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REVIEW
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time

After my stellar podcast performance, and with Jorge busy working on his DJ skills in DJ Hero, I was lucky to have been offered the opportunity to review Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time.

Admittedly, this is my first experience with the Ratchet & Clank series. I never bothered with them on the PS2, even though they had always been reviewed favourably. Since I just picked up my PS3 a few months back it wasn’t on the top of my list of games to play. But I am fan of platformers, and I particularly love them when they don’t take themselves too seriously, so after spending time working my way though A Crack in Time, I’m looking back wondering why I didn’t play any Ratchet & Clank in the past.

A Crack In Time starts off with a recap of the previous two games in the Ratchet & Clank Future trilogy with gorgeous cinematics and humour that both adults and kids can appreciate. A lot of background story happened in a really short period of time, so I won’t even attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the last two games. In a nutshell, however, Dr. Nefarious captured Clank. The Zoni saved Clank and he’s whisked away to The Great Clock, which is located precisely in the centre of the universe (give or take 50 feet). You start off the game as Ratchet, who is attempting to locate his lost sidekick. The story is deeper than what you’d expect, and it also wraps up the series nicely. No spoilers here: the story brings a tremendous amount of depth to the game and I wouldn’t want to rob potential players of that experience.

The pacing of the game is excellent and is essentially divided into three different components, two of which are the parallel stories of Ratchet and Clank. The third is a space flight module wherein you explore different galaxies with the option of exploring mini planets for bolts, weapon upgrades, or Zoni. Gameplay is broken up nicely; as soon as you reach a crescendo of either blowing stuff up or finishing a boss battle as Ratchet, the game will flip over to the adjacent story of Clank in The Great Clock, which is still a platform-based story but with a unique puzzle experience. I personally enjoyed the break-up of gameplay and found it served well to hold my attention and keep me playing.

Getting into the nuts and bolts of the game (sorry for the pun), the Ratchet side of the story plays as a run and gun platformer with some smaller uncomplicated puzzles with a standard yet bizarre gamut of weapons. On the Clank side of things, which accounts for about 30 per cent of the game, we have very unique timed puzzles. The concept is tough to explain, but in essence you have the ability to record multiple events of yourself and puzzles are solved by utilizing past recordings to weigh down triggers. The concept is brilliant and, once you wrap your head around the theory, makes for a very enjoyable experience. My only criticism is there weren’t enough of them; it would have been nice to see a few more difficult problems thrown in at least as optional challenges.

Weapons have always been a highlight for this series, and A Crack In Time follows through with some great ones. Munitions are acquired at weapons shops located thoughout the game and unlocked as the game progresses. Most are of your standard fare, ranging from stock laser blasters and buzz saw blades. But on the flipside, you have your absurd (yet effective) disco ball glove. It’s a defensive weapon which locks all surrounded friends and foes in sweet disco moves. It even works on bosses to an extent. Other weapons include an alien mating call weapon that releases a sonic boom (if timed right) and an inter-dimensional portal gun that summons a tentacled creature. All the weapons share a levelling system wherein using them boosts experience, which leads to either more ammo, damage, range, or effect. The HUD for switching between weapons is handled really well and lets you flip though and deploy a number of weapons in the heat of battle quickly without being overly distracted.

By the end of the game you end up with well over 15 weapons in your arsenal and unlike most games with huge weapons caches, the majority of the weapons will have to be used to get through the later levels of the game. The challenge with the weapons is that none of them has a large amount of ammo and, unless you’re paying attention to your consumption, you will run out in the middle of battle and have to go at it melee-style. Even with the weapons levelling at max, some don’t exceed five shots. So some of the final scrimmages in the game are still quite challenging.

One other thing to note is the death system (or the lack thereof). There are no lives. When you do meet your maker, the game regenerates you to the not-so-distant past. This tends to be directly before a major melee attack or boss battle with no annoying “load from last saved point” garbage. I’ve never really understood the need for that option. Yes I do fucking want to play from the last save point! Why wouldn’t I want to play from last possible point in the game I have completed? Frankly, my preference would be to remove in-game deaths completely, but then I guess that wouldn’t be fun.

Anyway, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time doesn’t suffer from last load shortcomings; it just drops you off a short distance in the past and doesn’t retract any experience you may have gained before you died.

It’s a little strange that my introduction to this series was in the form of the last game of the Future trilogy. It’s like seeing Return of the Jedi first, but my experience with A Crack In Time will definitely have me going back and playing through its predecessors.

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time gallery »

Posted in PlayStation 3, Reviews |