CES 2006: Daxter goes solo on PSP

Everyone’s favorite sarcastic and irreverent… umm… okay, I’ll be honest. I have no idea what Daxter is. Some sort of weasel? A hedgehog without spines? I dunno, you tell me. Anyways, back to the point. Daxter from the “Jak and Daxter” franchise for the PS2 is finally striking out on his own and coming to the PSP. It being CES and all, Daxter happened to fall into the hands of the folks over at IGN, and they’ve got a full preview of what it has in store. And let me tell you – the news is good. IGN is touting this as one of the best looking PSP games to date, with character animations being smooth and the controls being slick and responsive, a must for the Jak and Daxter series. Daxter will be terrorizing the PSP in March.

One thing that the series has undoubtedly excelled at is animation quality, and Daxter is no different. The animation fidelity here is absolutely fantastic, with Daxter having what is easily the best and most realistic motions we’ve seen on the PSP thus far. As we’ve mostly dealt with robotic spiders, it’s hard to judge how his opponents will fair, but we doubt it’ll be any less excellent. Really, this is AAA animation quality that you only find in a handful of console games.

Along with excellent animation, the Jak & Daxter series has also always had spot-on controls, and again, Daxter has seen this implemented to perfection. The controls are extremely tight, and though Daxter’s animations are all blended together for smooth animation, it in no way inhibits your control over him.

This is partly due to the excellent framerate, which in the sections of the game we’ve seen is smooth as silk. Never a hitch in sight, we’re easily reminded of the PS2 series’ fantastic visual silkiness. That’s not to say that its visuals have suffered for this as the game looks quite good, implementing the classic style from the franchise that we all love. Granted, much of what we played took place in a wine cellar or some such, replete with steam pipes and bottomless pits for whatever reason, but what we’ve seen looks great.

[Read] Everyone’s favorite sarcastic and irreverent… umm… okay, I’ll be honest. I have no idea what Daxter is. Some sort of weasel? A hedgehog without spines? I dunno, you tell me. Anyways, back to the point. Daxter from the “Jak and Daxter” franchise for the PS2 is finally striking out on his own and coming to the PSP. It being CES and all, Daxter happened to fall into the hands of the folks over at IGN, and they’ve got a full preview of what it has in store. And let me tell you – the news is good. IGN is touting this as one of the best looking PSP games to date, with character animations being smooth and the controls being slick and responsive, a must for the Jak and Daxter series. Daxter will be terrorizing the PSP in March.

One thing that the series has undoubtedly excelled at is animation quality, and Daxter is no different. The animation fidelity here is absolutely fantastic, with Daxter having what is easily the best and most realistic motions we’ve seen on the PSP thus far. As we’ve mostly dealt with robotic spiders, it’s hard to judge how his opponents will fair, but we doubt it’ll be any less excellent. Really, this is AAA animation quality that you only find in a handful of console games.

Along with excellent animation, the Jak & Daxter series has also always had spot-on controls, and again, Daxter has seen this implemented to perfection. The controls are extremely tight, and though Daxter’s animations are all blended together for smooth animation, it in no way inhibits your control over him.

This is partly due to the excellent framerate, which in the sections of the game we’ve seen is smooth as silk. Never a hitch in sight, we’re easily reminded of the PS2 series’ fantastic visual silkiness. That’s not to say that its visuals have suffered for this as the game looks quite good, implementing the classic style from the franchise that we all love. Granted, much of what we played took place in a wine cellar or some such, replete with steam pipes and bottomless pits for whatever reason, but what we’ve seen looks great.

[Read]