8:56 PM
Theusualtype
Ratchet and Clank were one of the biggest hits on the Ps2 and along with the fact that they were made by Insomniac games, the original owners of Spyro, really helped them onto the (then) next gen market. Ratchet and Clank 1 was one of the 3 games I got with my ps2 when I got it one Christmas many years ago. Whenever I went into toy shops and saw a ps2, I immediatly ran to check what game is there. If it was Ratchet and Clank i'd run through the demo in an attempt to break a record time I had set. So obviously I was excited when I pulled back the wrapping paper on Christmas morning to have the cheeky grin of the Lombax from Veldin with a little robot on his back.
Go to 2:52 to see one of my favourite moments from gaming.
My best friend too got this and we were both addicted to it and completed it over and over again. Last I checked I had 10 re-plays on it. Ratchet and Clank 1 had a great story, it had a wide variety of colourful characters, it had humour, original brilliant music, wide variety of weapons (Some silly, some serious) so when you can assume I was excited when I recieved a Ratchet and Clank 2 demo in the post. Yet again I replayed the same level over and over, being overwhelmed by the new controls, weapons, planets etc. It wasn't long before I snatched it up and played through it. It was even better than the last and was in my top 3 games. There was even more silly humour that still makes me chuckle to this day, more crazy weapons, more worlds and monsters than you could shake a monkey at. First person mode was one of the big highlights for me. I broke various stats that the came couldn't hold like having so much money it just appeared as random symbols on the save screen.
The next year I got the sequel... Ratchet and Clank 3. This was even more exciting as I was forced to wait a month until I got it at Christmas and it was around this time I found out about the gaming community lurking on the internet. I created my E-mail account, Signed up to insomniacs news letter and used google to find any and all clips relating to Ratchet and Clank 3. More features, more new Guns and most exciting to me... Multiplayer. Me and my best friend spent countless hours on the multiplayer. Bombing each other in ships, crushing each other in futuristic half tracks. But in the campaign... something was missing. The campaign was much shorter than the others, more boring too and was so repetitive that Déja vu extreme would be putting it mildly, Weapons had decreased by a fair number. I was slightly dissapointed that this was done to one of my favourite series.
The following year came Ratchet Gladiator. This was when I began to think about the series ending .The graphics became a bit too cartoony. The original charm was gone. The 50+ weapons and gadgets from R&C2 had been decreased down to a miserable 10... The story became shorter. I once clocked 4 hours 30 minutes from completing it. That's shorter than most Call of Duties today... The game just didn't seem that fun any more. In fact it just seemed like a disc filled with flashy explosions. While they did replace the old multiplayer with a better version it just wasnt the game I loved 3 years previously.
Only one bit I liked and that was the ending, no that isn't that the ending me happy it was this one cutscene :
Finally, December 31st, 2009. I got my ps3. I got a few games for a lend off of a neighbour like Metal Gear 4, Prototype and a few more. The next day I went into Dublin City Centre went to my favourite game shop. Picked up my own copy of MGS4 and Ratchet and Clank 6, A crack in time. Why did I buy it after being so dissapointed with my last encounter. Blu-Ray. I honestly thought that on a Blu-Ray disc it really would've turned around. I was wrong. Better Graphics yes but it became worse in terms of weapons and Campaign 11 weapons in Ratchet 4, from what I could see... there was 9 on Ratchet 6...on a Blu Ray disc. I looked up how far away from the end I was 4 hours in. Turns out I was about 3 levels away. So I pressed the little Ps button in the middle of my controller, Slid over to the CD icon, pressed Triangle and hit eject disc. On January the second, the day after I bought it, My Ratchet and Clank 6 was traded in and coverted into Call of Duty World at War and Little Big Planet 1 with enough change to buy myself a Slushee. Silly Gamestop didn't know what they got in for...
This was an amazing title and very much like Pokémon, Insomniac threw this crap on top of us without even having the decency of calling it shit.
So Rest in Peace Ratchet and Clank... Rest in Peace
