This is a review of the Video Game Soundtrack Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier by James Dooley.
“This is a fine action score and you forget that this isn’t a grown-up action game score like Modern Warfare 2″
James Dooley has recently been dabbling in video games and this his second of the year. The first one was inFamous with Amon Tobin and others, a good score if I have to be honest. Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier is of course a different venture. It follow the characters Jak and Daxter on yet another adventure. It’s the 6th game in the series and James Dooley’s debut as composer in that respect. Jak and Daxter are on a mission to find more Eco because of the shortage in their world. They are attacked by pirates and are stranded somewhere and the game begins. So what has James Dooley to offer this game series?
Track List
01. Hellcat To The Rescue (*****)
02. The Brink (****)
03. Galleon Conflict (****)
04. Laser Defense (****)
05. Sounds Of Fardrop (****)
06. Dark Eco Warrior Training Camp (***)
07. Super-Dark-Daxter Rampage, Go! (***)
08. Behemoth Air Battle (****)
09. Parallel Universe (*****)
10. Voices Of Aeropa (****)
11. Ambushed (***)
12. A Captain’s Sacrifice (*****)
13. Daxterball (***)
14. Jak vs. The Arborcider (****)
Kids Stuff
This is a game for the kids mostly and of course longtime Jak and Daxter fans. the graphics indicate as much and the score is definitively action oriented for the most part. It starts of in heroic manner with an over the top heroic action theme which starts off pretty basic. I thought it was a homage to the old midi music we used to listen to back in the day (yeah I’m old). After that, the cues are breaking away in pure action manner. There are hardly any breathing room between the cues and this is the way the game goes as well. There are always something to do and it’s usually very exciting. The score needs to match this as well and does to some degree.
It’s interesting to listen to James Dooley stuff. He is definitely a Hans Zimmer protégé and you can hear parts of Pirates of the Caribbean in here, but he also has proven that he can do other types of scores as well with Pushing Daisies fresh in the mind. His work on inFamous, The Mars Underground and now Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier has taken a turn (and these are some of his latest scores). The feeling of these scores are that these are Remote Control Production stuff and that’s fine (for those that enjoy that). There is not so much to gather from this if you expect something wildly original.
Not Wildly Original
Wildly original is not what James Dooley were going for and he even goes over the top with choirs (not unlike a certain Zimmer) in cues like ‘Behemoth Air Battle’, ‘Parallel Universe’ and ‘A Captain’s Sacrifice’. He even stretches it a little further in ‘Parallel Universe’ and ‘A Captain’s Sacrifice’ where it sounds like trailer music. What I mean by that is that it’s a little more explosive than normal scoring, where you go for impact instead of consistency. That is quite refreshing actually as I’m a big fan of trailer music and it is the best cues of the score.
Another refreshing bit is the cue ‘Voices of Aeropa’ that isn’t an action cue. It makes for a great change of pace and let you breathe if only for a short while. The cue isn’t great to be honest, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s right where it’s supposed to be. Ok, so it changes pace and has some action parts later in that cue, but that’s the nature of this score and the game. Most cues feel only slightly different and they have the same feeling about them. There’s action, but there’s energetic action. The themes has been lost in the search of it, but that’s fine. It doesn’t really need one. It has the first cue ‘Hellcat to the Rescue’ which is more than fine for this purpose.
Conclusion
This is a fine action score and you forget that this isn’t a grown-up action game score like Modern Warfare 2. It feels like it could work well for that at times, but I like that James Dooley went this road with Jak and Daxter. They deserve a proper action score and they get it here no questions asked. Sure there’s not much originality here in the music itself except the fact that is for a Jak and Daxter game. I hope James Dooley keep making video game music as it is clearly something he masters.
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Listen to Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier by James Dooley below:
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Listening to the demo video you put up, it sounds really great. I’m going to have to check this one out.
Jeremiah Pena´s last blog ..Otherland
This one surprised me. Sounds really good at times. Go check it out!