Secret Agent Clank

June 25,2008 - With the recent release of the movie adaptation of Get Smart, people all over the nation have a bit of a “spy fever” going on. While the possibility of running around as blindly as Maxwell Smart in a video game is particularly slim, High Impact Games has a bit of an alternative with the first video game featuring Ratchet’s little robot sidekick, Clank.

Secret Agent Clank is a laugh-out-load funny game that combines the platform action of past Ratchet & Clank games with a rather unique spectrum of tactical espionage. The game follows Secret Agent Clank, dawned with a painted tuxedo robot body as he goes undercover to save Ratchet from a maximum security prison after he supposedly steals a priceless artifact. With the previous games, it’s quite obvious Ratchet didn’t steal the gem, so it’s all up to Clank to save his hide while helping Ratchet deal with being incarcerated.

Secret Agent Clank has all the essentials you’d expect from a traditional platformer—colorful maps, an overflow of idiotic enemies and the necessary crappy camera that will kill you more than the enemies will. Luckily, that’s the only feature that Clank’s segments really suffer from. Aside from the rather abysmal camera (which is controlled using the left and right shoulder buttons), the game’s control scheme is as good as it gets on the PSP. The D-Pad (or the analog stick) has you move Clank around, jumping is done with X, and plain melee strikes are done with the square button. As you progress through each level, the agency will deliver Clank power-ups that he can use to both attack enemies as well as make him seem like an actual agent. Among the coolest gadgets in Clank’s arsenal include the Tie-A-Rang, which is Clank’s razor sharp bowtie with boomerang qualities and a gun that disables invisible security levels that’ll drain Clank of his health.

What makes Clank’s segments in the game really interesting is the variety of essentials in the gameplay. One such example happens earlier on in the game where Clank gets access to a lock pick that unlocks certain obstacles for use to get further into each area. When Clank uses the lock pick, the game goes into a puzzle screen where you have to match symbols with their appropriate shapes and colors, and in order to pick the lock, you have to clear each gap of its symbols. Along with that, the game also has some rhythm puzzles to change things up. There are many parts in the game that force Clank to avoid deathtraps without actually giving you full control of him and instead following a Guitar Hero-like highway of button matching in order to get Clank through.

While these changes in the gameplay are indeed interesting, after the first level, the game really doesn’t feel like a stealth game anymore. It’s really more of an extra, because all the game does is reward you with more bolts (currency) for every stealthy thing you do in the game. For example, if you approach an enemy from behind and hit the square button, a map of four more buttons appear along with a timebar on the bottom, and you have to follow the button map accordingly to successfully kill the enemy in a stealthy fashion. That, along with mixing in with the environments by pretending you’re a statue mounted on a platform and avoiding security lasers are really the only stealthy things you do.

Now aside from just using Clank, you have access to three other points of view. As stated, Ratchet’s in prison. And what happens to people in prison? Stereotypically, they get violated and have pain inflicted upon them. During Clank’s adventure, he’ll find certain weapons that only Ratchet and use, so he’ll put them in cakes and whatnot for Ratchet to defend himself. Most of Ratchet’s sequences in the game are purely optional—which is completely fine, because all you have to do is kill every round of enemies in sight. It’s both repetitive and hard, and you really don’t get much for doing them, other than a few more funny cutscenes.

Aside from Ratchet, when Clank’s in trouble, you’ll have access to the gadgebots—a 3-robot army that is used in fashion similar to that of the Pikmin games on the GameCube. You have a lead robot, and the other two will follow him around. The puzzles are quite simple. Most of them force you to have the three robots stand on separate switches to open up new areas, and others just have you electrically charge the robots to activate paths to further investigate the area and save Clank.

Of course, no Ratchet & Clank game would be complete without the non-story-affecting Captain Quark where he is being interviewed by a random robot about all his triumphs—except all of his triumphs are just meaningless exploits of everything you did as Clank. In other words, he’s taking all their credit. That doesn’t mean it’s all stupid though, his sequences are actually pretty fun. The first of which has a giant Quark fighting a giant monster, using evil ninja assassins to his advantage as he blasts it away.

The game is visually lush and the environments really give you the sense of being a secret agent… or a robot dressed in a tux that jumps pretty high. There isn’t any noticeable slowdown when the action gets intense, and there really aren’t even any noticeable jaggies. The main flaw with the visual style is the camera, and if the camera weren’t an annoyance, the game really could’ve been a much more pleasurable experience.

In tune with the rest of the Ratchet games, Secret Agent Clank sounds great. The music is fine and “stealthy” while the voice acting is simply superb. While the story is definitely a bit outrageous, the game does a fair job of story telling as it makes a comical attempt to seem like a secret agent movie. So in terms of the sound, Secret Agent Clank does everything right.

Secret Agent Clank is going to get a bad rap because the changes in gameplay, especially with the lack of it really being stealthy, simply will not be enough to satisfy hardcore Ratchet fans, even if it is supposed to be just a Clank standalone. The game could’ve been a lot more interesting if Ratchet’s sequences weren’t just survival matches, because the way the game set itself up is very similar to the Sonic Adventure games that feature too much of Sonic’s friends, and not enough Sonic. But at the very least, High Impact Games has made another fairly lengthed title that’s interesting enough to keep any player engaged… just as long as he or she doesn’t throw the PSP out the window because of the annoying camera.

Games, News, Reviews, Media and More