Ratchet & Clank Review

There are a lot of platformers out there.  They seem to come on the scene in a steady stream and then quickly fade into obscurity, undone by their lack of originality or by a host of fatal flaws.  It's hard to be truly original in a genre that has been so done to death, but occasionally a game comes along that does a great job of doing things right, resulting in a fun gaming experience.  Ratchet & Clank is one of those games.

Ratchet & Clank is named for its two protagonists, a lombax (a fuzzy raccoon-cat creature) who loves to tinker with gadgets and a reject from a killer robot factory.  Clank was made way too tiny to be a good warrior, but the same glitch that made him diminutive also made him highly intelligent and gave him a pretty strong sense of decency.  It turns out that the evil robot factory has been working overtime to build an army for Chairman Drek, leader of the Blarg.  The Blarg have so polluted their world that they've decided to build a new one.  The problem is, they want to take all the good parts from everybody else's worlds.  Clank is determined to warn the galaxy and put an end to Drek's plan.  After crash-landing on Ratchet's backwater planet, he enlists Ratchet's help in his quest.

So begins your adventure.  For the most part you will control Ratchet as he goes from planet to planet with Clank strapped to his back.  Ratchet is never without his trusty wrench, which he can swing as a weapon, use to smash open crates, and turn bolts that act as switches.  In addition, Ratchet will come across more than 35 different weapons and gadgets.  Some of these are offensive and range from your usual blaster gun to some pretty imaginative means for dispatching enemies.  For example, there's a Glove of Doom which launches a bomb that explodes into little chomping robots with crazed eyes and a maniacal laugh that's great for taking out a group of enemies.  There's also a Suck Canon that sucks in smaller enemies so that you can fire them as missiles at others.

Other gadgets are useful for making your way around the various planets that serve as the game's levels.  There's a grappling hook which can be used to swing across chasms and another gadget that can be used to decode locks that play as mini-logic puzzles.  The gadgets help to increase Ratchet's number of moves to over 20 by the time you collect them all.  Clank can also receive upgrades that will give Ratchet some cool tricks, like the helicopter upgrade in the screenshot on this page.  Not to be outdone by Ratchet and all his toys, Clank will have the chance to shine on his own and you'll have the opportunity to control him solo in a few sequences.

Standing in our heroes' way is a multitude of alien creatures and killer robots with a variety of deadly attacks.  They come after Ratchet and Clank with guns, flamethrowers, buzz saws, big teeth ... you name it.  Most of them won't give you too much trouble, especially those early in the game, and you can usually take any given enemy out with several of the weapons at your disposal.  It would have made the game more challenging had the enemies been designed with only a weakness or two forcing you to pick the right weapon for the job, but as it stands you'll usually use the weapon for which you have the most ammo.

Destroying enemies rewards you with bolts, as does smashing the aforementioned crates.  Bolts are the currency of the game and can be used to purchase weapons and ammo, and to bribe or pay off certain key characters.  There are plenty of bolts in the game - you'll literally pick up tens of thousands of them.  Luckily Ratchet is a bit magnetic, so close counts when it comes to picking up bolts.

The levels are set on different planets in the game's galaxy.  Locating special "Infobots" rewards you with a video clip advancing the game's story and also with the location of a new world to visit.  When you first land on a world, you'll usually have your choice of paths to take, each leading to a separate goal.  You'll sometimes reach a stopping point because you're lacking the necessary gadget to get past an obstacle, and sometimes characters will ask you to fetch something for them from another world.  As a result you'll visit most of the planet's more than once as the game progresses.  Each planet also has a few "golden bolts" that are well-hidden or located in hard to reach places.  Some of these bolts won't even be obtainable until later in the game when you've gained a new gadget from another world.  Finding the golden bolts is not required to complete the game, but they add an additional degree of challenge and provide an excuse for you to re-explore the planets.

The planets themselves look fantastic.  The environments are very imaginative, and each planet has its own distinct character.  The textures and details are gorgeous, and each planet is teeming with life.  Traffic flies through the skies of metropolises and flying cranes shuffle logs around a forest world, to name just a couple of the things that give the planets so much atmosphere.  The planets are also inhabited by a myriad of very animated characters, literally.  The over the top personalities are complemented nicely by the range of facial expressions and body language, as well as good quality voice-acting and a clever script.

Control in the game is excellent, and you'll never walk off a ledge because the controller is slow to respond.  Camera control is usually pretty good, and the press of a button will cause the camera to instantly swing behind Ratchet.  You'll still find the occasional tight quarters that will give the camera fits, but for the most part the camera doesn't factor into play - which is the way it should be.

The game is longer than most platformers, so you'll get plenty of gameplay for your money.  There aren't really any impossible puzzles or frustratingly hard areas in the game, so most gamers will be able to complete it.  The game saves automatically, has numerous checkpoints, and gives you infinite lives, so you're never forced to replay large areas of the game because you forgot to save or lost your last life.  Another nice touch is that once you've made your way down a long path and have accomplished your objective there is usually some sort of transporter to give you an express ride back to the beginning.  It's good that you are not forced to slog your way back to the starting point each time.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 92%.  Strap a robot to your back and pick up a few weapons, and you'll be ready for an exciting ride.  Ratchet & Clank is highly recommended for platformer fans, and will probably be enjoyable to most other gamers as well.