Ratchet & Clank exploded onto the video game scene last holiday for the Playstation 2. Surprising all experts and game players alike on just how good it is. Within a one year time period, Ratchet & Clank has surpass all other platform games as the best one for the Playstation 2. This time around on their first sequel ever, the pressure is on to live up to that reputation. The advertising goes as this, "Ratchet & Clank are back! Bigger and Better!." The question then becomes, are they bigger and better? And the answer is "Yes, they are." Read on to find out why.
STORY
Run! Run! Run!
Attack of the crabs!
The way the story is develope and play out is pretty similar to the first Ratchet & Clank. The plot is a pretty simple one too. About a year after defeating Chairman Drek, Ratchet & Clank were doing an interview telling the tv viewers just want they have been doing since then. Pretty much nothing. Suddenly during the interview, they've been teleported to another galaxy. Here a character by the name of Fizzwidget introduces himself as CEO & President of Megacorps. A huge corporation in this galaxy. Fizzwidget explain the reasons why he had decided to hi-jack Ratchet & Clank to this galaxy. Apparently an unknown thief has stolen Megacorps latest experiment. An experiment that can be bad for the galaxy if fallen into the wrong hand. As such, Megacorps need heroes to find this thief. And since Ratchet & Clank fit the bill as heroes, Megacorps decided to enlist their aid. With little options available. Ratchet & Clank agree to the mission. Of course tracking down the thief is no easy tasks as it will require the duo to be traveling from planet to planet searching for the whereabouts of the thief. So with the mission set, Ratchet & Clank head out on an adventure. Hence the main plot of the story and the main point of the gameplay. The story itself isn't really a long one. As you go from one planet to the next, completing each stages on that planet, you will gain access to small and short movie scenes that continues the storyline. Each of these movie scenes are bits of CG animated scenes played by voice actors. It's really nice and excellently done. Add all these movie scenes together and you pretty much have a 30 minute animated CG show. The overall story itself is okay. It's not what you call a mind gripping storyline but serve it's purpose well for the intended audience that is playing this game. There's a little bit of a twist in the end which is pretty nice. I enjoy this story. Not as in-depth as an rpg story but very good for a platform game. There's really not bad thing you can say about the story overall.
Score 8/10
CHARACTERS
A bird's eye view.
The weak point is probably the characters. There just so few involve in this game. You basically have the two main character Ratchet & Clank. Then you have their employer, Fizzwidget, and the unknown theif that is the bad guy. You're basically looking at a four character cast members. That's a bit too little in my opinion. But then again maybe it's the norm for platform games. Of course four characters in a game like rpgs wouldn't cut it but since this is a platform where the story is only a small part of the overall game, it's not too bad. Each of the characters are represented with their own unique look and voices. The voice acting in this game are excellent. The overall presentation of the characters is that of a CG animation 30 minute tv show that plays out well. The characters are very believeable in terms of life likeness. Even though they may be short on depth developement due to the short story of the whole game. But the fact that they are so real life like is what counts in a platform. We are not looking at a total character depth developement here as the story doesn't really warrant just a case. For that the characters overall are excellent. Just need more characters than four.
Score: 8/10
GRAPHICS
Star wars is at hand.
Graphically it's one of the best looking games out there. The first Ratchet & Clank graphics were pretty much perfect by Playstation 2 standards. So there's not much that needs fixing in the sequel. The 3-D polygons are more polished and smoother. Designs of buildings, hallways, environment on different worlds are rendered with full details with even more rich colors. Everything looks so real. Jagginess from anti-aliasing are hardly noticeable at all. Unless you are looking at the TV from 5 cm away. The detail rendering of the character movements and facial expressions are nearly priceless to perfection. What is overall most impressive in this game is that each of the stages for each planets are bigger and better designed than before. Better as in complex designs that you just have to marvel at how these game developers even layout the original designs on paper before putting it all together for the game. A prime example of this is the stage where you need to travel on a sphere like world. Jumping around in a 3-D enviroment out in space. It's just impressive and so real. There aren't many games that can come close to the graphics of this game.
Score: 10/10
MUSIC
Look out below!
Music and sound effects are from Dolby Pro Logic II. Which pretty much means that you are going to have a game that will have one hell of a sound effect coming from weapons, monsters, and the environment of each different world. Each weapon will have it's own unique sound effects to showcase their power. And when you arrive on a new planet, you can just listen to the sounds coming from the surrounding area as you just stand still. Showcasing that this planet have life around it. You can hear robots moving about, monsters grunting somewhere, and spaceships flying over head. It's like the world is actually a real life world. Very impressive. In terms of music, most of it are quest or stage music that you will get to hear as Ratchet makes his way through the various levels. They are good upbeat rhythm of different musical tunes where you can get with the music as you blast your way to the various enemies that dare to challenge you. You'll be jumping to the beat as you progress your way to the stage boss. In terms of sound and music from platform games, this one definetly rank up there as one of the best.
Score: 9/10
GAMEPLAY
Grinding on the rails..
The tourists have arrived.
