Bowenkge's Full Review: Ratchet Clank Size Matters for PlayStation 2
INTRO or, HOW I STOPPED HATING MYSELF AND LEARNED TO LOVE THE MUTO-RAY
Ratchet and Clank, the heartwarming tale of a space lemur and his robot buddy and their battle against diversity and duplicity. Okay, it's more a battle against robot dogs and corrupt planet-smashing politicians, but six of one half dozen of the other. In the game, you control at various times both Ratchet, a wise-cracking mechanic type cat thing and Clank, a small robot with a big heart and I can't believe I just typed that. Big heart or not, that's not important. What's important is that this is easily one of the best platformers on the PS2, regardless of it's rather contrived and somewhat childish storyline.
GRAPHICS or, HOLY COW! LOOK AT THEM SPECIAL EFFECTS!
This game is absolutely huge. The levels just seem to sprawl out for miles and miles and miles and the articulation in the backgrounds is perfect. The colors are bright and vibrant and the characters are drawn with a wonderfully absurdish feel, similar to the artwork of Jonen Vasquez (Invader Zim) which is at both times cartoonish and slightly disturbing. It's a fantastic looking game overall, really a testament to the PS2's visual capabilities.
SOUND or, BANG! ZAPOW!
The soundtrack of the game is a nice little quasi-futuristic techno mesh that at any other time would be irritating but in the case of the game, it's fitting. The sound effects are suitably cartoonish as well, lots of boings and sproings and other onamonepia (that's a hard word to spell) that fit well with such a light hearted game. Also worth mentioning is the voice acting. While it's not at Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy X standards, the voice acting is good enough to be more amusing that annoying. The cut scenes between the different levels are done in a commercial format that can really be pretty funny in a sort of "it's saturday morning I'm not sure where I am or how I got here" way.
GAMEPLAY or, I TURNED THAT GUY INTO A CHICKEN!
The best part of the game, by far, is the cool weapons and gadgets. They are, for the most part, super sweet. I'm not given to hyperbole but the items and weapons and whatnot are just bleeding super mondo fantasticlly wicked. You can get a gun that turns people into chickens and then you can suck the chickens into a different gun and fire them at other enemies. You can fire chickens bombs out of a rocket launcher! I mean come on, even the most callous person can see the joy inherent in firing a chicken bomb.
And if that wasn't good enough, the games is pretty non-linear. You often have the chance to visit a number of planets in no particular sequence, although sometimes you need a particular item to pass a section in one planet that can only be found on a different planet, so there is a far amount of back tracking, but the levels are so big, you usually don't mind too much.
CONS or, ARGHH!!! I PUSHED THE *$@# BUTTON!!!
There was very little I had a problem with in this game, which is rare, since I can usually nitpick just about anything. My big problem, as it is with so many games, is that in an attempt to add drama to the game, programmers design strange and obtuse camera angles. I appreciate the attempt at some sort of cinematic quality, but the problem inherent in this is that the camera inevitably gets stuck behind some crates or boxes or the enemy you're trying to beat. So, of course, you end up getting killed not because the game is terribly difficult but because you can't see where you're going and, excuse my language, but that is damned irritating. I found myself playing the 'get the camera to do what I want' game more often then not. If you can handle having to constantly fight with the camera then you should be okay, as for me, it got my dander up.
CLOSING THOUGHTS or, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WITH A WRENCH TO THE SKULL
In the end Ratchet and Clank is a pretty sweet little platformer. The graphics are beautiful, the characters are likable, the voice acting is passable, the replay value is fairly high and, the weapons and items are tons of fun. The biggest downer is the somewhat distracting camera angles but even this isn't that big of a problem. If you're looking for a great platformer and you've all ready purchased Jax and Daxter give Ratchet and his little robot buddy a whirl. And don't forget the chicken gun.
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