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Genre: Action, Platform Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developer: Insomniac Games Players: 1

By Frank20 (13th Nov 2009)

Admittedly the series of Ratchet & Clank games were new to me so when I started playing the latest one from Insomniac Games I knew very little about the concept. At first the game seemed to me like a cartoony - almost childish - title but after a little exposure to the two characters the game grew on me so much that I’m now going to explore the rest of the series. It ended up like a Pixar movie, possibly aimed at kids, but damn it if adults can’t seriously enjoy it as well.

A Crack in Time is the ninth game in the Ratchet & Clank series and if you have been playing them you would know that it’s a continuation from the last game, A Quest for Booty. The robotic one of the duo, Clank, has been kidnapped by bad guys and Ratchet has to tool up and go find him. It’s an interesting take on the type of gameplay typical to Ratchet & Clank in that the two partners are now playing separate games trying to find each other. Ratchet is the heroic one with an arsenal that would impress the SAS and Clank is the robotic one with the Inspector Gadget helicopter blades in his cranium and a Vulcan sense of logic towards life.

If, like me, you are new to the series and are worried about being dropped in the middle of a story without a compass, then fret not. A Crack in Time does an admirable job of bringing you up to date by the use of cut scenes at the start where a friend of our heroes called Quark tells the whole yarn in an enjoyable interview setting while the rest of the game loads. It brings you right up to the point where you take over and continue the adventure.

Playing this reminded me a lot of playing one of the Destroy All Humans games in that it’s not meant to be serious outing. It's artful fun in a creative series that sees you rescuing kitten-like creatures and leading them back to their mother and where bad guys simply disappear when knocked about and don’t really seem to die. It is guilt free gaming with laughable bumbling enemies who cackle manically and blow up furiously when fought, which leads me nicely to the combat you partake in.

While Clank usually relies on a metal left fist to deliver a haymaker to his adversaries, it’s Ratchet who gets to collect the beautiful assortment of firearms to do battle with. Like Crypto in Destroy all Humans, Ratchet gets his paws on a unique set of toys that you will find in no other game. It's extremely good fun to use them and while you start off with a simple blaster at the outset, you get to buy weapons from a travelling salesman who upgrades his catalogue as the game progresses. Some of the weapons are matchless in style and function, a good example would be the robot buddy called Mr Zurkon who you get to release and who floats around you like a bad tempered bodyguard plastering anyone who looks at you twice and grunting one liners that would feel at home in a Schwarzenegger movie. Another big gun is the Sonic Eruptor which resembles a mutant frog with a large bulbous neck and whose burps are like kryptonite to the evildoers. It’s priceless.



The combat does not stop there. You also get to use Ratchet's funky space fighter while wandering around and dogfights come thick and fast giving you plenty of chances to use your cannons and missiles. Most of the space fighting is optional as you get to pick and choose from side missions to complete in return for riches.

Operating the craft means there is a certain element of free roaming. Rather than a straight set story that takes you from place to place you can now choose where to go next in your search for Clank and your quest for peace. The story also sheds new light on Ratchet being the only member of his species left. It adds an imaginative aspect to the gameplay that makes up for its lack of multiplayer options and definitely gives it some longevity to wallow in.

Getting tooled up and joyriding in a UFO are not the only things these guys can do to occupy themselves, as both characters are equipped with extra gadgets that are straight from the workshop of MacGyver himself. It’s also another reason why this game seemed to stand out more and more as it progressed. For starters Clank gets his hands on a device that can slow down time and allow him to complete the various puzzles that he comes across more and more.



The manipulation of time will play a big part in Clank's adventures as the increasingly difficult puzzles in the game will inevitably fall to him to solve while the brawling will go to Ratchet and his super arsenal. In what was a computer-game-first for me I found that I could record Clank's movements with a special device and replay his actions while the real Clank did something else. You can actually have four Clanks running around doing pre-recorded stuff while the real one reaps the rewards. It’s difficult to fully explain but suffice to say that having to use four of yourself running around doing things to help you proceed speaks to the hellish nature of the excellent time puzzles that Clank will encounter.

Ratchet also picks up non-deadly items that can be accessed via the D control but for me once he picked up the Hover boots all bets were off. These were not just footwear that floated you a few inches off the ground because once I donned them I could have entered a bloody pod race and left the pod at home. It took a few hours to get access to them which in my book worked as an advantage since the game never got tired and kept me interested. The worlds I raced around are admittedly cartoony, happy-looking places but in truth I really did not care. The visuals were first class and some of the smaller animals running along beside me emitted squeals of delight and cries of “awwwww” from any female that saw them, they are actually that cute.



This reintroduced a love of the simpler format of gaming that made titles like Sonic the Hedgehog so popular. Items and bad guys even explode into bolts for you to collect and use to buy things. It reimagines the classic gameplay with more modern mechanics and just when I thought I’d seen it all before, it hit me with something new. It was uncomplicated gameplay with the kind of innocent tones that shut out all the seriousness of other solemn titles that seem more common these days, just wait for the vendor's delightful 50s style adverts for weapons if you don’t believe me.

The gaming equivalent of watching Saturday morning cartoons, this is an easy-going marriage of puzzle solving and shooting in a game that never tries to box above its weight class, and it never has to.

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