"Dang! I think that they sold me the wrong batch of 'Crack.' No, chair-that-wants-to-eat-me...HEEL!"
Written: Nov 04 '09 (Updated Nov 04 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Time is never time at all...you can never ever leave the store...without buying this game.
Cons: And your life'll never change...for-the-better without the game...the more you'll play the better you'll feel.
The Bottom Line: Crack open your wallet and spend some Time reaching for the payment option that best suits you to buy one of the year's funnest platformers!
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| ChromeKiller's Full Review: Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time for PS3 |
Crashing in on the Naughty Dog's Bandicoot-driven fuel in the in-between time that the original PlayStation was finding its footing in the gaming industry, Insomniac woke up gamers with a purple dragon named Spyro who burned a whole lot of love into the hearts of gamers at the time. Since then both Naughty Dog and Insomniac abandoned their roots for greener pastures, of the Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank packaging. The PlayStation 2 days were glorious, knowing that these two developers helped each other with programming tools to enhance one another’s games. Once more we find ourselves in a new generation that has already shown what both of these civil companies have had on hand when laying their deck of cards on the table. Naughty Dog repeated themselves, kicking Jak and Daxter to the curb and charting a course for an Uncharted adventure of heroic proportions. Insomniac on the other hand, has evolved a little differently. They've expanded with a secondary development house. They've come out with a brand-new first-person shooter franchise that has landed new releases every two years. And on the other end of the stick, additional Ratchet and Clank games have been churning from Insomniac’s unflinching eyes - one for each year over the last two. As a follow-up, to a middle-of-the-road sequel, born from the very first HD-enabled PlayStation 3 entry in the popular action-platform series, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a fun time that’s been released just in time for the holiday season.
You know who Clank is, don'tcha? Stop shaking your head! What's-a-the-matter with you?! He's a robot. Wiki it, stupid! And Ratchet? Oh jeez, we're going to be here all day. Ratchet is a furry Lombax. His bestest buddy in the whole wide intergalactic space and time continuum interplanetary galaxy, with many stars and many planets, and basically where they do battle and save the day, is his backup; his friend. Clank is Ratchet's ally, and well... if you've played through Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (and subsequently, Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty), then you'd know of the story as to where the Zoni (a mysterious race of alien creatures) led Clank into the hands of one of the duo's old nemesis, Dr. Nefarious. This mad scientist robot, for whatever reason, has Clank in his mitts, and it seems that he has no intention of giving him up either. Since the end of Tools of Destruction, Ratchet's been tracking down Clank's whereabouts. This is it. This is where time has slowed down for our heroes. They've been apart for too long, but now things shall get cracking and lead into a... possible reunion? A possible defeat? The possibilities can be endless, but not to worry: you have all the time in the world to discover the result to this much-anticipated outcome.
It feels good to be back. Wrapping your leg around the saddle and riding the Ratchet and Clank pony for a third year in a row, you'd think that by now things would feel a little tiresome for Sony's action-focused platformer franchise. But no, not at all. Not when each of the Ratchet games part from one another to a point of innovation that stays in touch, but from a good distance, is a welcoming factor - especially in comparison to Uncharted 2 territory. Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time has its own unique voice, one where you're off on another space-strewn voyage, wielding an arsenal of funky gear and weaponry and platforming your way to new heights. Much like last year's downloadable title, Quest for Booty, A Crack in Time still has Ratchet separated from Clank from the starting line. Branching out, here at least Clank has his own time to shine, using a time-manipulating scepter to repair what is broken and to toss around time-slowing energy rifts that will bring any hostiles or hasty platforms in his path to a halt - making for an interesting new development in the series' use of Clank. Meanwhile, Ratchet is up to his old tricks and those that are unseen, such as grinding winding rails with his grind boots, clinging to metallic surfaces with his gravity boots, and introducing initiation for long jumps and gliding in midair with his hover boots on. Yep, Ratchet has a new pair of rocket skates to fly around stages quicker than before, while pausing now and then to hash out differences with the likes of buzz saw-swiping enemy robots and gas-spewing fungus. At Ratchet's end of the table, he'll run around while leaping to and fro to dodge incoming enemy laser beams that they'll spit or twirl around, where he'll return fire and position himself behind obstructions for safety reasons. Smashing crates that contain health droplets, bolts (currency), and ammo, and damaging the scenery all on the side, it's kind of a twist on how each section of the game operates. Filled with breakable objects to crack attack on Ratchet's side, and full of items that need the rejuvenating touch on Clank's, it's a plausible theme twisting in and out that continues to carry through the game's ongoing trail.
