Personal Completion Info:
Date: 12/22/2008
Time: 10:00 PM
Length: ~20 hrs
Other:
Golden Bolts: 31/40
Golden Weapons: 0/10
Skill Points: 4/30
*Only played through the game once, didn’t use any guides or walkthroughs.
It always saddens me that the majority of gamers are so eager to label any game that’s been out longer than a month as old, thereby deeming it graphically and technically inferior to the newest offerings. While I appreciate their zeal for wanting to play the latest and greatest, there are so many past titles that deserve to be remembered and experienced. They may not look or sound as pretty when compared to the current generation, but their gameplay remains impeccable. Ratchet and Clank (2002) is one such title that fits this mold.
R&C is a platforming game with a splash of shooter thrown in to spice things up. There’s plenty of combat, explosions, and exploration to satisfy any gamer’s palette, and the pacing is fast enough to keep things from becoming stale without feeling frantic.
You play as Ratchet, a Lombax (a humanesque, catlike creature) mechanic, who is rudely interrupted by something streaking down from the heavens and crash landing nearby. This turns out to be a robot, known as Clank, who informs our hero of impending doom at the hands of an evil galactic corporate suit known as Drek. Apparently Drek is the leader of a dying, polluted planet and has decided to create his own by tearing pieces from other planets and stitching them all together. It’s a fun, silly premise that works well with the lighthearted tone of the game.
Level design was fantastic. Each of the 20 or so worlds was meticulously crafted to house its own theme in terms of design, graphics, and music. From navigating a bustling, beating metropolis to dog fighting foes in an intense space battle, there was a wide variety of things to see and do. My minor complaint would be that nearly every world was divided into three zones that could be done in any order. While this was great from a non-linear standpoint, each subsequent world became too predictable in terms of what to expect. Given that trivial gripe, the game looked and sounded amazing and kept me immersed for the entire journey.
Gameplay was spot-on. There’s nothing worse than a platformer with shoddy controls (I’m looking at you Vexx), especially since the majority of level design, for this genre, tends to involve leaping across giant chasms or some other doom-ridden void. Thankfully R&C mastered this potential difficulty and also managed to keep the number of impossible jumps to a minimum. Running, jumping, double jumping, shooting, flying, swimming; everything flowed beautifully and was simple to execute. Even the camera was friendly; only a couple of times did I manage to confuse it because I got myself wedged in a corner.
R&C was not a difficult game. It’s very user friendly and can be mastered in less than half an hour. In terms of combat, encounters were a cake walk for the most part. You can bump into enemies without taking damage, plus they attack slowly, leaving themselves wide open for a counter attack. That’s not to say all battles were easy, but even the tougher boss battles didn’t take long to figure out. However, the means in which to dispatch enemies was a bit of a mixed bag. There were a total of nine different weapons to acquire (eight of which could be purchased), but none of them were really all that super (except the uber expensive one-hit-kills RYNO) compared to the standard wrench you start out with. Not only is the wrench excellent for melee, but it can be thrown for short-ranged attacks; plus it doesn’t require any ammunition. I went through a good 80-90% of the game using the mechanic’s tool alone, as I was conserving ammo for boss fights or large groups of enemies. Despite this flaw, combat was still a blast; I just wish the weapons could have been better fleshed out (incentive to use them, more available ammo, etc).
I’m a big fan of Ratchet and Clank, if you couldn’t tell by now. The story was fun, controls were tight, and the majority of puzzles and enemy encounters were enjoyable. I’m looking forward to playing through the game again in the near future and trying to finish collecting the stuff I missed the first go around. If you’re a fan of the platforming genre and have the means to play R&C, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
Rating: 9.4 / 10
Recommendation: Buy
