PixlBit

Light on features, the Jak and Daxter Collection is likely to have limited appeal.

Jak & Daxter Collection has been a long time coming. Given Sony's track record for HD remasters and Naughty Dog's rise in popularity thanks to Uncharted, it was surprising that these PS2 heroes hadn't been given the HD treatment earlier. Even odder, the game has been an extremely low profile launch for Sony, as they have done very little to promote the title and its availability is still extremely limited. Being that the collection is completely devoid of bonuses, and next to no clean up work has been done on these aging classics, it's not entirely surprising that Sony is giving this one the silent treatment.

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When five of ten puzzles are borrowed from past episodes, we have a problem.

After playing through the past three Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math games, I’ve built up a memory bank full of the puzzles that have been featured in each one. It’s pretty easy, as each game only contains ten puzzles and each feature repeat puzzles from prior installments. The Great Gateway Grab stays true to the series’ roots, as it has a total of three repeat puzzles with two that are extremely similar, though not identical, to past puzzles. When half of the puzzles in the game are repeats, it becomes very hard to suggest anyone buy it if they’ve been following along with the series.

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The company had strong sales in Japan to make up for poor international numbers.

Namco Bandai has announced that its quarterly profits have increased by 48%. This is due to a 17% increase in Japan and despite a 27% decrease in the US and a 5% decrease in Europe. The period in question is from the beginning of October to the end of December 2011.

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The finale of the NES trilogy is truly a classic to behold.

The year was 1990. It is about a year before the Super Nintendo makes its debut, but the NES is enjoying brisk sales of both hardware and games. The previous year Nintendo released its first handheld system, the Game Boy, and unleashed the addiction known as Tetris. This was, however, in North America. As I eluded to in Mario Mania #2, a Famicom player often had a different, exclusive set of hardware to play with than his counterpart in North America. The Japan-only accessory, the Famicom Disk System, was one of them. 

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