Jak And Daxter HD Remake - It's About Time!

GP blogger, ShrimpyXD writes, "Recently Naughty Dog's game director Justin Richmond announced at an Uncharted 3 press conference that there will be an HD remake of the Jak and Daxter Precursor trilogy coming to the Playsation 3 sometime in 2012. I, being a complete fanatic about the Jak series, couldn't hold back gratuitous jumps for joy straight off my chair.

The PS3 has seen numerous HD remakes such as Sly Cooper and the Ico & Shadow of the Colossus collection, both of which received critical praise despite their age. It was a no-brainer to remake the Jak series because for those who enjoyed the games get another chance to relive the adventure, and for those who never experienced the Jak games get a chance to play one of the greatest PS2 game series of all time."

[superfranky]

dont care, i can play it on ps2 emulator absolutely free and the quality of picture will be better

[jacksonmichael]

Hooray! Piracy! :D

[ZombieAssassin]

I don't think the quality of picture will necessarily look better on an emulator, depends on how much they update the textures as I don't think emulators can really do that.

Gonna pick this up though as the only Jack and Daxter games I've played were the PSP ones. Any word yet on the studio that's remastering them?

[superfranky]

emulator can do anything, from better lightning to hi-res textures

hd collections on ps3 always just upscaling to 720 or 1080 and they charge almost full price for this crap

[DigitalRaptor]

@ superfranky

Most of the HD collections are more than just upscaling. Trophies/achievements, leaderboards in certain games, reworked textures, aspect ratio adjustment, certain other technical features like increased depth of field and frame rate... AND upscaling to 720 or 1080p. Possibly more in some cases. And there's worth in having 2-3 games on a single disc that certain gamers like myself appreciate.

You're talking about downloading these games for free btw. Many people originally played these games on consoles and want to keep it that way.

[thekiddfran]

You are not a real gamer.

[superfranky]

im just not stupid to buy something that i can get better and for free, sorry

[thekiddfran]

The dev's deserve our money. They are normal hard working people like us you know. You are not going to get far in life with that attitude I am afraid!

[padz1]

You need a slap.

[beavis4play]

superfranky - stealing doesn't make you smart - it makes you a criminal.

you're a complete loser.

at shadowaste (below) you can rationalize any actions in life - but what you're doing is illegal. even if you bought the game - that doesn't give you the option to distribute copies of it.

[LeonhartX]

Can't wait !!!

[Sillyace92]

Remake or Remaster?

[Michael-Jackson]

Remaster. There's still no 100% official announcement so I still treat it as a rumor until Sony says so.

[Shadowaste]

emulation is not piracy, if you own the original, you make your own iso of it, if you have never bought the game and you downloaded it from some site, then yes, that IS piracy.

These hd remakes are kool for people who are not tech savy enough, or do not care to learn about emulation.

Personally though, emulation rocks hardcore.

Check out kingdom hearts II on PCSX;

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

looks awesome and runs great on a low end machine!

[Heartnet]

you dont got to be tech savvy to download a free emulator off the internet along with as bunch of Iso's -_- and btw it probz is still illegal as ur making copies of that game by of which is a violation of the copyright agreement :P

Also Emulators are buggy and shit to begin with lol

[CloseSecond]

my kids never got to enjoy the original J&D...they are in for a treat!

[Canary]

A port is not a remake.

One involves tweaking a single file and adding trophies, the other involves building entire games over again from the ground up.

It's not a difficult concept.

[Heartnet]

tweaking? Yeh im sure its all that simple -_- and according to Hideo Kijima adding Trophies is not as easy as ur obv making it sound...

and a remake does not involve building entire games over.. it simply means getting the original models and applying more polygons and upscaling the textures so that they are clearer...

Strangers Odyssey is a gr8 example.. they got the original models and basically added 10x more polygons to give them a smoother look and made the textures HD....

If they were re-doing all the code re making all the textrures etc it would take an AGE and the game created would vary alot from the original

[Alos88]

I just wish Justin Richmond would confirm this officially on twitter or facebook or something.

[aPerson]

Awesome... now bring on Jak and Daxter 4! Even if it means having another studio do it (with guidance from Naughty Dog of course), like what Sanzaru Games are doing with Sly 4.

[LightofDarkness]

HD Remasters are getting a little out of hand, IMO. Don't even bother unless you're updating all/most of the textures, increasing draw distances and going for 1080p/60FPS. If you're simply going to upscale and leave the game content as is with trophy support, then screw that, it's not worth $30. It's also incredibly lazy and a sly way to squeeze an extra few bucks out of your loyal fanbase who deserve better.

[Ult iMate]

Yeah. And if they'll do detailed textures, you'll say you want bump-mapping and advanced shaders. Then you'll say you want more detailed polygon models and environment. And not to forget about true 1080p and 60fps or haters still gonna hate.

A complete remake will cost a lot more than $40 for three games on one disc.

[LightofDarkness]

Ah, the "slippery slope" fallacy. Gotta love that one.