Let's keep moving and turn the page to some more highlights that the game has to offer. In Clank's line of work, he's a brain. To prove it, you'll require some amount of intelligence to bypass a series of cloning puzzles that the game will toss your way. What happens here is that you'll step into a room now and again containing a series of buttons beyond a row of multi-colored switches. Stepping on one switch enables you to record Clank's progress. TiVo yourself standing on a button and the door will light up on one side. Capturing your action on another switch, and watch as the previous Clank will now man the work that you were doing for him, and that he is now reenacting for you. Naturally, these puzzle sets will progressively ripen with a hardened shell - but, it's nothing that having time to think (or perhaps using the game's integrated pay-to-cheat system) can't fix. Ratchet's plated with his own worries - though not so much in having to rely on thought-provoking circumstances. He'll do everything from saving a village from invasion, over to combating waves of enemies in the series' familiar gladiatorial arena, and he’ll cruise around in free-roaming space ship missions. Unlike in earlier games, A Crack in Time grants players the ability to guide Ratchet's ship wheresoever you wish at any point, so long as you're not already locked in the story boards. Through this game frame, you're going to envision one galaxy at a time, made up of smaller moons and one or more larger planets. Picture meteor fields, comets in orbit, and even enemy ships at various sectors, and you've got the idea for how this open (but still closed off) spacial view will come to you as you'll eventually gain entry. Landing upon any of the moons, Ratchet will be able to complete smaller tasks, such as venturing through a series of platform trials (consisting of disappearing and reappearing platforms, to ones painted in molten lava) to grab a member of the Zoni race as to upgrade his ship. Planets otherwise serve as the basis for story-driven missions where things boil further for longer.
You saw it. Now you want to know what it means to upgrade a ship! Ship upgrades exist amongst the game's debut arrivals: customization. Your ship will eventually metamorphosize into a spacecraft that not only shoots laser beams and rockets, it'll power boost its way across the stars and even drag stranded space travelers with a tether beam. Ship-shaping isn't your only to-do here: you'll also stumble upon weapon modifications, in which certain weapons now pack a range of interchangeable modes, in whether you'd like to slap a larger spread of fire to your shotgun or give it a pinkened paint scheme. Speaking on part with the weapons, as usual there are weapon (and armor) vendors integrated into many of the game's locations, anywhere that Ratchet goes. Using his acquired bolts, you'll be able to spend money on such needed tools as a weak-point-scoping sniper rifle, a sparkling electrical energy ball that can be swerved around into enemy bodies via SIXAXIS motion-control functionality, and a trash-talking disposable airborne robot unit named Mr. Zurkon that follows you, blasting each and every enemy in its path. "Haha! Mr. Zurkon does not need nanotech to survive. Mr. Zurkon lives on fear!" Ending the livelihood of your opponents, trashing the place, doing missions, and gathering gold bolts are just some of the elements that will part upon you more and more bolts into your ever-growing piggy bank. Don't forget: ardent fans of Ratchet and Clank games know full well that the more you put a weapon to use, its RPG ranking system blossoms with it, and in turn self-mutates to broaden your skill set for the trials ahead.
Shifting point on the topic of hardships, there is also a thing known as the controls of a game, which Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time does a good job when avoiding problem areas. While you won't be instantaneously transported into the platform scene, you won't find this game difficult to snap into your management slot. Firing weapons and jumping around is pretty basic, using a combination platter from the face and back button pairing. It should take about fifteen to twenty minutes to get a hang of the game, given the constant use of on-screen tutorials showing you how to pull down this spring platform, or what button to press when tackling the turret. The only major turmoil lies in Ratchet's ship. When taking to flight, you're dodging missiles and other dangers by moving the ship alone with the left analog stick. You can speed up and slow down by pressing up and down, but if you decide to tap on the right stick (which you might think would be better to act as your camera operator) it'll start flipping your ship in the opposite direction sometimes at inopportune moments, or with it you can roll the ship right and left. On one side you’re tight: the other you’re not. Using these stiff-to-loosened set of controls, getting adjusted isn't impossible, but you'll probably feel as if this space isn't the final frontier that you'd want to be in.
