It is too hot. The British temperament does not deal well with extremes of weather, and at the moment if I’m at home I’m generally reduced to a sluggish sack by about 2 at the latest. Time, then, for the PS2. So hot has it been lately though that even the relative mental exertion of LMA Manager 2003 has proved too much and I’ve been reduced to the ultimate in gaming inertia: wandering round already-completed bits of Jak And Daxter.
J & D is a free-roaming platform-style game with cartoony characters and a marvelously gentle learning curve. It’s good fun to play but what really makes it is its world-creating aesthetic. The landscapes the heroes start off in are lush and the vibe is gloriously lazy: you stroll round beaches, swim in the sea a bit, pick up yummy looking eggs, beat up the occasional crab, and have a leisurely yomp around hills which are luxuriantly green. As evening falls in the game the colour palette shifts to blanketing, warm purples and blues, with the lights from distant fires visible as you turn to look at the village. It’s blissful, a hippie paradise without the smells and the bongos.
(OK, with the bongos – but even their soundtrack presence is bearable).
The whole thing is one of the best ambient gameplay experiences I know, a refreshing wallow compared to the cynical, thumb-wearing frenetics of most console titles. Naturally, then, Jak And Daxter 2 will be ‘grittier’ and revel in an ‘urban’ setting. And so another dream of idle gamers sadly dies.