Sony's PSP had a fantastic 2005 but it didn't have any great platform games, but after a year of boring and played out adventure titles, developer Ready at Dawn has finally ended the drought with Daxter, an imaginative and immensely entertaining videogame that looks gorgeous and plays excellently.

Daxter stars...well...Daxter, the wise cracking yet loveable sidekick of Jak, but in this game, which takes place between the first and second Jax & Daxter games, Jak has been captured and it's up to hi furry friend to rescue him, but that's not how the game begins. At the onset, Daxter is down on his luck when he takes a job as an exterminator, where he must travel to various locales and swat bugs.

None of what I've seen in Daxter is particularly sophisticated, as it's nothing more than simple platform hopping, item collecting, and button mashing, and in a few sequences I got to pilot this hover craft. This is nothing new, but the primary reason why Daxter is so amazing is because of how well all of these components have been programmed. Ready at Dawn has just done an amazing job designing the platform mechanics, the detailed environments (which look almost as gorgeous as in the Jak & Daxter PS2 games), and crafting the narrative, which is cute as well as gripping. Plus, the controls feel right. The camera can get a little annoying because it's controlled with the right and left triggers, and the fact that Daxter can't swim is an old school platform no-no that I thought we left behind us ten years ago, but aside from those gripes, and they're minor, the game's just a joy to play.

Another reason why I'm so enamored with Daxter is because of how good it looks and sounds. It features a level of polish that's uncharacteristic of most PSP titles. Daxter, for example, is sporting some fur shading in the cut scenes, and by and large, the character models as well as the environments look outstanding. There is a bit of slow down, especially during the scenes where Daxter's boss Osmo is talking to him while I'm moving him around, but that doesn't really mar the overall experience.

Then there's the music and the voice acting, both of which are high quality and fun to listen to. The soundtrack is reminiscent of the Jak & Daxter titles, and the same goes for the voice acting, but everyone involved did a marvelous job delivering their lines.

I'm also jazzed about the bonus content. In addition to a simplistic multiplayer game where you can pit collected bugs against a friend's, there are also these cool dream sequences, mini games that you'll unlock as you do that are also fun to mess around with. The first is a humorous take on The Matrix films, where Daxter, as Neo, must fight off wave after wave of "agents". The gameplay is nothing more than pressing face buttons at the appropriate time, but it's a nice diversion from the main quest.

Daxter is a superb platform adventure that I highly recommend, and Ready at Dawn is to be commended for coming to bat for the PSP and filling the void that's plagued the system for almost a year. Purchase it immediately.

Our Final ScoreExcellent

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