Secret Agent Clank
Clank’s on a mission. His best buddy, Ratchet, has been framed by a ruthless enemy and jailed for a crime he did not commit. Not only that, but Ratchet’s maximum security prison is full of the universe’s most dangerous criminals most of whom are lining up to personally ‘welcome’ Ratchet into his new cell. Luckily for Ratchet he’s got Clank on the outside, and luckily for Clank he’s the kind of brainy little robot who is cool under pressure and knows a thing or t…
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This is only the second “Ratchet and Clank” game that I have played, so I don’t know how it compares with others (besides “Size Matters) or how it fits into the entire series.
This is sort of an action/adventure game, sort of a puzzle game. There are “Clank-only” missions that mostly involve stealth game play, some Ratchet missions that are challenges (survive so many waves of enemies) and some missions with the super-hero guy who I’m not familiar with. There is also some Patapon-style gameplay, where you have to press the buttons and match the beat.
The stealth play is pretty good. However, once you are detected, you have to start the mission over (either from the beginning or from the last checkpoint). Most of the Clank missions are stealth missions, and you don’t have the option to “run and gun”.
The weapons are very unique and kind of silly. Like many games, you start out with nothing and start acquiring weapons and skills. Like “Size matters”, you collect bolts and trade them for weapon upgrades and ammo.
Overall, this is good game that is entertaining. I did find that the gameplay was pretty broken-up, however, which took some of the fun out of it. You go on a Clank mission, then a Ratchet challenge, then a bot mini-game, etc. I would have liked it more if it was a little more mission-to-mission type of gameplay, with the side missions and challenges spread out more.
The good:
- Funny story
- Good graphics and sound
- Lots of varied styles of game play.
- Stealth gameplay is very good. I think I enjoyed this style the most.
The bad:
- The checkpoints in the game drive me crazy. There is not enough of them. If you run into a challenging spot, you often gave to go back to the start of the mission if you die or blow stealth.
- As mentioned above, the story is a bit broken up. You jump from one style of gameplay to another every other mission or so.
- The mission menu can be kind of confusing.
It’s a solid game with some decent humor tossed in, but it’s not without its problems. For one, I have no idea how the development process for this game went. It seems to literally be a mishmash of different games. It’s a staple for platformers to have varied types of gameplay, but this takes it way too far. I was often wondering when I would be able to get back to the main game. Sure, you can skip a lot of the extras, but they yield money or rewards, and as such are fairly essential to complete.
The focus on stealth isn’t too bad, since in most cases it’s optional. It’s evident very early that unless it’s a mission where you automatically fail upon blowing your cover, you’ve got plenty of firepower to just blast away your enemies.
It’s a pretty fun game, but the time you spend snowboarding, dancing, doing Ratchet arenas, doing Quark’s missions and gadgebot missions may very well exceed the time you spend in the actual game. And that to me is just silly.
In the end, when I feel the need for some portable Ratchet & Clank fun, I still go with “Size Matters”. But this was a nice experiment, and I’m looking forward to knowing what High Impact Studios’ next project is. It also demonstrated that the interactions between the two main characters is a large part of what makes the franchise great. Broken up like this, it loses a lot of its appeal.