Ratchet & Clank

Platform: PS2

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

You’ve probably seen Ratchet: Deadlocked around stores in the past few months. That is the fourth entry in the amazing series I call my favorite, and this is what started it all. Ratchet and Clank is the story of a furry Lombax (Ratchet) and a robot created from a glitch (Clank). An evil corporate genius is fashioning a planet by sewing pieces of other planets together, and they want Ratchet’s planet. Ratchet is not the brave hero type, but instead the “looking for trouble” kind and gets in (and out) of quite a few disasters. There is a lot of the platform genre here, since you are always jumping through some obstacle course, but on the other hand, you have blasters, flamethrowers, rocket launchers and mine layers! You can get around fifteen different weapons by taking bolts from enemies and using them to purchase weapons. You start out with four health, but later in the game you can increase it to five and then for a lotta bolts, eight.

The obstacle courses are challenging and creative, while the enemies get smarter and tougher. You fight some epic bosses, even doing some dogfighting throughout the game. There’s also a turret mini-game, several hoverboarding courses and rails, which are frocked with electrical obstacles and enemies. You get several gadgets along the way, such as a hacker which activates yet another mini-game, a grappling hook and anti-gravity boots. There are some optional things along the way too. Throughout the levels there are some very cleverly hidden or hard-to-reach golden bolts which… well… here’s a secret. After the final boss, go back to the level where you fought the gigantic space ship. Go all the way to the end. See the really high building all by itself? Hmm… looks like you can wall-jump up it! Oh, did I mention that when you beat the boss, you have the option of starting a game on challenge mode? You lose all your gadets, keep all your weapons and bolts, with one difference: The enemies are waaay tougher! I’ll tell you one more secret: The last skill point, gained by killing lots of elite commandos with only the wrench, is called Going Commando. Wow, that’s also the name of the second Ratchet and Clank game!

There’s only really one downside to the whole thing… Until the very end, Ratchet is just a jerk and it’s just a pathetic thing, but this game is definetly worth getting.