The latest installment of the Ratchet and Clank series has been out for some time now, but until recently I had not had the opportunity to give it a solid play through. The R&C series is easily one of my favorites, as I mentioned in my first “What I’ve Been Playing” post last week, and as such my bias may need to be taken into consideration. However, it may be slightly tempered by the fact that Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is one of my favorite individual games of the generation and that this game has to live up to those expectations.
Now that our Bias Filter has been properly calibrated and our palettes adequately cleansed, if you are a veteran of the series Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is exactly what you would expect from the series. It is a high quality Platformer and Shooter with a generous portion of pop-culture references, puzzles, character progression, item collection and customization, witty humor, and a sequence featuring RoboCross Dressing Man Nurse Relations.
Gameplay Modes
This installment of Ratchet & Clank features three major game play modes; Ratchet, Clank, and Space. Each mode has unique properties and are all required for progression through the game. The only mode seeing a multitude of changes over the previous PS3 release is the Space Mode.
Ratchet Mode
The most similar mode to previous installments, Ratchet Mode features all the major weapons and gadget level ups and customizations. It also sees the addition of the hover boots which allow Ratchet the ability to hover along at fast speed and are necessary to complete many of the objectives of the game. The hover boots also act to replace lost Clank functionality for things such as slowing descent. Absent from this mode is the circuit repair puzzles which were particularly annoying from Tools of Destruction. This puzzle element was replaced by a very simplistic locking mechanism puzzle that only really appears a handful of times in the game. The major puzzle solving elements only appear in Clank Mode where they fit in quite well with his character and abilities.
Clank Mode
Parallel to this mode is the Clank Mode as he works through the Great Clock aspects of the storyline. This mode features the return of the time bombs as used by Clank in previous games and the addition of a new staff which is used to reverse time on an object by object scale. For instance he can swing at a damaged power coupling and it will revert to its former functional self. I found this to be one of the more enjoyable additions to the game as I almost felt compelled to run around and fix broken crap all over the Great Clock.
The most notable addition to this game is the time recording puzzle element. It only appears in the Great Clock and is used as the security system to grant access to various areas. The influence of Braid is hard to overlook, as the system requires that you record a set of your actions into one of the temporal pads and achieve certain objectives while working in conjunction with yourself. The system itself is gradually introduced to you through the course of the game until you are literally working with five copies of yourself at a time to unlock an area. The complexity is fairly high but the learning curve is well managed. It isn’t quite as elegant as the mechanics of Braid but it was a welcome addition.
Space Mode
Past space combat sequences of Ratchet & Clank have been brief on rails sequences with some boss battles but little to no other content centered around it. This is simply not so in Crack in Time, as the Space Mode has been fleshed out and made into a full mode in its own right. It now serves the dual purpose of being a world map for systems travel and a open world environment filled with side quests and storyline progression.
Within the space environment you will run into stranded spaceships in need of a tow back to port and some familiar characters offering up piles of bolts for a little dirty work. The quests are fairly quick, easy, and diverse helping to keep them from becoming stale or tedious. These quests typically require a little combat, and in the cases of the story line progression aspects of the space mode, a lot of combat. Fortunately the actual controls and difficulty is well managed and really feel improved from the last ps3 version.
This game mode also sees another side questing opportunity in the form of moons. These moons are small little planetoids very reminiscent of the small worlds in Mario Galaxy. Each moon can have a handful of objectives usually being a Zoni, gold bolt, and/or weapon components. They tend to be fast and fun while they incorporate substantial platforming challenges and integrate many of the various puzzle solving mechanics of the main game modes. While on these planetoids you are technically in Ratchet Mode.
Weapons & Gadgets
Getting right to the point, a single play through left me feeling as though I was missing weapons. Boss fight difficulty became derivative of running out of ammo for the two or three weapons that didn’t suck and most of them became a tedious task of finishing them off with the most boring of weapons, the basic hand gun. The absence of the plasma whip and the nano-swarm weapons from the previous PS3 installment was a bummer, as they were easily my favorite. Some of the weapons they added were unmemorable at best and not particularly functional at worst. For instance, the “Tesla Spikes” are a series of spikes thrown into the ground with electricity shooting between them. While it is cool in concept, it was obviously an intended replacement for the nano-swarm. Yet while the swarm weapon has an element of range to it, the spikes are dependent on coaxing creatures through them. Fortunately Mr Zircon and the Groovatron are both back and still hilarious.
The weapons themselves, do still level up, however, they are now upgraded through the hunting down of physical components in the world rather than collecting a secondary currency(I think it was raritanium in Tools of Destruction) to procure upgrades. Several of these upgrades are available in the Arena events which is a returning event from the previous game.
Characters
Ratchet & Clank has always depended on the dialog of its supporting cast of characters heavily, and this series update is no different. The main show stealers are back with Captain Qwark, Slim Cognito, The Plumber, and the GrummelNet weapons vendor. All with great voice acting and good lines. Much to my dismay, missing were the Pirates who played a sizable roll in Tools of Destruction. Fortunately the cast has a few new faces with General Azimuth an exiled Lombax who knew Ratchets father, Sigmond the Junior Caretaker of the Great Clock, and Orvus the Senior Caretaker of the Great Clock.
Other than the support characters, all your main characters are back of course Ratchet and his side kick Clank. As far as bad guys go you have Nefarious and his butler behaving evilly as usual.
Summary
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is good and is everything you want to see in a major installment in the series. With it’s marked improvements in the Space Modes it is a definite buy for people who enjoy the series. That being said for anyone who is new to the series, I strongly recommend playing the much cheaper and overall better Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. I make that recommendation based on the short falls of the weapons arsenal and the games central focus on the weapons and the gadgets and their development. Once you play through that title you will know whether you are a fan or not and can make this rent or purchase at that time.
