Ratchet and Clank Review
5th May 2016The Game that tells the story of the Ratchet and Clank’s hollywood adventure. Ratchet and Clank are two of the titans from the Playstation 2 era, now the two finally have an adventure up on the silver screen and a game to go along with said adventure.
Taking place in a far off galaxy, the game follows our hero a Lombax (a lynx/lion/tiger hybrid alien) named Ratchet (voiced by James Arnold Taylor) who works on the planet Veldin as a mechanic. However, one day a team of superheroes called the Galactic Rangers lead by the famous Captain Copernicus Leslie Qwark (voiced by Jim Ward), Ratchet attempts to join but is rejected on a number of felonies.
Meanwhile, on the planet Quartu, an evil plot unfolds with the two main villains Supreme Executive Chairman Alonzo Drek (voiced by Eric Bauza) and Dr. Nefarious (voiced by Armin Shimmerman) begin to piece together an army of War Robots.
When the assembly line malfunctions and creates a small defective robot, this robot, serial number XJ-0461 (voiced by David Kaye) is marked as a defective war robot and doomed for scrapping.
When he escaped the factory and made his escape in a shuttle not before Drek’s Lieutenant Victor Von Ion (voiced by Mark Silverman) manages to damage a thruster, he then crash lands on Veldin where Ratchet comes to his aid and gives XJ-0461 the nickname Clank.
Clank then reveals that he has classified information on Drek’s plan and he has to get to the planet Kerwan in order to warn the galactic rangers of an incoming attack.
In terms of story the game follows the movie quite closely and it even incorporates elements from future games in the series like the appearance of Dr. Nefarious the main villain of Ratchet and Clank 3, and A Crack in Time.
Gameplay is an action platform cross bred with a third person shooter. There are a fair few platforming sections as Ratchet, and a few puzzle sections when you play as Clank, but mostly its focused on blasting everything that moves with your weapons.
Ratchet has his Omniwrench as a default weapon, it can be swung or thrown to attack enemies and is one of two weapons to not use ammo, but you can also buy weapons using bolts the games currency; these range from grenades, rocket launchers and flamethrowers.
There are some creative weapons such as the glove of doom, which spawns self destructing robots, the sheepinator ,which is a laser gun which turns enemies into sheep and shooting a sheep with the sheepinator causes it to explode and once again a certain weapon that long time fans will know returns.
The RYNO (Rip Ya A New One), is the most powerful weapon in the game and the most powerful missile launcher in the galaxy. In order to unlock it you need to find nine cards scattered all across the galaxy, once you find all nine come back to blackwater city on rilgar and claim your prize.
RYNO cards are not the only things scattered in the levels in each level there are gold bolts to be found which are used to unlock secrets.
Each planet you visit is divided into two halves with each half having its own main and optional objectives, at the end of each you either get a new gadget or an info-bot which is used to get to new planets.
Many of the positives I have with this game include the humour, voice acting, soundtrack, weapons and level design. A lot of the characters left me laughing; especially Ratchet and Qwark.
Overall, the Weapons are insanely creative and I never found a weapon to be useless. My personal favourites include the Warmonger, the Predator launcher and the Groovitron which is a glove that shoots disco balls and causes enemies to dance uncontrollably. If you love games with crazy weapons and hilarious dialogue you’ll love the Ratchet series as a whole not just this game.
Sadly, one negative I have is the removal of the skill points as those always left me laughing due to the title and some of the ways you obtain one. But despite this, Ratchet and Clank is an amazing game, if you have a PS4 then pick it up since its one of the best games to come out for the system to date and it also makes for a perfect entry point into the series as the plot is similar to the first game but expanded with elements from later games. Pick it up for yourself and give it a try!
