Over the past few years, we’ve been starting to see something beautiful happen: fans of classic console games take on old codes and create original PC versions of games that never saw an official release. We’ve seen that with some Nintendo gamesbut we see it now with the PlayStation platform as well.
This is not a transfer in the multi-platform sense we are used to, nor is it a simulation. This is a complete recompilation of the game code so that Jack and Daxter: Legacy of the Precursorwhich was released on PS2 in 2001, now works as a native app on PC.
The project, now 80% completed, is some kind of amazing bullshitbecause it turns out Jack and Daxter It was written in GOAL, a custom Lisp language developed by Naughty Dog, which means that the small team working on it would have to “decode the original game into human-readable GOAL code” and then “develop our own compiler for GOAL and recompile it.” Game code for x86-64″.
Interestingly, it’s not a direct port either, as some small changes have been made mostly to the game, mostly in terms of options available to players:
We’ve added a ton of options to the game’s settings (and removed some that don’t make sense) so you can get a more modern, or PS2-like experience if you decide to. It’s up to you! There are also a bunch of extra goodies and secrets added to find out. We aim to keep the core gameplay (controls, physics, behaviors, etc.) identical so if you find any issues or differences with this feel free to let us know.
Some of these “more modern” options include better translation controls, custom resolution, and camera controls, but in terms of overall gameplay, they’ve made orbs “easier to see”.
Although the project is not 100% complete, it is downloadable (and can be overcome, there are probably only bugs) From the project’s github site. Here are some snapshots of the project running in 4K at 60fps: