Game Review: Ratchet And Clank

Ratchet and Clank is a Action packed 3D platform, shooter game made for the Playstation 2 by Insomniac games (The same company that recently produced the latest Spiderman game for the PS4. )

Storyline: Ratchet, a thriving mechanic/engineer is keen to build and invent new technology including his own spaceship to travel to other planets, suddenly one day a meteor hits his home Planet, he investigates and finds a small Robot which will later be called Clank, together they slowly piece together information given by infobots (portable TV’s used to send messages (cutscenes)) that were not intended for them to find. Chairman Drek, a mastermind villain is planning to rip parts of different Planets to create the perfect World without caring about the damage he has caused to the other Worlds. Ratchet and Clank try to reach out to an infamous hero called Captain Qwark to stop this evil plan but through false news in the media they believe the wrong information and get involved in intergalactic battles on multiple planets. Gameplay: The first Ratchet & Clank game is very revolutionary and in my opinion the best in the series. It was a great game I played through my childhood, I never really cherished this game until I recently re-played it and I couldn’t stop playing it. This game deserves more praise.

Tutorial level: The starting level is a tutorial level but not too boring and unskippable, being the first in the series it has to be forced on the player. The level starts with a cutscene to show the two characters back story, once finished you are loaded in the game as Ratchet, multiple tutorial messages pop up at the bottom of the screen with a voice over which can be changed with the settings to most European languages or turned off completely. The level is created for the player to learn the combat system; using the Square button on the PS2 controller you can swing the wrench that was previously shown in the cutscene to destroy crates that give you bolts (The games currency). At the start of the game the player might try to get as many bolts as possible but slow down after playing for a long time. This extends the gameplay of each level. Once you have learnt the basic mechanics of the melee attack the game introduces you to the first enemy which can be easily killed with the wrench, later on in the level you meet an enemy which has a ranged attack pattern, this encourages the player to equip their first weapon, the bomb glove (shown on the right)With tutorial messages you will be able to use your first weapons which is perfect for new players to learn how to play with the games combat system without any problems. The first level is a masterpiece for a tutorial level, it features everything a new player should and would like to experience, this will keep a player wanting to explore and play more.

Once you complete the level you usually get an infobot (cutscene) to give you coordinates to another planet(Another level). Gameplay/Replayability: Each planet introduces the player to a new weapon/mechanic which can only be done on the first version of this huge series of games as they reused assets from this game to fuel the future games. This progression system gets the player to constantly be learning new tools and tactics on ways they can take down the enemy, not too many games can do this as well as Insomniac games have. The amount of weapons in this game is outstanding and with the in-game currency being a small grind it gets the user to play more to get those more desirable weapons. Each weapon is unique and can be used in most situations to take out even the toughest enemies in the game; from electrifying them with the tesla coil, burning them with a flamethrower or turning them into sheep, the game doesn’t stop pleasing the player with ways to have fun while pacing through the game. Collectables: Other than collecting the in-game currency (bolts) the player can explore secret paths of levels to find gold bolts; when you collect enough you can purchase golden variants of the normal arsenal of weapons placed in the game, although these cannot be unlocked until you complete the game once, you can still collect the hidden gold bolts, this adds a reason to continue playing after one completion of the full game. Another addition is skill points; these can be earned by turning a tank into a chicken with the morph-o-ray to simply shooting down a blimp in one of the first levels.

These skill points when collected enough can be used to activate cheats within the games menu once you have completed the game once; this gives the player some behind the scenes comics and artwork of the game. Graphics: Not so important on my list when I play games is graphics but when this game was released it blew people away with their amazing work with lod (level of detail) the way they used every last bit of data to make sure the game looked fantastic and played perfectly, we have to remember that the Playstation 2 only had megabytes of storage back in the day so game developers ran every detail, effect and model through intense decision making to determine if they should keep it in the game, where as these days I believe that game creators may take their hardware and skill for granted as they don’t have as many limits as the older game makers. I believe I watched an old developer commentary of the game and they mentioned that the image above sold the game to Sony, this was one of the first levels they made, it was a small interactable level where you could look around the small platform just in front of the image, by facing the camera off in the distance you could see flying vehicles and skyscrapers, if you got close to them it would look brilliant, at the time this was outstanding and was by far the most loved by fans as they continued to place this Planet in other games.

What amazed gamers the most was the overview of parts of the level you could see from this platform then when you actually got to that part of the World you would see it with greater detail then look around to see how far you had come through the environment. A lot of this is used into many other planets but this one was the brightest and most alive which is why I think they made it first and showed it to Sony, it’s just the way that it encloses you in and you can’t see a single bit out of the level and there is detail everywhere you look, it makes you feel so immersed in the game which I can applaud the game developers for. If you haven’t played the game I do 100% recommend it as it is a Playstation 2 classic and to me it was a revolutionary game at the time, it can really make you change your mindset on certain ways you play games in the future or even create games. Not only does the game have superb replayability, it has the perfect balance of platforming, run & gunning. I would say that it is a game for almost everyone; containing funny jokes, cheeky adult humour and loveable characters.