Referencing and remembering Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for how it was when the game launched in the fall of 2007... it was a funny setting for the game to be in, considering how Insomniac joked about their position. Being the first Ratchet and Clank to take the high-definition leap, the game amused players by announcing itself as now being broadcast in HD. Of course, this was all true. Tools of Destruction looked better than ever, while retaining the cartoony stature that the franchise had built on beforehand. Proceeding onward, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is the third game in the franchise... to have you crowing over its high-definition rendition! And being in it to win it, the game absolutely looks very good, even though it doesn't come off as one of the most impressive games that you'll ever witness. Here's why. Embodying a cartoony science-fiction format, the game carries more of a simplistic tone than a visionary graphic-heavy game would, using rooms that leave you with a lot of empty space and less-refined objects at times. That's all right, though. With what Crack does for you, you'll inject changing scenery through water and plant-made cavernous passages, into technological city platform avenues, and around and around the innards of a clock mechanism where steaming pipes and broken, sparking wires await for you to glue them back together. You'll find vibrant lava beds floating across the sea under your feet on one of the many small moons that you'll traverse, and puffy smoke trails pouring out of space crafts that you've been defending against along the star-studded backdrops. These are just a couple of examples for how high-definition will reach out and take hold of your gaze, as it covers the game's affected modesty.
Preying upon its characters also, the high-definition goo covers Clank's body in richened darkness, where small traces of brightness streak across his blackened front and his eyes glow green in this richened bath. Whenever Clank hops to and is twirling through the air, green light shines off of him and reflects along the glossy surface of the wall. After three lifts and a slow descent crawls, redness takes its place shining on in. Similarly, Ratchet's rocketeering strut gives way to a blue hue underneath his legs when hovering in midair - which looks neat in practice. The way that Ratchet speedily flips around and the way that a light show occurs as gases, lasers, and pummeling monstrosities all surround you in the mix of a fight - it's a delightful game that enhances further from its usage of unique weaponry. Red spraying streams are outputted through the shotgun. Netted electrical balls grapple onto enemies from another device. Blueish energy swerves back and forth as you fire the yo-yo-like buzz saw gun. Tossing out that disco ball that forces your opponents into a break dancing, arm-jutting frenzy will produce an array of lights from out of its floating body. Hunting for the most glorious graphics in this sandbox won't give you the prime centerfold results that you may be after; but to say it all over again: Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time has a lot going for it in terms of visuals. On the one side the game carries a somewhat lower-end appearance, but on the other it still holds up very well. For this, disappointment is the least of your worries.
Seven years is quite a lengthy career tenure, especially for a voice-actor. Video game franchises come and go, but the Ratchet and Clank series is one that has endured over the years, with its cast having stayed for the long haul. Returning anew, James Arnold Taylor, better known as Ratchet, relives the spunky, good-guy voice that he does for the little Lombax. David Kaye, or Clank, reprises his methodical, mechanical, logical computing vocals that you know him best for. Captain Qwark pushes his comedically strong but weak-willed persona, and as mentioned Mr. Zurkon is back with a vengeance to supply a roughened machine-like voice that perfects his laughable death-seeking dialogue. While the voice-acting fits each character nicely, some of it is a bit over-the-top and stereotypical, as is per the usual found in any Ratchet and Clank game. It's stuff that works, but it's not the kind of content that is going to woo you to the max. Systematically, rerunning on that sameness can be applied to any of the other sound design departments, which has music that finds itself amongst the orchestral, the electronic, and surprisingly, remixed rock and roll classics, including "Eye of the Tiger". Songs like this can be found in a radio station being tuned from your i-Pod, or intergalactic-Pod that is the very space craft you'll traverse the stars with. It's here where you'll feel as if Insomniac Games ripped off Grand Theft Auto just a touch, as you'll be able to flip between two stations: one playing rock and advertisements, and the other playing sci-fi tunes. When not carting a radio message, you will get a dose of the soundtrack that's specified for the game, at which different tracks tailored to certain levels apply. On one planet, for instance, you'll find a jungle-like drumming session in harmony with wind instruments. Hearing the zapping of lasers slapping an explosive burst, to the propellers on Clank whirring, and the rocket boots under Ratchet's feet blurring - it's an audio feast that together with the music does well. Excessively well? Nah. Pretty well? Surely!
At the end of the day, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a good game. That's all that there is to say. And yet... you ask for more? Go buy it right away! You require further instructions? Let's not make this a user manual on "How to Purchase Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time." But, if you really want to stay on top of the ins and outs, all together it's more of the very franchise that you may have already experienced in previous stages. Not only is it more, but it's actually different. This time around, you're modifying weapons. You're using time-based mechanics. You're rounding smaller moons as you are the massive stages. Polishing up the story that was cut off two years in the past, Insomniac Games has ripped "A Crack in Time" to travel into the future and plant on us another entertaining action-based platforming experience that has its merits as it does its minor flaws toward setting the record straight: that Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is one of the very best games of 2009. As goofy as the game can be, as marking below the highest standards as it does, this is a game that’s still a lot of fun to play - and you iota enjoy it for that very reason.
Recommended:
Yes
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ChromeKiller
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Member: Christopher
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