Game Information
Genre: Action Platform
Publisher: Sony Entertainment
Disc:1 DVD Disc
Memory:475 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Vibration:Yes
Dual Analog:Yes
Pressure Sensitive:Yes
Progressive Scan:Yes
Rating: Teen
Release:November 2003
It's all about the game, baby. Those of you who play the first game shouldn't have any problems starting this game again. All the aspect of the original game is still here. You basically have bigger and better weapons with more stages. The concept of the game is the same as before. Go to each planet and complete each missions. Once each mission on a planet is done, you will get cordinates to the next planet and repeat the whole procedure again. And like before, you will need to use some of your gadgets to help you progress through the various stages. Now let's look at some of the individual key features and what changes were done to them from the first Ratchet & Clank game. Weapons: Once again various weapons will be available for you to buy for a certain amount of bolts. The currency used in this game. Once again each weapon is unique in it's own way. How the game developers continue to come up with these unique weapons like these shows that they have great imagination. You can use these weapons as long as you have ammos for them. But of course something have to be different then the first game. Well the difference is that each weapon can be upgraded and modify to be even more powerful. Weapons that can be upgradeable have their own experience bar. The more enemies that you kill with a particular weapon, the more experience that weapon gain. Once the weapon experience bar reaches it's limit, the weapon will upgrade to a higher and more powerful weapon. You can only upgrade a weapon once. Once it reaches a higher upgrade weapon then that's it. But however you can still modify your weapons to include better add-on arsenals. You can buy these add-on arsenals at mod shop in the game with platinum bolts. Of course finding these platinum bolts are a different story. Gadgets: Various types of gadgets are back including old gadgets that were in the first game. Unlike the weapons, there aren't as many new gadgets this time around though. And unlike weapons, gadgets aren't upgradeable. However, these gadgets do help you get through certain areas in the missions that you couldn't through normal means. Armors: Being a commando requires you to be able to equip with the latest Megacorp armors. Each armor will have a boost in defense against enemy attacks. Of course these armors aren't cheap. They are in fact more expensive then the weapons themselves. But if you can upgrade your armor then it's well worth the price.
Nanotech: This is where the elements of rpg can be found. In terms of life bars, the game uses Nanotech. Ratchet will have a nanotech bar. He can have up to a maximum of 80 nanotechs. Each damage he takes reduces one nanotech. However that also depends on the armor that Ratchet is equip. There are two ways of increasing nanotechs. The first way is simple. By gaining experience. Ratchet has an experience bar beneath the nanotech bar. Each time Ratchet kills an enemy, he gains an experience. Once his experience bar reaches full, he will gain one Nanotech bubble. Each nanotech bubble can hold up to 4 nanotechs. The second way of gaining a nanotech bubble is by finding nanotech boost. Finding and getting a nanotech boost isn't that easy though. Ship Battles: New to this game is the introduction of ship battles. During the many stages in this game, you will be engage in ship to ship battles with enemy fleets. Most of these ship battles requires you to shoot down a certain amount of enemy ships before being able to progress in the game. Your ship comes with two types of weapons. Primary (lasers) and secondary (missles) weapons. You can upgrade your ship weapons and the look of your ship at a ship vendor. Hoverbike Races: Hoverbike races are similar to the Hoverboard races in the first game. This time around you have to ride a Hoverbike instead. In certain part of the game, you will be require to beat one or two of the Hoverbike races available to you inorder progress the story. Battle Arena: To simply put it's an arena where you battle various enemies for a certain amount of rounds to win bolts. You are require to enter it once to win a particular gadget and weapon inorder to progress the game though. Other than that, like with the Hoverbike and Ship Battles, Battle Arena is an extra sidequest stuff to win more bolts.
Now that the key features of this game have been summed up for your liking. I'll close it off with this closing comment. The concept of the game is simple. Use your weapons to kill enemies and use your gadgets to access unopen areas. Make your way through the various stages of each planet. And that's about it. In terms of overall gameplay. This is one of the best gameplay around period for the platform genre. If you love platform games then this game has to be on your top list of games that need to be picked up.
Score: 10/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
What place is this?
Extras? Secrets? Cheats? Replay? You name it and this game got it. There's really nothing here that this game doesn't have to offer you in terms of something extra to do. Just like with the first Ratchet & Clank game, collecting skill points from each stage plays an important role here. The more skill points you are able to collect, the more hidden stuff you can unlock in the Cheat Menu. There are other various menus that you can unlock as well. Most of them you can only unlock once you finish the game. Examples of these are Movies Menu, Short Cut Menu, Random Stuff Menu, and First-Person Mode. And to top it off, once you finish the game the first time, you can start a New Game+ where things are harder but you can keep all your upgrade weapons and gadgets as well as unlock new secret weapons that can only be had by replaying again. So trust us when we say there's a lot of stuff in terms of extras for all you players out there.
Score: 10/10
Ratchet & Clank are back. They are definetly bigger and better and so far there's no stopping this new king of platform franchise. Right now, I would dare to say that the Ratchet & Clanks series is the best platform series in all the three current consoles. If not then it's definetly the best platform series for the Playstation 2. I don't see any other game that can come close to Ratchet & Clank 2 for the platform genre beside the first Ratchet & Clank. If you're thinking about getting a good platform game for the kids and adults out there this holiday seasons, then this game is a must buy. There's no doubt about that.
