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Ratchet and Clank - Tools of Destruction : PS3
In the midst of a month which has seen me playing all sorts of games, three days ago I bought Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction from one of the little local second hand shops for £6. Last night I finished it, and far from it being a comment about how short a game it is, it’s a comment on how absolutely brilliant a game it is. I’ve played bits of the first couple of R&C games on the PS2 and I remember enjoying them, but I was not really prepared for just how much I enjoyed this. Having been sat in the dingy world of Fallout 3 the same day (more on this if I ever complete it…), the bright vibrant world (sorry, universe) of Ratchet and Clank was delightful and drew me in right away.
For those unfamiliar with the duo, Ratchet is a little fox-like creature (a Lombax, no less) with a little robot friend (Clank) who runs around in a platforming way and collects up some really insane weapons with which to despatch the bad guys. It’s a formula which has been perfected by its creators for about a decade, and you can tell.
The first thing that you notice are the graphics. Tools of Destruction looks lovely, certainly good enough that if it were a feature length cartoon you wouldn’t come out complaining too much (sure, there’d be lots of ‘doesn’t look as good as Pixar’ statements but you get that watching Shrek). It literally throws you in at the deep end with explosions and fast moving backgrounds everywhere and though this does mean you take a minute or two to ground yourself, it does show off some of what this game is capable of. It’s worth remembering that this game was a Playstation3 launch game (or very early in the life, if not actually on launch day) and I’ve read a couple of reviews stating that it was very much a reason to buy a PS3. A few years on, and I’ll echo that comment; it’s STILL worth buying a PS3 to play. Still, the reason for that isn’t just graphics, so let’s move on.
There’s a great storyline which is interesting and funny without any need to be deep and you are engaged by it as you follow the heroes from planet to planet, beating the bad guys and collecting the treasures. It’s the ‘beating the bad guys’ bit which sets this game above so many others though. Ratchet and Clank is very much about the weapons, and you will not be disappointed by the ones on offer here. You start with a relatively rubbish basic gun, but soon you pick up some grenades and then the very cool slime-monster-firing gun. From then on, it gets sillier and sillier (and more and more fun) with the weapons including a tornado launcher, missiles, a huge plasma gun, circular saw blades, electro whip and an electro net and so on. Let us never forget the Groovitron, a giant disco ball, which makes all the bad guys stop what they are doing and dance around instead; the makers have even bothered to put in a different dance for each of the enemies.
Even with all of this, I still feel I haven’t touched on what makes Tools of Destruction such a good game, so here it is: it is fun. No, no, it is Fun with a capital F. At no point have the developers forgotten what a game is for (something which happens so very often). Yes, there is a challenge or two, but mainly this game doesn’t want you to be frustrated and it acts accordingly. When you die, you get reset to the beginning of the level or last checkpoint (which is often quite a way) which is a fine and standard thing to do on death, but Ratchet and Clank let’s you keep everything you gained up to that point, such that dying is never frustrating as there’s always a bright side (namely all those weapon upgrades you are getting as you do the level again). The level design is very very clever, with lots of differing sections to keep you interested and some wonderful settings to mean the background never gets repetitive. There’re some great jokes and the chatting which goes on is always enjoyed and never invasive. The characters are funny and all the enemies are well designed and the weapon upgrade system means you are always looking to collect that little bit more.
It’s also a very good length. Any longer and I’d have been saying ‘come on, I want to finish this and write my review!’, a few levels shorter and people would be complaining it didn’t have longevity. Once you have completed the game, it offers you ‘challenge mode’ where the money is crazy, the monsters are harder and you are meant to try to go through it without getting shot. At all. Ever. Hmmm. It’s even clever enough to end on the kind of note that has you running out to get the next one (which is a little additional game originally released as DLC but available in a box now), and no doubt the one after that.
In truth, I’ve been trying to think of something bad to say about the game since I started writing the review, but really there’s nothing bad about it. There’s every chance that it falls into the ‘not my kind of game’ category, and the circuit board mini game (which you have to do to open some doors) can get a little stale by the end, but other than that, it’s the perfect kind of game that should be on every gamer’s shelf. Great for kids (one of my problems with lots of games is that I have to wait for Alicia to go to bed before I can load them up, sigh), and fun for adults too (at least, those of us with a love of games), it really is as close to a perfect game as you can get these days. I really cannot recommend it enough. It doesn’t quite have me wanting to rush back and play the PS2 games before it, but it has guaranteed that I’ll get everything in the series from this point on, unless they somehow manage to ruin the formula in the future. Worth buying a PS3 for, no doubt.
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tekkani posted this