Not at all would I want those things. That would constitute a REMAKE and not a simple REMASTER. A remastering would be simply to take the most glaring and obviously dated visual aspects and update them. Character models from the PS2 era aren't that bad, they don't look much worse when in HD. Textures, however, do. As do the draw distance and framerate. These are all things that are easily updated at a low cost. The game is already made, very little coding needs to be done and all voice-acting/SFX, cinematics and gameplay balancing are done. If PC modders can update an entire game's textures in a few months, in their spare time, FOR NOTHING, I think some paid professional industry artists won't have much trouble doing a similar if not better job in less time.

Or, we could just sit around and make excuses for why we are being asked to pay for the exact same game twice with little to no visual difference.

@badz149: them and Capcom, those loathsome gangsters.

[badz149]

you can say THAT about Ubisoft as they totally deserve it for their crappy PS2 ports! SONY is delivering nothing short of pure quality for all theirs!

[Ult iMate]

@ LightofDarkness
Nobody is forcing you to pay for what you do not want.
And once again updating all textures in three games will cost more than $40 for 3 games on one disc.

[Adolph Fitler]

Thats awesome....I loved the 1st game in the series...it was "THE" truly awesome & unique new platformer. I was a Mario fan (moreso the 2d original), but Mario on N64 was very impressive for many reasons, but they lost it with Sunshine, as that game sucked really, and Jak & Daxter picked up the platformer crown when Jak 1 came out, then Insomniac stole it from them with Ratchet, & for me, Jak was unable to reclaim it with there sequels, due to the fact they were trying to copy Ratchet, by introducing them into the game that didn't have the mechanics, controls or gameplay to truly excel, they felt very tacked on, & the sloppy & not part of the series.....then they introduced the whole GTA map & mission structures to it, which also ruined the originality & beauty of the original.

The series lost it's originality big time with these gameplay introductions...I tried to play & like them, but found the shooting controls & mechanics too awful & frustrating found myself abandoning the series for the games that started with these features & done them waaaay better.

I'm really glad that ND have moved onto UC series, as it is THE BEST game series I've ever experienced in my 30 so yrs of gaming....they truly are masterpieces for me, as they have so many elements that are made for games, like the whole Indiana Jones type gamplay, story & adventuring, awesome gunplay, excellent characters & voice acting, smooth, freakishly good gameplay & controllability, wickededly beautiful locales & vistas, the whole history & discovery elements... it's just like the continuation of Tomb Raider, only with new characters including the lead, & Tomb Raider became one of the greatest games ever back in the PS1 days.
But on saying that, I would love for ND to make another Jak & Daxter for PS3, but take it back to how the original was, as for me, that game is also one of teh greatest platformers of all time.

Now platformers are just a thing of the past, unless you like playing new ones with waaaaay outdated graphics on wii, or you get compilations like this...But what is the point if you've already played & finished them, or like me, you don't really care for 2 out of the 3 games. Luckily I am also a huge fan of, pretty much, the only current gen platformer on PS3 in Ratchet & I have only played TOD & part of POTB's, so I have the rest of Babes to finish, as well as my untouched copy of Crack in Time....so with A41's recent major floppage, it's great I have at least the last great one in the series to start & finish.

It's such a shame what's happend to the platforming genre, I for one, at 37yrs young will still support & play developers platformer games, if they are good. I am considering adding Alice In Wonderland to my collection, as I've heard really great things about it, but with many average reviews, I've been reluctant.....
So if anyone owns, or has played Alice: Madness Returns & can articulate any great reasons to get it, or not to, then please do so.

[aPerson]

"so with A41's recent major floppage, it's great I have at least the last great one in the series to start & finish"

How exactly is All 4 One a major flop???

[Ult iMate]

@ Adolph Fitler
Well said and bubbles.
I'm also a big fan of platforming genre. Mario, Crash, Sonic, Gex, Spyro and others... (Recently finished De Blob 2 and liked it)

As for Alice: Madness Returns it has realy great graphical art design from start to finish. It is also a surprisingly long game. But gameplay and level design seemed mediocre for me. I liked collecting all the secrets though - it was the best part of game. In the end I just enjoyed the scenery along the way. I bought the game for half price, so it was a fare deal for me.

[Cajun Chicken]

Personally can't wait.

[Ocean]

Will be adding this beauty to my collection as soon as it releases (just picked up Mass Effect 2 and Dead Space 2 from Asda for £11 and £10)

[bahabeast8619]

if you dnt wana bu hd collection thats fine but im gonna buy as much as i can specialy since i missed out alot of um from ps2 days

[maniac76]

like it wouldnt happen

[Quagmire]

Now all I need is:

GTA HD Collection
Ratchet and Clank HD Collection
Kingdom Hearts HD Collection
TimeSplitters HD Collection

[ShaunCameron]

How about a brand-new Jak & Daxter game instead?

[L6RD7BLU3]

I finally get to play these games, finally!

[thespaz]

I'm not sure if anyone here realizes this but thy usually don't have to update the textures. You see, when you make a game, you use very high res artwork, an then you compress it and scale it down for the hardware it's running on. Then, when you do an HD remaster of it, you go back to your high res art and drop it in (scaling as needed to run well)

Uncharted 3 no doubly has crazy high res art that you wont see in the final game but the developers have it in their project.