Ratchet & Clank - A Retrospective

I've been playing Tools of Destruction lately, I'm probably about half way through the game now. What better time to write a small retrospective on one of my favorite platformer-shooter series?

This is a series that's very dear to me. Why? Because the first three games were the only games ever in my life's history that I purchased on release month. When I was a kid, I usually bought around 2 games per year, as I'd usually buy them at €50-60 or €30 if they were Platinum. PS1 and PS2 games. Because lolpoor.jpg.

I remember when the first Ratchet and Clank came out. A few months before, in the Summer of 2002, I didn't even have a PS2 yet, but I bought a couple of numbers of the PSM2 magazine (I think it was that one, it was the most popular unnoficial PS2 publication at the time). It came with a DVD with the latest trailers on upcoming PS2 games, and when I saw R&C's footage I was completely astonished. My mind was blown away by the (seemingly) immense scope of the game. And the gameplay just looked so incredibly fun. So I just collected any magazines that would feature any articles on the game.

I bought the game in November of that year, the month it came out. I didn't even have a PS2 yet. I just religiously placed the box on my shelf and stared at it, while I wasn't reading its manual. It even came in my native Portuguese language too. Great! 

A month later and it's Christmas. I remember we were staying at my aunt's house, and as I was opening my gifts I was eager to see what my parents got me.

They got me a copy of WRC2.

What the fuck mum and dad? I don't like racing games. At least generic ones. And I don't even have a PS2, are you fucking with me?

All this to come home at nearly 2 AM and find a PS2 box sitting on my bed. Holy fuck, I was so happy. Still a bit pissed because now I understood why I got WRC2 (it was bundled with the console), and I wanted the bundle that had Metal Gear Solid 2 with it. Aparently those were sold out or weren't on sale any longer. Fuck. I was dying to play MGS2. I used to go to a nearby hypermarket and just continuously stare at the 21" CRT they had there that would continuously loop the game's intro credits cinematic that would play on the game menu. It just looked so real. LOOK AT THOSE GWAPHIX ITS REAL GUISE.

Eh, guess I'm straying a bit from the main issue here! Anyway, moving on.

I woke up before my parents early in the morning, plugged in the cables and *lol fuck wrc*, I was up and running R&C, shooting robots with my trusty blaster. Good times, man. Good times.

And the game is amazing. Holy shit.

I loved it. I didn't have a memory card, so I did the same I did with Tarzan a couple years before (Tarzan came bundled with my PSOne, along with Gran Turismo 2). I played the game for hours straight, attempting to get to the end without ever saving.

I failed. And I failed my eyes too. Now I wear glasses!
What have I done!

But it never got tiring. After I got my trusty official 8mb memory card, which I'm still currently using, I beat the game. And then I started over from the beginning. JESUS CHRIST IT NEVER STOPS BEING FUN THE FUN NEVER ENDS. 

Ratchet and Clank has amazing replay value. You get to keep your weapons (as far as I remember), your upgrades (upgrades are only present on the sequels), your money, and off you go to another round of fun. There's also a bunch of skill points and golden bolts to catch, so there's really plenty to do and it's really really fun to play. I replayed the first game some 3-4 times.

 

The second game, Ratchet and Clank 2, which is, so far, the best in the entire series in my personal opinion - (I still haven't played A Crack in Time, so my opinion's bound to change perhaps, but in my head it's still better than Tools of Destruction) - had just the same effect on me. I played it a bunch of times too, and the desert thing with the crystals, the arena combats, the RPG-esque health and weapon upgrades with XP system, and especially THE STRAFING. WHERE WAS THE STRAFE FUNCTIONALITY IN R&C1? Well, I never complained back when I played it, the game was so fucking awesome, so the sequel improved it in many ways already. It was great.

Ratchet & Clank 3 is only arguably better than 2 because of the online mode. Sucks that nobody plays it now (well, not sure if there's people playing on the PS3 ever since the HD remaster came out, I'm definitely going to look into that, but it's not the same anymore). Back when I played it, I'd usually have around 60-150 people online tops (I'm in Europe, don't bother). But it was still the best and funniest online experience I've had in the last 10 years, save perhaps for Team Fortress 2.

Maybe because I was young back then, but it was awesome, I've had so many great moments, I recorded some epic Siege gameplays on VHS at the time, shame I never got the chance to transfer the tapes to digital before they got wiped out. I even got to 1st place on the overall and CTF player rankings. Juicy!

And then Gladiator/Deadlocked came out.

Many people were disappointed with it because it practically stripped the game from its platforming elements and made it nearly 100% shooter. But hey, the original trilogy was good, and it was a trilogy already, a slight change is good too. Gladiator is an excellent game, and it was an interesting change, there were some really tough challenges on it, it is a very challenging game.

I never got the hang of the online mode, though. I can say I was one of the best players around of R&C3 (and after all these years I've never said such a thing for any other game ever), but I absolutely sucked at Gladiator online. Not sure why, maybe because I desperately wanted it to be R&C3. And, well... it just wasn't.

Overall, this is an amazing series. I personally consider the Jak & Daxter trilogy to be better, but I can't really compare them like that, they are different games. And R&C has way more replay value than J&D.

It's a shame that the games' plotlines aren't far from simple. R&C3 had a very well crafted and unique villain with a dark backstory, and Gladiator tried making the whole thing a little more mature, but other than that, the plot for each game is somewhat simplistic, save for R&C2 which had some pretty nice unexpected plot twists that I really couldn't see coming. Now on the PS3 era, unlike Naughty Dog, Insomniac is working at a whole bunch of IP's at the same time so their games don't seem to be getting so much polish, but I'm still curious to see what's going to happen in Into The Nexus. Hopefully I'm not putting too much trust in them, but I still trust them to do a good job. More detail - (and sacrifice some fps's. 45fps is the perfect spot for me.) - and more motion blur. Lots of delicious motion blur. And a good intriguing engrossing storyline. That's all I ask.

 

TED PRIEC PLS