How to complete Precursor Basin in Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

After your first full Zoomer level in Fire Canyon, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy treats you to a much less dangerous vehicle level in the form of the Precursor Basin. Although less lethal to Jak and Daxter, it is arguably much more difficult to complete than Fire Canyon due to the fact that it offers some very difficult objectives.

Precursor Basin offers many driving challenges, from setting a new record on a race track to driving through all the rings to aggressive green eco-based gardening. Players hoping to earn each trophy Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy will need to master the Zoomer to collect all the items in the Precursor Basin.

Herd moles into their holes

A nice and easy start to the challenge, blind moles run around the Precursor Basin's first section needing help getting back to their holes. Of course, the best way to do this is to run at them with the Zoomer to scare them into running. Chase them around and take advantage of the jump to turn sharply and stay on the tail and drive them back to their holes. Once you collect four of them back in their holes, you can go back to the geologist in Rock Village to get a Power Cell. Might as well get everything else done in this area before we go, huh?

Capture Flying Lurkers

Hanging around in the same area as the mole, you'll find Flying Lurkers that flee when Zoomer approaches. You have to chase them and crash into them to achieve this goal, and they take some pretty tricky routes around the Precursor Basin. The best thing you can do with these guys is to cut them off when they swing, like in the places shown in the pictures above, so you can take them out. The last one will drop a Power Cell.

Beat the record time at the Gorge

The Gambler in the Village is hoping to recoup his losses, so he needs us to beat the Gorge record time. This short but tricky racetrack can be found near the entrance to the Precursor Basin, by hugging the right wall of the area until you find the turn.

The time we need to hit is 45 seconds, which is tight but totally doable once you grab Zoomer. When you start the course, you'll likely immediately encounter a Lurker, which teaches you that Lurkers can be used to launch Zoomer into the air for a higher jump. More importantly, at the moment you then have to drive past two pillars with some Blue Eco between them. If you can squeeze between the pillars and grab the Blue Eco it will give Zoomer a speed boost for a short while, although you should be careful as there is a sharp turn on the way up. Keep left and use a right hop to quickly get up the slope past the pillars and drive up.

Ride up and around the slope to get to the upper part of the track, where you have to thread between moving pistons, with Blue Eco available halfway through a tunnel and also just past the end of the tunnel, on the left. You'll also encounter several Dark Eco Crate obstacles, which will damage and slow you down if you run through them, although they're usually on the left and right sides of the track and can be avoided by sticking to the middle.

You will drive straight into a pit past the last pair of Dark Eco Crates. To do this turn effectively, you want to jump just as you reach the edge of the pit and do a 180 turn, so you land facing the next stretch of track. There is also Blue Eco available at the bottom if you hang to the left of the pit (so it will be on the right after the 180.) Weave between the pistons past the pit, and then you have a choice. If you're feeling confident, you can use Lurker here to jump onto the raised area and grab some more Blue Eco for a speed boost, although this can easily backfire and ruin a good run if your target is off. Alternatively, take the safer and lower, but slightly slower, road to the right. Anyway, you'll want to stay as far to the left as possible so you don't have to deal with the Dark Eco crates further down the track, then thread between two more sets of pistons to cross the finish line.

Once you go back to Rock Village after beating the time, you can talk to Gambler to get a Power Cell. Again, I suggest clearing the rest of the Precursor Basin first. If you can break 40 seconds on the track, you'll get a trophy too, so it's worth doing a few extra laps if you're close.

Get Power Cell Over the Lake

The Power Cell floating over the lake is easy enough to spot, but reaching it requires careful driving and good timing. Starting from the slope shown in picture 1 (which you may recognize from me chasing Lurkers before), you need to go up and around the hole. Drive across the narrow bridge and use the jump to get across the gap between the two islands (image 2 and image 3), then jump with the ramp on the other island to get over to the location shown in image 4. From here, move forward up the slope, do the 180 halfway up, then jump from the top over the three islands shown in picture 5. This will take you to a final pair of islands connected by another narrow bridge. Drive at top speed and jump from the other island towards the Precursor Orb to grab it.

Cure the dark eco-infected plants

This one is a nice and simple one, perfect for a break after some vehicle platforming. You need to charge up with Green Eco and then run through the purple plants to cure them. If you take too long they will start to grow back, but as long as you drive quickly and carefully you should be able to reduce them until they are all gone at a steady rate. Remember to use the jump to make sharper turns, and use the Green Eco Vent to refill if you're running low. It often takes a few runs to cure it all, but you get a Power Cell for your trouble.

Navigate the purple precursor rings

Next on the list is the Purple Precursor Ring challenge. As you fly through the first ring, a new one will appear and you must race to pass each ring before time runs out. The Purple Ring challenge is the easier of the two ring challenges here, so I'll just cover the harder parts of the course.

The first slightly terrifying moment is when a ring appears in the air next to a natural bridge, shown above. Take the plunge and jump right off the bridge and through the ring, as the next ring will be at ground level. You'll have to do the same a bit later after dodging a hole in the middle of the raised track, but hitting this one will complete the course and get you the Power Cell.

Navigate the blue precursor rings

The other set of Precursor Rings, the blue ones, are much harder to deal with. This track starts near the hill you have to go up to get the Power Cell across the lake, but instead of going up the hill and jumping over three islands, you have to go left and slightly down to find the first ring.

The first place where things get tricky on the route is when you reach the pillar shown above. You will drive right around it and then back towards the lake, hitting three rings along the way. The ring above the lake is high up in the air, so you want to hit the rocks and jump when you hit them to bounce Zoomer up into the air and through the ring.

After going around the Zoomer Trans-pad (make sure you don't accidentally drive into it and get off, as it could ruin your attempt) and go back through the Precursor vault, you'll be near the Dark Eco Infected Plants (or flower that replaced them if you've already healed them) and need to do a tricky jump from a hill to hit a ring in the air.

The next place you're likely to slip up is after gliding across the lake to pass another ring, as there's a fork here and the next ring doesn't spawn until you've passed the last one. You have to turn right to go around the pillar on the right to hit the next ring, then keep turning right to go back past the pillar and turn left to hit another ring. After passing over a hill and through another ring, turn sharp right and then turn left after a moment to pass through another ring.

The ring after that is on the edge of the lake, and once you drive through it you'll want to go up the slope to hit another ring as you get onto higher ground. You have to move around to the left of the hole, driving carefully on these narrow paths, to get the next ring after that.

From here it's a winding but easy route to the finish, with the final ring hanging over the edge at the top of a slope. Ride through it to get a Power Cell.

Free the 7 scout flies

Again, there are seven scout flies to collect in this area. Grabbing all seven will give you a Power Cell, here's how to find them. The first can be placed near the Mole Hole, as shown in the image above.

To reach the second Scout Fly Box, you must head towards the hill shown in the first image above, as the box is at the top. The third can be found by continuing across the narrow bridge near the second box and looking for it on the right. (Near where the purple precursor ring was, as shown in image 3.)

A fourth Scout Fly Box is on the right side of the raised area with a hole in the middle, as shown in the first image above. A fifth can be found below it, easily found by dropping through the hole.

You can get the sixth scout fly box after jumping over the three islands at the top of the slope (you'll remember them from the power cell across the lake.) The seventh scout fly box is next to the first of the blue Precursor rings.