Games
Ratchet and Clank for PS3
So Ratchet is back and this time on the PS3. It’s funny to think that when videogames started out in 2d, they were almost all platform-type family friendly games. Now practically every second game is a 1st person shooter bloodbath that reaches levels of violence that lie on the wrong side of genocide. Platforms are still made of course, but I can’t help thinking that the originals bombjack, jet set willy and donkey kong had an attractive simplicity to them. The equivalent now, games like Jax and Dexter, Mario Galaxy and Ratchet and Clank are so 3d it’s practically 4d.
For those who never played Ratchet and Clank, Ratchet is a wiseass alien a race of racoon mechanics called lombax. Clank is a neurotic robot not too dissimilar from C3po and is ratchets inseparable best mate. The story sees your home planet of Metropolis invaded by a megalomaniac evil dictator called Percival who has umpteen killer robots at his disposal. Hellbent on exterminating all lombaxians from the earth, you quickly beome public enemy number one and barely manage to make it off your home planet alive. Barely managing to make it off your home planet alive, your spaceship crashlands on a nearby planet. As Ratchet it’s up to you to find out how to stop Percivall, but along the way you’ll learn about ratchet;s mysterious past along the way.
The key word here is fun. Ratchet and clank is a big ball of cartoon madness. The design of the game is awash with primary colours, epileptsy inducing animations and looney tunes sound effects, exactly what the doctor ordered for ADD sufferers.
The gameplay is typicla 3d platform, smooth, linear and not majorly challenging involves a lot of running jumping and shooting. Ratchet and Clank whizzes by in such a kaleidoscopic whirlwind that you wont have time to exhale. Environments, enemies, and available weapons change so quickly that it washes over the fact that the core gameplay is quite repetitive.
The script is great for fighting off the yawn factor too. The story cutscenes are filled with quick one liners carried by strong comic voice performances, and would rival most Hollywood animated movies for entertainment value. There’s lots of comedy in the playable element too, most of it to involving some of the most creative weapons you’ll find in a videogame
Here’s how it works.When you defeat an enemy robot, it will burst into a dozen bolts and cogs which Ratchet picks up along the way. Collect enough bolts and you can trade them in for weapon upgrades, devices or ammo. There’s the Confuzzler gas which you can fire to get enemies to attack each other. There’s the groovitron – a groovy disco ball that distracts all of the robots as they’re compelled to disco dance. And there’s the plasma beast, a gooey mess that turns into a sort of slimer character from Ghostbusters who anihilates all nearby baddies.
When you’re not milling through hundreds of tin can terrorists, you’ll be faced with some of the other dimensions of gameplay. One of these involves freefalling and uses the sixaxis controller. Everyonce in a while Ratchet finds himself plummeting towards earth at a terrific pace and by tilting the controller you can glide yourself to safety from passing rockets, ships and general debris. Or you might find yourself in a flying mission using your heroes new robo-wings, again using the motion sensing controls. The rest of the time you;ll be puzzle solving, though be warned, your furball is no Lara Croft, this game is clearly intended for all ages and so its suitably easy to figure out how to progress.
Ratchet and Clank Future Tools of Destruction reminds you why you liked video games in the first place. Despite the lack of a multiplayer or online element, it’s one of the few games that you can enjoy whether you’re roma gypsy or roman catholic, boy or girl, straight or gay, young or old. Well, probaly not really old, if you’re really old, it would probably make you nauseous. But you know what I mean.
Jonathan McCrea
