Nerd Mentality

PS3 REVIEW – Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time

Posted November 9th 2009 by Will Davey.

As a long time Ratchet & Clank fan, I'd be lying if I said I was anything other than excited when I first heard the series was coming to PS3. It had been three years since the last console installment of the franchise, so when I finally got my hands on the first of the PS3 entries (Tools of Destruction), I played it to death. The series had managed to retain the level of quality and polish that I'd come to expect from it, and after playing through the game multiple times, I'd eventually had my fill. Just nine months later, Quest for Booty was released as a downloadable title on the PlayStation Network. Whilst it was still a great experience, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. The gameplay felt scaled down, the combat was less manic, and puzzles were more prominent. I knew it wasn't trying to be, but it just wasn't the proper sequel that I wanted to be playing. Here we are then, almost two years to the day since the release of Tools of Destruction, and all I could think of was whether the final part of the Future trilogy, A Crack in Time, would grab me like every other game in the main series has done in the past.

After putting the disc in the console, a screen popped up telling me that the game had to be installed, and before I could completely overreact, a highly polished video (featuring series favourite Captain Qwark) explained the story of the game from the beginning of Tools of Destruction up until the start of A Crack in Time. I knew the story, and I'm sure most of the people playing the game knew it too, but it was an unnecessary and highly appreciated touch that would save me from looking at a loading screen for minutes on end.

Once I'd gotten into the game, it was all familiar territory - but in a good way. In some respects I knew exactly what I was doing before I'd even started the game, and aside from Clank's puzzle segments, the whole game really is a case of "more of the same". That's no bad thing (particularly in my favourite game series) but if you've played one of the games before, you'll know what to expect. The series dips in and out of different genres, but it's really a "third-person platform-shooter", so you'll be doing a lot of platforming and a lot of shooting, all in third-person. Basic gameplay is broken up into three parts: playing as Ratchet, playing as Clank, and flying through space. Throughout the course of the game you'll be spending the large majority of your time playing as Ratchet, and this is where all of the action takes place.

The main objective in Ratchet's gameplay is making your way through large, colourful levels and shooting a bucket-load of enemies. Not only that, but plentiful platformng sections are thrown in to break up the pace. In terms of weaponry you'll start with a basic pistol, but as you progress further (using the bolts that you collect), you'll be able to buy plenty more interesting and over-the-top weapons, and by the end you can have up to 17 different weapons to choose from. All but one of these weapons can be levelled up to increase their stats, such as power, ammo capacity and area of effect. The good thing about the levelling up is that it doesn't take very long, which encourages you to try out new weapons. I really enjoy the levelling up aspect of the game, and it feels rewarding to see your favourite weapon grow more powerful. Among the selection of weapons are three "Constructo" weapons: a pistol, a shotgun and a grenade. The shotgun was easily my favourite weapon in the game, coupling impressive power with surprising range. These weapons can be customised with various upgrades that you can collect throughout the game, and you can also set custom colours for each part of the weapon. Different upgrades can change your pistol from semi to fully automatic, or sacrifice the shotgun spread for more damage and range (which is incidentally the upgrade I had for my shotgun). Whilst the upgrades aren't hugely deep, there's enough variety to warrant trying out different setups of each weapon, and being able to customise your own weapons in a game built around them is a nice touch.

The main problem with the range of weapons, which ends up being counter-productive, is that the more imaginative ones end up being more situational. Many times where I thought I could use one of the more interesting weapons, it ended up being much easier to just stick with the classics. It's a shame, because all of the weapons each have their individual uses, and aside from a few duds, they're all pretty good. Chances are, though, you'll probably stick to your favourite three or four and switch between them for the whole game.

Playing as Clank however, is the complete opposite of Ratchet's fast paced, combat-oriented gameplay. Aside from batting the occasional enemy with a stick, you'll spend most of your time in puzzle sections. The main idea with these puzzles is that you record a version of Clank performing certain actions, and you can then play that back so you can do something else. These "certain actions" are always standing on switches, and these will either open a door to another switch, or act as one of several switches that need to be held down to open the door out of the area. I'd seen the idea used in a couple of flash games before, and I thought maybe I'd know what they were all about. I was wrong. The puzzles are as difficult as they are clever, and later on in the game they get very difficult. There is an option to use hints, and in hindsight it probably would have made some puzzles easier, but I didn't actually use any hints at all, so I can't say how useful they are. Luckily though, the puzzles are very rewarding, and seeing the huge shower of bolts come down as you walk out of the final door brings with it a great feeling.

Finally, the third area of gameplay is space exploration. In previous Ratchet & Clank games, the space sections would simply be a loading screen, or in more recent ventures, a scripted battle where you fly through space shooting down enemies to reach your destination. In A Crack in Time, you'll spend time in several different sectors of space, and in each of these sections are the main story planets, as well as smaller planets that you can land on to complete small challenges with the rewards either being Gold Bolts (rare collectibles), or Zoni, which are tied to the story and are required for story progression. You can fly around each of these sectors freely, and bizarrely, this is the best and worst space experience I've had in Ratchet & Clank yet. Being able to fly around and land on several smaller planets is easy and smooth, and there are also a handful of sidequests dotted around to net you a few extra bolts. Sadly, the biggest problem with the space exploration is the combat. Your ship is armed with homing missiles and a machine gun, and at the start of the game you'll simply be spamming your machine gun and missiles to take down the other ships. It's an average gameplay experience at best, but it only gets worse. Near the end of the game, when you shoot out homing missiles, enemies will shoot counter-missiles that completely negate yours, so the space combat then just turns into constantly shooting enemies with your machine gun, which as you'd expect is a lot less powerful and much less accurate. As the enemies become more powerful in offence and defence, and you're required to kill more of them, the combat quickly becomes tiresome and I eventually wanted nothing to do with it.

From a technical standpoint, A Crack in Time is a beautiful game. You don't see many bright, colourful and imaginative game worlds anymore, so to see one so wonderfully realised is a delight. The textures, water effects, lighting, explosions and smoke effects are all designed in their own unique style, but they still manage to be of the highest quality. It just goes to show that games don't have to be photo-realistic or cel-shaded to look good, and Ratchet & Clank is one of the few series left that really brings that point home. For comparison's sake I loaded up Tools of Destruction to see how it compared with A Crack in Time and, at first glance, the differences aren't immediately apparent. That said, after playing through the game a bit more, you start to notice the subtle details in everything that are absent. Overall, and most notably in the cutscenes, A Crack in Time does look better than Tools of Destruction.

Re-playability is something that Ratchet & Clank has always done well with the addition of Challenge Mode. Once you finish the game, you have the option to play through the game again on Challenge Mode, with the difference being that it's, well, more of a challenge. Not only that, but all bolts and weapons that you've bought are also carried over. The best part of this is that if you've upgraded a weapon from V1 through V5 (the maximum upgrade on the first playthrough), you can buy an Omega version of the weapon, which bumps it up to V6, and you can then upgrade it a further four times with the final version being VX. Ratchet & Clank games are the only ones where I literally start a new playthrough as soon as I've finished the first, and this time was no different. I'd finished my first play of the game in roughly 16 hours, and during that time I bought all weapons, collected all Gold Bolts, all of the Zoni, and completed all side quests. The only thing I hadn't done was collect all Skill Points, which are essentially hidden challenges that can be completed in certain situations. My second play however took only six hours, having already collected everything and completed all side quests, and after 22 hours of fun, I'm officially done with the game.

Once again, the Ratchet & Clank series took me for a wildly fun ride, and

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Tags: ratchet & clank

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