Released: 2003
Difficulty: Just Right
Time Spent: 10 to 20 Hours
Headline: New & Old successfully brought together
Ratchet & Clank return, yay! Only barely a year after the first installment, our duo return in a more expansive adventure traversing more areas than before: RPGs. Ratchet & Clank have become renowned heroes and are called out to the Bogan Galaxy to rescue a very rare experiment from a villain. It deepens into a fuller story of plot twists and such but it isn't right to give anymore away.
We now return to our regularly scheduled, ‘Man vs. Physics’
As before, you have seemingly all your former moves, new gadgets, weapons and so on. But now, all weapons (except the returning ones) and your health system gain experience points and can be upgraded with enough usage. The camera control also pilots your aiming cursor so now there isn't as much fumbling. This entry offers up optional arena tournaments and large collection searches. These play towards the aspects of grinding out experience points for weapon and health upgrades quite nicely, if that is your sort of enjoyment. The interface remains smart with the select slots and menus categorize material very effectively.
The basic adventure elements of Going Commando remain the same as in the predecessor. You adventure includes: navigating worlds, blasting enemies and bosses, using gadgets to manipulate environments, revisiting worlds with new gear, piloting a spacecraft, riding grind rails, or performing a hack-like puzzle. All of that actually was in the original game, which was also based on platforming elements of the last generation of consoles. The developer just added the RPG element to add more to combat and revised a fair few of their mechanics; so this may seem a bit familiar to some of you. The graphics and sound both see no actual technical improvements but it still manages to look and feel busier than before while the soundtrack is just as good as before. There are some very welcoming bonuses to unlock and there’s enough replay value and fun to warrant a 2nd playing.
Behold, the pet you will never, ever want to have
Ratchet & Clank remains a busy game with much variance, humor, style, and quality. The end result is somewhat more focused towards shooting instead of the adventure portion throughout its up to 20 hour first run. The game does make sacrifices and adds new genres to part of the game. However, Last year’s entry still managed to feel more... characterized, and this addition more uses the techniques it used before. Still this is a pickup for anybody in general that can appreciate the action, adventure, or platformer genre.
8.0/ 10 GREAT (PS2)
+Upgrading weapons and health is smartly integrated
+Camera system makes combat easier
+Offers another robust adventure
+Decent story
+Funny
-Doesn’t improve looks or sounds
-Despite all it does, you may still find it to be more of the same
TWiSTEDmerc
Difficulty: Just Right
Time Spent: 10 to 20 Hours
Headline: New & Old successfully brought together
Ratchet & Clank return, yay! Only barely a year after the first installment, our duo return in a more expansive adventure traversing more areas than before: RPGs. Ratchet & Clank have become renowned heroes and are called out to the Bogan Galaxy to rescue a very rare experiment from a villain. It deepens into a fuller story of plot twists and such but it isn't right to give anymore away.
We now return to our regularly scheduled, ‘Man vs. Physics’
As before, you have seemingly all your former moves, new gadgets, weapons and so on. But now, all weapons (except the returning ones) and your health system gain experience points and can be upgraded with enough usage. The camera control also pilots your aiming cursor so now there isn't as much fumbling. This entry offers up optional arena tournaments and large collection searches. These play towards the aspects of grinding out experience points for weapon and health upgrades quite nicely, if that is your sort of enjoyment. The interface remains smart with the select slots and menus categorize material very effectively.
The basic adventure elements of Going Commando remain the same as in the predecessor. You adventure includes: navigating worlds, blasting enemies and bosses, using gadgets to manipulate environments, revisiting worlds with new gear, piloting a spacecraft, riding grind rails, or performing a hack-like puzzle. All of that actually was in the original game, which was also based on platforming elements of the last generation of consoles. The developer just added the RPG element to add more to combat and revised a fair few of their mechanics; so this may seem a bit familiar to some of you. The graphics and sound both see no actual technical improvements but it still manages to look and feel busier than before while the soundtrack is just as good as before. There are some very welcoming bonuses to unlock and there’s enough replay value and fun to warrant a 2nd playing.
Behold, the pet you will never, ever want to have
Ratchet & Clank remains a busy game with much variance, humor, style, and quality. The end result is somewhat more focused towards shooting instead of the adventure portion throughout its up to 20 hour first run. The game does make sacrifices and adds new genres to part of the game. However, Last year’s entry still managed to feel more... characterized, and this addition more uses the techniques it used before. Still this is a pickup for anybody in general that can appreciate the action, adventure, or platformer genre.
8.0/ 10 GREAT (PS2)
+Upgrading weapons and health is smartly integrated
+Camera system makes combat easier
+Offers another robust adventure
+Decent story
+Funny
-Doesn’t improve looks or sounds
-Despite all it does, you may still find it to be more of the same
TWiSTEDmerc