Before Insomniac was known for its creative weapon design in Resistance, it was famous for its creative weapon design in Ratchet & Clank. For those that haven’t played the series, if you had to shoehorn these games into a genre, you’d label them action-platformers - the combat is frantic, there’s some skill required getting around the various planets and it’s all topped off with light puzzle solving. That, however, would be missing the truth of the matter; the hook at the heart of these games that keeps players on the line, jonesing for just one more mission.
No, it’s not the characters, although there’s no doubt they’re endearing and anchor the series’ zany sense of humour. And no, it’s not the unique visual style that eschews a quest for detail and runs with stylised, colourful worlds and wonderful animations.
The answer is somewhat less evocative when boiled down to a single word: acquisition. These games are all about smashing stuff up to harvest the precious bolts contained within, which are then spent on a wondrous array of weaponry. New weapons means more ways to smash stuff up, and thus the cycle of Ratchet & Clank’s gameplay continues.
Seeing what weapon is around the corner is a huge part of the fun. Sure, I’m currently tossing bombs that set off miniature nuclear explosions, but what I could really do with is a way to suck my enemies into black holes. Or turn them into sheep.
The weapons just keep coming, and the thirst for bolts – the series’ currency – never abates. You
will smash every crate you see, no matter how far out of your way, and you
will love every moment of it, because this series understands that destruction and acquisition are pure pleasure principle. It’s chaotic and it’s fun, and it’s built on truly solid gameplay foundations that shine almost as much today as they did back in the PS2 era.
This collection contains Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank 2: Locked & Loaded (or Going Commando as it’s known in some territories) and Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, and they’ve never looked better. The stylised art direction really pops at 1080p, with the team’s decision to emphasise colour and personality over hyper-detailed textures as good a choice in high def as it was for the original releases. Sure, the visuals aren’t going to rival the Future titles, which were created from the ground up for PS3, but these worlds will still impress. The games obviously still run at 60 frames per second too, which was always one of the reasons they felt so great to play in the first place.
That said, if you want to play them in 3D, you’re going to have to cop a drop in resolution to 720p and a drop in frame rate to 30 frames per second. Chances are you either like playing in 3D or you don’t, but I can’t imagine anyone loving the 3D experience enough to be prepared to lose that buttery control.
I should also mention that there are portions of the games that still run in 4:3 as opposed to 16:9, simply because they’re FMV that the team hasn’t been able to create in widescreen (acceptable, but the drop in resolution is very noticeable) or they’re in-engine cutscenes that are now running at a higher resolution but aren't in widescreen (less acceptable). None of this influences the gameplay, obviously.
Robot sidekicks. Every game should have 'em.
Playing through the three games again, you can really see Insomniac grow in confidence with each title. There’s a particularly noticeable leap in quality from Ratchet & Clank to R&C2: Locked & Loaded. The controls are much more responsive, the weapons have more oomph, the presentation is slicker and the characters have been nicely refined. The first game is still enjoyable, but you won’t want to go back to it after playing the sequel.
Across the trilogy as a whole, the games evolve in ways both minor and major. Weapon upgrades are introduced in the second title, for instance, meaning the more you use a weapon, the more powerful it becomes. This creates a neat balance between acquisition and maximising your current arsenal. Other upgrades are also introduced, letting players boost Ratchet’s armour and his ship.
Locked & Loaded also sees Ratchet learn how to strafe properly (as opposed to the clunky hover-jet option in the original), and this additional control fidelity is used to great effect to really put combat – and third person shooter-style play – front and centre. This really hits top gear in Up Your Arsenal.
There’s one thing that doesn’t really change across the games, and that’s the balance of combat, platforming and puzzle solving. Combat is absolutely the focus, but each world our heroes visit generally has at least a couple of missions, which makes exploring each new destination fun, and players are always buying new weapons and unlocking new gadgets, which in turn open up new areas and provide new challenges.
There are certain staples across multiple titles – boots for grinding rails or walking on magnetic walkways, the Swingshot for grappling across gaps and swinging between points, but it’s the one-off gadgets that keep things interesting. In the first game, for instance, Ratchet has the Hydrodisplacer, which lets him empty certain pools of water and fill others. This factors into a number of the game’s admittedly light puzzles, but is well used. Riffing on the water theme, the second game gives him the Thermanator, which he can use to freeze and thaw bodies of water. Two waterfalls, for instance, may be frozen to allow him to wall-jump his way up to a higher level.
Variety is absolutely the spice of life in these games, so – among many other things – you’ll be hacking security systems, engaging in space combat, duking it out in arena-style combat challenges and playing Qwark 2D platformers. Hell, the third game has an infiltration mission where Ratchet’s in disguise and must talk his way past the guards (“Would you like to buy a pre-owned Crotchitizer?” being a failed conversational gambit), while Clank is directing a monkey sidekick using a gun that shoots bananas. That, right there, is hard to hate.
Of course, missions like that are the exception to the rule. Combat is the order of the day, and it steadily ramps up across the three games, until you’re wading through relatively large-scale battles in Up Your Arsenal. The player’s steadily-growing arsenal in each title means there’s always new ways to approach combat too, and while not all the weapons are indispensable – some are just plain clunky, in fact – it’s satisfying having so much choice.
It’s also worth emphasising that the more traditional weapons work wonderfully well and provide a great foundation. The games’ equivalents of shotguns, grenade launchers and machine guns are spot-on, balancing out the more exotic weapons nicely.
These games represent a true elevation of the crate to celebrity status.
All this adds up to a series that’s a whole lot of fun, but not necessarily challenging. The first game in particular – despite the more awkward controls – is an absolute cakewalk for its first five hours or so. Locked & Loaded and Up Your Arsenal ramp up the challenge somewhat, but players looking for tough combat and taxing puzzles won’t find that here. Thankfully, I was having too much fun to care.
The challenge is designed for an all-ages audience, and so too are the characters and story. Like the gameplay, however, they work on multiple levels. Younger players will love the zany villains and the physical comedy, while older players will dig the more absurdist touches: Qwark’s hand-drawn battle plans in Up Your Arsenal or the aforementioned banana launcher.
It’s also fun seeing how Ratchet and Clank evolve as a team. Ratchet is very much a reluctant hero in the original, and annoyed by Clank’s sense of duty towards saving the galaxy. Celebrities on the wane at the start of the second game, Ratchet is itching to get out and save the day once more, but by the third game he’s all but overshadowed by Clank’s star turn in the Secret Agent Clank TV series.
Insomniac have a similar amount of fun with Qwark, the archetypal barrel chested, square-jawed cowardly hero, who falls from grace and winds up living on a jungle planet, under the impression he’s a monkey. He’s far from a unique character, but is used to good effect, alongside villains like Dr Nefarious.
Source : ign[dot]com
