Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

October 31,2007 - It seems like it’s been forever since we last saw Ratchet and Clank platforming on the big screen; nearly three years to be exact. Their last adventure on the PS2 saw a bigger focus on the shooting and less on platforming, but that’s changed for its PS3 debut, as Insomniac has taken the series back to its roots for Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. With new weapons, new worlds to explore, and the new coat of HD paint, it looks like Insomniac has another hit for the PlayStation 3.

Tools of Destruction begins with a distress call from Captain Quark to Ratchet about attacking killer robots, but the story quickly grows into a wide scale attack upon the planet as these henchmen are searching just for Ratchet. The man behind the attack is Emperor Tachyon, a Cragmite whose sole existence in the universe is see the Lombax species wiped out of existence, which means that Ratchet certainly has his work cut out for him. The story is nicely paced to keep you moving from planet to planet without any hint that things are dragging along slowly. The cliffhanger ending doesn’t leave the best feeling in your mouth once you finish the game, but it certainly doesn’t hurt the satisfaction you feel once you beat the game. The series’ trademark humor is strewn along quite nicely with Capt. Quark commentary in arena challenges, the Mr. Zurkon device that trash talks as it shoots enemies, and the cutscenes have enough to entertain as much as they push the story along.

With the jump to the PS3, Insomniac takes the chance to incorporate more Sixaxis controls into Ratchet & Clank Future, mostly in the form of mini-games or a certain weapon that uses it. There are skydiving and flight mini-games that use it to steer Ratchet in freefall or with the help of Clank’s new Robo-wings to fly around a few levels. There are a few uses for getting through locked situations, such as a mini-game where you need to complete circuits by moving a magnetic ball around to keep charges moving across a circuit board. Also, a pirate jig mini-game to get through locked pirate doors where you get cues to shake your booty along with directional cues to prove your worth, and then when you can’t circumvent the lock, the Geo-Laser lets you carve your own door to get through to the other side. There are only two weapons that use the motion controls, the Tornado Launcher and the Visi-Copter, which are hard to control for the most part, but are not required to be used often unless you’re fond of them. Luckily, if you can’t get a grip on the motion controls, you can turn most of them off in the menus and just use the analog sticks instead.

For those worried that Ratchet: Deadlocked was where Ratchet & Clank Future was headed from a gameplay perspective, you don’t need to worry, as Tools of Destruction returns the series back to a bigger focus on platforming that fans have been yearning for. Ratchet & Clank Future certainly earns the “Tools of Destruction” subtitle with the large array of weapons you can use to decimate your foes with a variety of strategies. Some are retreads of classic Ratchet & Clank weapons, but there are plenty of new weapons that give you a lot of ways to get through levels and beat bosses. What’s neat is that alongside the weapons getting more powerful as you use them more, you can also collect Raritanium that can be used to upgrade weapons to give them better stats that leveling up doesn’t provide. New devices also make an entrance, like the trash-talking Mr. Zurkon, the penguin-creating Transmorpher, and the enemy-stopping Groovitron. The Gelanator is a unique device that lets you create your own bouncing platforms, though it’s a bit limited in that you can only fill it up at certain locations and you have to empty it before finishing that particular area. The arena challenges are nicely done, offering both challenging and creative limitations to spice things up. As for the controls, the big new offering is a new over-the-shoulder perspective for accurate aiming while the rest of the controls are as tight as you’d expect them to be. The difficulty of Tools of Destruction is pretty much the same as the PS2 Ratchet games, so while being fairly easy overall, the game’s just plain fun enough that difficulty doesn’t matter at all for the 15 hours you’re investing into Tools of Destruction. Once you complete the game, you can opt to play again in the challenge mode, which ups the difficulty and offers new armor, weapons, and devices to help you adjust to the new difficulty and up the replay value considerably.

Visually, Ratchet & Clank Future is one of the best-looking games this generation has seen. It clearly doesn’t go for any kind of realistic look, but takes the cartoony look of previous games and gives it an upgrade that nearly reaches the beauty Pixar movies are known for. It’s nice to see a game strive for beautiful worlds that are more colorful and alive than they are realistic. There are just a lot of nice touches, as the Groovitron causes a different reaction for every type of enemy in the game, which gives you enough reason to try it out every chance you get. Unfortunately, there are some small, weird issues where enemies can get knocked near a wall where they just hover against the wall until you can find a way to knock them loose and get the bolts you deserve. The Loading times are virtually non-existent, as they’re masked by the inter-planetary travel cutscenes that have been in every Ratchet game before it.

The audio portion of Ratchet & Clank Future is another high point for the game, as the music greatly accentuates each level and the voice acting nails the humor that the writing aims to provide. As you navigate most of the levels, you’re pleasantly let in on PA announcements that show how the mood of the world changes as you’re busting through the impenetrable defenses that are put in front of you. Arena challenges are filled with the humorous commentary of Captain Quark’s reactions to your use of weapons. Even just the TV screens strewn about levels that Emperor Tachyon controls show his love of haikus or his hatred of Ratchet as you pass them by. It even just nice to hear the sound of bolts as you defeat enemies and collect the thousands of bolts that lay in front of you.

All in all, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is a return to form for the Ratchet & Clank series and it shows that not every graphical showcase has to feature stunning realism. It’s nice to have a light-hearted game that’s also a platformer, as platformers in general have been lacking so far this generation in lieu of shooters, racers, and sports games. Insomniac has definitely hit another one out of the park for PS3 owners, so make sure you save some of that holiday cash for Tools of Destruction amongst the other big games of the holiday season.

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