Pros: A tight, funny, beautiful, and polished platform game with plenty of extras.
Cons: Can nobody else make games like this? Anyone?
The bottom line: Daxter is an oasis in the desolate PSP wasteland, and a bar-setter for platform games in general.
The PSP has suffered an awkward childhood. Initially heralded as the messiah son of the PS2, and bolstered by an impressive lineup of launch games, it quickly fizzled into irrelevance. The shelves were lined with shoddy games and chuggy ports, and all the promise of the handheld wonder seemed empty. The goofy-looking and underpowered Nintendo DS, despite initial derision, was running rings around its slick and uberpowerful rival. This reviewer was even spurred to update his once-shining review of the Sony handheld to express dismay over the PSP's unexpectedly poor show.

And then came Daxter. Can one game save a console? I don't know... but this is one of the best platformers I have ever played, and it certainly stands a chance of regaining some of the momentum squandered in the 12 months since the PSP's birth.

The Basics:

Daxter is, of course, part of the Jak and Daxter series -- a series which I've never played, but now have full plans to. Essentially, it's Jak and Daxter 1 1/2, filling in the gaps which I'm told exist between the first two games of the series. The game opens with Jak's capture, and chronicles the events in Daxter's life which ultimately lead to Jak's rescue.

The game is a platformer, spiced up with some light melee combat, shooting, and driving. It also plays host to various mini-games which provide fun breathers from the central action, and allow the player to gain new abilities to help Daxter survive the main adventure.

Controls:

Platform games have had a notorious degree of trouble adjusting their controls to the three-dimensional era. Now, two generations removed from the platform-dominated 16-bit days, developers are still struggling to make platforming feel natural again.

This game, despite the limitations of the PSP controls, is one of the tightest next-generation platformers I've ever had the pleasure of controlling. The analog "nub" is put to good use, and Naughty Dog was smart to keep it's limitations in mind while designing the levels. Fine control of speed is generally unnecessary in Daxter, which is good because the nub's calibration has always been a little weird. In fact, he really only seems to have "walk" and "run" speeds, and you'll hardly ever walk. But the nub does allow solid freedom of directional control, and the platforming challenges generally revolve around this aspect, accordingly.

The face buttons handle the jumping, attacking, and hovering abilities. And the triggers are, thankfully, reserved for camera manipulation. The ability to rotate the camera on the fly, and without removing your thumbs from the actual controls, goes a long way towards making Daxter so playable.

All in all, Daxter cotnrols well, and has a solid camera which is tractable when need be.

Gameplay:

Great controls mean nothing without a great game, and Daxter delivers. The eponymous rodent is equipped with an electric flyswatter for melee combat, and a pesticide sprayer which, with the right accessories, can double as a sort of jet-pack.

Combat is mostly melee, with a simple but effective batch of maneuvers to add some variety. The flyswatter would be overly simplistic if the game were a combat-focused one, but since the battles are only small breaks in the platforming, the simplicity is justified.

The bug sprayer is mostly for combat support, and allows you to stun enemies to make swatting a little easier. Eventually, the sprayer can double as a flamethrower, providing a second means of dealing damage.

But the sprayer's primary function is hovering, and it absolutely shines. When sprayed in mid-air, Daxter can briefly keep himself afloat, or even gain some additional height when using the flamethrower attachment. Hover time can be extended by collecting feul mid-flight, and some of the most satisfying moments revolve around this mechanic.

The levels are nicely designed to accomodate Daxter's moves, even if they seem rather linear at times. Clever use of Daxter's skillset, coupled with some exploration, will reveal little sidepassages which contain bonus items, including orbs which are used to unlock mini-games that can earn you new abilities.

A few levels allow Daxter to drive a vehicle. The controls during these sequences are adequate, but not quite as sharp as the main platforming. For the most part, vehicular missions require that you visit some number of targets within a time limit, and aren't terribly interesting. A nice inclusion, but not as fleshed out as they should have been.

Extras:

Daxter packs a few interesting mini-games to break up the action. The most important ones are the amusing "dream sequences." By collecting the orbs scattered throughout the stages, Daxter can earn new dreams, accessed when he goes to sleep on the bed at home base. These dreams are good-natured movie spoofs casting Daxter, of course, as the hero. Most of them amount to timed button presses, but are pretty amusing nonetheless. I thought the timing on a few of them was a bit frustrating -- particularly the Lord of the Rings spoof, which has Daxter (in Gimli guise) hammering orcs from ladders at Helm's Deep -- but, for the most part, the dreams are an enjoyable challenge. Completing these dreams will gain health bonuses and new combat moves, so they are worth practicing.

Daxter also includes a "bug battle" mode, separate from the main game, which carries surprisingly high production values considering it's pretty much Rock-Paper-Scissors. Daxter can collect combat bugs by exploring the main stages, and pit them against each other in this separate mode. Special tokens, also sprinkled about the stages, can be put into play during battle to add a strategic element to what is otherwise a game of chance. This game can be played multiplayer in Ad Hoc mode, or against the computer. It's a fun diversion for a few minutes at a time, and its inclusion is a positive reflection of the care and attention that went into crafting the title.

Graphics:

Daxter sets the new bar on what the PSP can do. We've seen some nice graphics splashed across that little screen before, but nothing like this. And if the game looks nice in screen shots, you'll be flattened when you see it move. This game is alive.

Watching Daxter move around, you can't help but feel how genuinely the designers love their characters. Every motion is crafted with such skill and devotion -- I'm in awe of what they've done with him. The supporting characters fare just as well, even if they get less screen time.

The cut scenes, in particular, steal the show. Rendered in real-time, these interludes use an amped-up engine which adds spectacular detail, right down to Daxter's fur. Even simple conversations are overflowing with animated life. There are no talking heads here. Flawless lip-syncing, subtle body language -- it makes you realize how stiff and dull the rest of your games look.

There are a few graphical glitches here and there -- towards the edges of the screen, you'll frequently see polygons drop out of view, or their textures will "tremble" a bit. But these are nitpicks. Naughty Dog deserves nothing but high accolades for the living, breathing world they've stuffed into the PSP.

Sounds:

It's rare for me to grade sounds as anything more than average, but Daxter warrants some brief gushing. Apart from the boatloads of stellar voice acting (Sonic the Hedgehog should hang his spikey head in abject shame after hearing Daxter's cast), the gameplay sounds are excellent. The hum of your electric flyswatter spoofs Star Wars' lightsabers (especially considering the very funny scene in which Daxter receives this "elegant" weapon). His scampering footsteps ring perfectly, especially when he drops to crawl on all fours, adding even more life to his animation. And with a good set of headphones, the crisp sounds become even more powerful.

Summary:

Daxter is the first purely original game since Lumines to really make me happy to own a PSP. It is an engaging and highly playable game which stands, regardless of parent console, as one of the finest platformers of this generation. Daxter shows what a devoted team can accomplish on a handheld system, and ReadyAtDawn Studios deserves forty bucks from every single PSP owner, without exception.