Daxter

Daxter is a cute and fun spin off featuring the half otter, half weasel character by the same name. Daxter is a beloved side kick for his trash talking and saucy attitude, and now he gets his own chance to shine. In this game, you control Daxter for his own time in the spotlight.

In this game, the usual main character and Daxter’s friend, Jak, has ended up in jail. Daxter sets out with the intention of freeing him but ends up on a pest control team instead. He must free the city of bugs instead. If you’ve played Jack & Daxter or any of the other games in the series and liked them, you’ll love this one.

A Solid Platformer

This game is a cross between a platformer and a puzzler. You need to collect items in order to be successful in the game and use a fly swatter like contraption to zap robotic bugs in various places. The game has about 18 levels, and an objective for the level is given at each stage. There is a refreshing amount of variety in the game that helps to keep it from getting dull. One of the items you need to gather for example, are green balls of gas that refill your weapon. These balls don’t just kill bugs, they also help slow down your falls during epic jumps.

In some areas of the game you’ll face huge gaps between platforms you need to traverse, and the only way to do that is to gather those green balls in a specific order. This is just one example. The game keeps changing it from there, so while you have similar items, how you play is always changing. This keeps the game from feeling old or grindy, which is very refreshing.

Excellent Graphics

Another area this game stands out in is the graphics. The developers took pains to give detail to the backgrounds and characters. Lip syncing keeps up with the voice acting, and the character’s movement matches the personality of the characters.

Refined Control System

This game is a classic platformer, with skill jumps and maneuvering the platform taking the lead over everything else—including fighting. While there is still plenty of action in the game, platforming is the main function of the game.

What makes the game so much fun to play however, is how sensitive the controls are. Everything from acceleration and deceleration to in-air movement can be refined with the controls, and that brings skill back to the gaming world in a wonderful way.

Pros:

• Thoughtfully detailed graphics
• Challenging platforms
• Skill based movement

Cons:

• None

Jak's smart-alecky ottsel sidekick busts out on his own, only to hop and bop a lot like his former oppressor. To be fair, though, Daxter does wield a can of bug spray a la the Orkin man. That's different enough, right?

Like the original Jak and Daxter, minus the Jak. The small and furry Daxter squeezes into narrow spaces, swings a mean flyswatter, and propels himself upward with pest spray that, next to an open flame, makes a nice flamethrower. It's nothing revolutionary, but Baxter's a sharp-looking, smoothly playing platformer with a few clever tricks up its sleeve.

And to be frank, the PSP desperately needs some top-quality original software to combat the DS lineup.