with The Walking Dead. Check out The Wolf Among Us if you want to take a dive into a gritty world of darkly twisted fairy tales

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Bethesda - 2011 - PC/PS3/X360

Watching season 4 of Game of Thrones got me in the mood for a little high fantasy. Normally that kind of setting is not my thing, but I think Game of Thrones has gotten me to appreciate it more, so I went back and replayed Skyrim. I played it initially when it came out in 2011 and got too distracted by exploring and all of the crazy sidequests and never finished the main storyline. This time around, I stayed focused on the main quest long enough to finish the game and realized that Skyrim actually isn't that long of a game if you can manage not to get distracted. That's the key though. Managing not to get distracted. The game world is so vast, immersive, beautiful and interesting... and at the same time so buggy, repetitive and in some cases downright broken. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this game. For as many things as I can think of that I love about this game, I can think of just as many that I absolutely hate. It's a very Jekyll and Hyde game to me.

First off, the things I hate about this game... Really Bethesda? You had a huge budget to make a massive sprawling universe like Skyrim, but could only afford 3 voice actors? And then you had them repeat the exact same lines over and over again every single time I walk just a little too close to them? It really breaks immersion when I hear the "Some may call this junk..." line by the same voice actor for the billionth time. And stop dropping loot for me to carry if I can only carry like three things. The carry weight restriction is really annoying, especially when this game loves to constantly unload buckets of treasure in front of you after each enemy you slay. I know Skyrim is notoriously buggy, but just two hours in to my playthrough, I encountered an enemy NPC who was literally invincible. I had to give up on one questline because I couldn't kill him. I nearly gave up on my playthrough as well. How has stuff like this still not been patched three years later? But honestly I think I could forgive all those issues if it weren't for this next thing, so listen up Skyrim developers: You CAN NOT repeat the SAME EXACT PUZZLE multiple times throughout your game. The dragon claw puzzle thing only works once, Bethesda. The tenth time I see that puzzle copy/pasted, it comes across as lazy, game-padding filler. It's poor design, it breaks immersion, and it's definitely not clever. That goes for the stupid rotating stone animal tablet things too. And also the combat in this game is kind of "meh". Yeah.

Now on to the good stuff. This game is gorgeous. I'm not an "Ooo look at the awesome graphics" guy either. Even three years later, Skrim still looks graphically impressive, especially with the outdoor scenery. It really does help with immersion and I felt more engaged with in the impressive visuals than I do with most games. I mentioned this before, but it's quite impressive how big of a world Skyrim is. The vast world and scenery is a joy to explore and it seems like there's so many varied and interesting things to do and see. It makes you want to explore every corner of every cave, talk to every NPC and complete every quest just to make sure you don't miss anything cool. While the game systems and AI don't always work the way they should, Skyrim still does a lot of technically impressive things with the game engine. Skyrim does open world sandbox exploration as well or better than any other game I've played.

Summary:
Skyrim is definitely a game whose reach exceeds its grasp in a few places. The exploration is done well, but the puzzles, combat and glitches are black marks on an otherwise excellent open world adventure game. I have a bit of a love/hate thing going on with Skyrim, but there are probably more reasons to play this game than not to. I'd say check it out if you think you might like Skyrim. Just be wary of its lack of polish in certain areas.