A fun adventure which I welcome into the world of Jak & Daxter.
Of course the plot is all about Eco; this mystical substance, available in crystal and liquid form, that powers everything on the planet and gives Jak his special powers. That's all I'm going to say about the plot, because I didn't really care about the rest of it, but if you didn't know what Eco was, other parts of this review won't make sense.
For me, the best part of about the Jak & Daxter games has been about the platforming. The combat, gun-play, and driving aspects that became more prominent as the series went on, although fun, were not the parts I enjoyed the most.
While the Lost Frontier still has plenty of action and game-play styles to keep you busy, the solid platforming elements have been accounted for. I never felt lost when roaming around, and the puzzle aspects were enough to keep me attentive, but not confused. The controls for this part of the game are tight, responsive, and generally make it easy to get to where you're going. It's just too bad that there wasn't a little bit more platforming action thrown in.
Combat has a heavy presence, as there are plenty of foes to take down. A standard set of punch and kick moves are available for close range melee fighting, and it won't take too long before you're equipment with the four guns that are available, each with their own benefits, and each with their own mods you can find to improve their effectiveness. Your standard rifle comes with a laser sight, and is good for precision firing. A scatter gun is powerful at close range, and causes damage over a wider area. The "lobber" fires off slow but deadly explosive rounds, and a rapid fire mini-gun-like weapon is also available. As fun as the mini-gun sounds, it also shows off the biggest flaw in the gun-play. With no lock-on or strafe options, you have to be either standing still or running directly towards your targets to hit them. Neither is really be best move when you have a swarm of enemies bearing down on you.
The fighting fun doesn't end with the weapons however. There's a great selection of new "eco" powers, each with their own upgrades you can purchase. These include offensive attacks such as being able to throw a big red ball of energy that explodes when shot, or a calling up pillars of crystal from the ground to attack oncoming foes. There's also more defensive powers such as the ability to slow down time, or create a hamster-ball-like shield around yourself. These powers also serve to let you navigate around the terrain, and get to new areas.
Of course to do all of this you'll need to see your character (this is the segue to my comments about the camera). The camera works more often than not. Every now and then it will get too close to Jak, and you'll have trouble seeing where the enemies are. The occasional sporadic swinging around of the camera can also be disorientating, but thankfully it's the exception when these things happen. Part of the camera being decent is due to the fact that you can control the camera with the right analog stick; this is my way of expressing pity to those who had to play on the PSP, as I expect it would be a completely different story.
One section of the game where the camera is particularly perfect is during the flying missions. Yes, there are flying missions, and you may find yourself taking to the skies for a decent chunk of the game. That's not so bad though, because the levels are fun enough, and are simply used in lieu of the driving missions found in Jak 3.
There are a variety of planes to pick from, and although each have a unique look, I didn't really find that they handled very differently from one another. The most important difference between the styles of aircraft is how you can equip them. Each plane can hold a different amount of mods for armour, speed, primary & secondary weapons, and more. There's a good selection of mods to purchase, and each one can be upgraded by several levels to be even more effective. The mods you select add a lot of customization to your planes, so you can use each one with specific tactics in mind.
In the air is the only place you'll find what I would consider true Quick Time Events (where you have to push a series of buttons in a set amount of time). Luckily these are optional, as I don't really like QTEs, but if you can pull them off they can come in quite handy. They're used when you send Daxter to jump on an enemy's plane in mid-air to either damage them, or to steal weapons and power-ups. Just another way to keep the air combating engaging, help unlock new items, and save on cash (stealing is always cheaper than buying).
Daxter doesn't only take up some game-play time in the air. Due to an unfortunate run in with some dark eco there's a fortunate new addition to the series in the form of Dark Daxter. Occasionally Daxter will wig out and turn into an 8 foot spiky version of his former self, and take you through a stage composed of switch puzzles and butt kicking. You run around with an isometric style view punching robots, throwing balls of dark eco, and flipping switches to make a path for you to get from point A to B. There's also a nice little trick where Dark Daxter does an impression of the Tasmanian Devil from Bugs Bunny, and creates a whirl wind attack that will let you break down barriers. I found these levels to be fun, and despite one instance of getting myself stuck behind some laser beams with no escape, they play pretty smoothly.
While all of this jumping, fighting, and flying is going on in the main storyline, you'll also be presented with the option to do a variety of side missions. These range from new air combat and racing missions to acting as a bouncer in a bar. There's also the always present quest of collecting all of the hidden Precursor Orb eggs scattered across the world.
Nothing in this game is quite as big or refined as what you'll see in the previous Jak titles, but The Lost Frontier is still a lot of fun with decent replay value and I recommend it to fans of the series that are open to some new ideas.