Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal

Game Info

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America

Developer: Insomniac Games

Platform:  PS2

Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Platform

Players: 8

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: November 2, 2004

Intro:

After a montage of gameplay scenes designed to get the player excited about gameplay, the scene opens on a chess-type game between Ratchet and Clank.  There is a minor power struggle here followed by a video where we see that Clank, as Secret Agent Clank, has the upper hand over Ratchet as "Jeeves" the limo driver.  This is a theme that will continue throughout the game even though the roles are only acting roles.  The news comes on and Ratchet and Clank must rush "home" to save Veldin from the Tyrhannoids.

Getting Going:

Landing on Veldin puts Clank immediately in the action.  You're handed a weapon and a voice-over tutorial lets you know how to use it while you continue to battle your way through the level.  As you move through, you receive a second weapon.  Meanwhile, a map in the select menu lets you know where you've been and where you're going.

Fun:

The game is fun in that "Did you see that?" way.  Ratchet runs around destroying things all around him and it seems like ammo is easily attained to keep the player going.  There is plenty to see and do; huge explosions; and amazing weapons animations all along the way. 

Visuals:

There is certainly a lot to look at here and, as stated in fun, huge explosions and flying debris make the game as fun to watch as it is to play alone.  Obstacles, for the most part, seem appropriate and there are places to hide and cover.  While the game is cartoon-like rather than realistic, the animations fit in this setting.  They would not if a different visual style had been chosen. Cut scenes are minimal and very appropriate to gameplay.

Sound:

There is a cover layer of music and voice commands over a background of battle sounds and enemy noises.  Ducking is done very well here.  The sounds of battle die down enough to here what Ratchet is being told.  Enemies can often be heard before they are seen and some, especially in the sewers, have regular barks for injury.  Occasionally, especially during a frustrating part of play, the repetitive music becomes annoying, but, overall, the effect is well-blended.

Intelligence:

Sometimes the enemies notice you, sometimes they seem oblivious to your presence.  There are a lot of mini-games throughout this game requiring you to learn to "speak" in a foreign language, hack doors, and run through mazes of flames.  Also, some weapons work better on some enemies than others, adding a learning curve and decision-making to the player experience.

Immersion:

Between decision-making and explosive battle, the player could easily get immersed in much of this game.  Vid-Comics and other mini-games can occasionally take the player out of that sense of immersion, reminding the player the player that they are, indeed, playing a game.  Vid-comics seem to be intended as a game within a game, but take the player from core gameplay without choice.  This would become an issue for me later in play.

Cameras:

The cameras give you a complete spherical view of play.  Ratchet can do a 360, look up, down, and all around on various angles.  I had left the game for a while to play Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  Upon returning, I felt like the camera was a little too fluent and hard to control, but after brief gameplay, I was able to appreciate the fluid camera abilities again. The vid-comics, however, offer no camera angles, which felt a little odd in the midst of core gameplay.  Vid-comics are a straight-forward side-scroller with simple controls.

Controls:

Controls become very intuitive in this game with only a very short learning curve.  Most commands are in the joysticks and buttons.  Shooting is easily done using R1 which feels like a trigger, adding to immersion and intuitive play.  My biggest complaint is about the R3 toggle which would often bring up my map in the heat of battle.  This is most likely an option that could have been turned off if I had looked into it.  My only other complaint is about the controls in the vid-comics.  The vid-comics are side-scrollers offering only simple controls in the game.  Unfortunately, this is the one place where I felt the controls were actually more at fault than the player.  There were many times that I felt I was commanding Qwark to jump on a ledge when he'd move under it, do the splits and look up and other frustrating things.  As the mini-game relies on timing and accuracy, this created truly frustrating play. 

Ideas:

One of the things I learned from this game is that mini-games should have an opt-out.  If they are not the same as core gameplay, they can easily destroy the player experience.  I couldn't get through the fourth vid-comic.  The story relied on the player playing the vid-comic through and wouldn't advance without it.  There are online cheats to get past these things, but, as designers, the goal is never to force a player to cheat.  Core gameplay in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal revolves around battle systems and upgrading your weapons.  Gameplay in the vid-comic relies on accuracy and timing.  Items move beneath you requiring the player to start again if they fail.  Even when I passed one checkpoint, I'd find myself again frustrated trying to pass the next.  It became annoying, rather than fun, and had nothing to do with the experience of the rest of the game.  And the rest of the game was amazing.  I was impressed by how many things I could destroy for nuts and bolts.  I was awed by the amount of visuals in this game.  Not only were the assets in place, but they could be destroyed, with a resulting animation.  There was obviously a tremendous amount of work put into this.

Memory:

I quit the game after trying for over an hour to pass a mini-game.  To frustrate a player to the point of quitting a game destroys the efforts of every member of the team that worked on that game.  I will never see the ending.  Every asset put into the game from the fourth vid-comic including art, story, programming, animation, sound, and production gets lost on the player who feels defeated by a mini-game.  It didn't matter that core gameplay was amazing.  In the end, I quit playing because the mini-game didn't have an opt-out.