Extended Practice Game Play Mechanics and Collectibles Research: Jak and Daxter

The next game series that I looked at was Jak and Daxter as this is one of my favourite series growing up and thought that it could be very helpful to the research that I was doing for this project, although it's a little out there in terms of what we're aiming to produce, but nevertheless it could still spark a small amount of inspiration in one aspect. Jak and Daxter is a series of games, 3 in total, that is a action/adventure platformer set in a very high tech and mechanical driven world. The whole game is absolutely beautiful in the amount of detail included and the mechanics themselves are very sound.

The general mechanics vary from game to game in the series, but the main mechanics do include the basic maneuvers around the level, although for me his jump has always been very labored and feels like a struggle to do, which I always found very strange. But that aside it's very easy to move the character around the environment and you are able to easily move from platform to platform whilst maintaining control of the character at all times. In the first game I found that Jak felt a lot younger and had basic moved which involved flinging Daxter around to kill enemies instead of the guns and fire power that he gets in the second and third game.

In the second game we were introduced to new mechanics that worked well and this was in the form of heavy firepower with all new weapons and guns and machines to obliterate the enemies instead of whacking them with an ottsel, Daxter who is a cross between an otter and a weasel. The guns worked well and they were very easy and nice to control, there were clear areas of effect and you always felt in control of them. This mechanic continued into the third game and the themes of the series got darker but the third game is where a lot of new mechanics and abilities where brought into play.

In the third game brought the addition of 'ride-able' things in the environment and this came in a variety of different forms, like this happy guys in the screenshot below which was a weird dinosaur lizard thing that you could ride around the town on. It was a strange mix of things and there were also cars that could be driven in and around the city as well, making the range very broad and fun. The cars where very nice to drive as well and there were lots that you could unlock and choose from, which were pretty much all a type of dune buggy, meaning that crossing through the deserts was very fun. The cars felt nice to drive as well as though didn't feel as weighty as they should, they glided along the sand instead of becoming slightly submerged, but this allowed you to do cool tricks in the car so it kind of made up for it. The lastly Jak also has the chance to ride a hover board, so this game literally has so much packed into it.

Lastly I wanted to look briefly into the collectible system that is used throughout, because unlike Ratchet and Clank which this game is very similar too, the collectibles are meaningful and do count towards a total which everyone wants to get to. In the later games as well they also introduced precursor orbs which again where another form of collectible that again added to your total in the game. Overall although like in Ratchet and Clank where picking up nuts and bolts goes towards buying something, having something that only has a certain amount and collecting it, always did feel a little more satisfying.