I want to start this off by first saying, if you were scared by the length of my Assassin’s Creed 2 review, I’m sorry. I also want to apologize for again waiting so long to post a review for a game I played a while ago.
Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is the latest entry in the Ratchet and Clank franchise. The greatest action platforming franchise ever! Yes, that’s right, greatest ever. Few platformers even exist anymore, so I want to take this time to thank Insomniac for keeping platformers alive with Ratchet and Clank.
A Crack in Time is the ending of the Ratchet and Clank Future trilogy. So, is this a fitting end to this PS3 trilogy?
The game starts with Ratchet and Clank separated from each other. Ratchet is with Captain Qwark and Clank is being held by Dr. Nefarious. Unlike other titles where you would rarely play as Clank, in this game almost half of the play time is devoted to playing as him. The plot involves Ratchet trying his best to find and rescue Clank after he learned where he was at the end of Quest for Booty; as Clank your main tasks are the upkeep of the great clock and keeping time steady throughout the galaxy. Later on your focus shifts to preventing Dr. Nefarious from using the great clock for his own personal gain.
YAY :
- The first highlight and main draw for most fans of Ratchet and Clank are the weapons. They are just always cool. In most games with weapons/guns it’s easy for me to pick a clear favorite, but in this game I have a very difficult time deciding which one I like best. So many of the weapons are fantastic and are great in different situations. They still have the upgrade system which allows you to improve these weapons, but this time it is in the form of Constructo mods that you find or win. They also no longer just increase the rate of fire or damage your weapon can do, but can also change how it fires or goes off etc.
- In most other Ratchet and Clank games playing as Clank isn’t nearly as much fun as playing Ratchet is; in this game that completely changes. Clank is no longer the tiny robot who has to resort to just punches to defeat enemies. In A Crack in Time Clank has a long staff for melee combat and ‘time-bombs’ you can use to slow down time in the radius of the objects you hit. It makes playing as him a lot less tedious and a lot more fun. The time puzzles you do as Clank are also great, they’re not on the level of a game like Braid, but they’re a great addition to the game.
- The amount of enemies on screen shooting at you and the carnage that ensues from you shooting/blowing them up is really thrilling. It’s nice to see a game look so good and handle so much on screen without a hitch.
- The moons in space are sweet little side missions that either require you to kill a certain amount of enemies or use your platforming skills to find a Zoni. They’re short, but very fun, and are a good break between the planets of the main story. If you collect all of the Zoni in the game you get the opportunity to completely finish the story.
- The writing is great. It’s not super-hilarious, but this is definitely a game that will make you smile at its jokes more often than not.
NAY :
- While the writing is great and the story is funny, the story itself might leave people new to the franchise a little confused. In some of the scenes Dr. Nefarious is vowing to get revenge on Ratchet, and if you’ve never played the other games(Up Your Arsenal in particular) you might be wondering just exactly why he wants revenge.
- The space combat that you participate in, either because you need to for a side mission or a security bot spotted you, gets tedious very fast. Sure, the more Zoni you get the better weapons you unlock, but it’s still mostly boring.
A Crack in Time is indeed a great entry in the franchise. It keeps up everything that has been great about the other games and adds in time-puzzles and an improved Clank gameplay experience. I know there’s been a lot of buzz about this possibly being the last Ratchet and Clank game. This better not be the last entry in the series, it’s too good for it to end. This is the type of franchise that could last for a very very long time.
