![]() ![]() This was insomniac developing the signature style that would later evolve into Resistance. Bouncing circular saw blades and globes that fire bombs are just the start before long you’re messing with guns that suck up smaller enemies and fire them out, claws that fire our arcs of rapidly spreading electricity and rayguns that turned enemies into chickens. The weapons, meanwhile, seem almost as inventive today as they did when the game was released. Ratchet and Clank never manages this quite as cleverly as a Mario or Zelda, but it’s still several steps ahead of any rival Western platform series you could mention, with the possible exception of stablemate, Jak and Daxter. Insomniac copied Nintendo’s trick of introducing a new gizmo, then pushing you to find inventive ways of using it. Others involve grapple beams, oversized water pistols that shift liquids from one place to another, or boots that enable you to grind rails. Some of the gadgets, like the handy jump-boosting, gliding heli-pack, incorporate Ratchet’s robot sidekick/comic foil, Clank. Yet Ratchet and Clank’s real genius lies in its weapons and gadgets, either discovered during the game, or bought with valuable bolts from each world’s gadget vendor. The main hero, the long-eared Lombax, Ratchet, has all the moves of a conventional platform hero, with all the double-jumps and wall jumps you can wish for. Ratchet and Clank finds a fertile middle ground between Super Mario 64 and old-school platform shooters, giving you a range of different worlds to explore, each one full of areas to be discovered and enemies to fight. The first game has fared worse than its sequels, yet all the components are already in place. As with any reissue there are some rough edges and some elements that haven’t dated well, but when our dynamic duo hit form, it’s still as good as gaming gets. Before Insomniac shifted its focus to Resistance and the underwhelming Ruse, and before Sony diluted the brand with the likes of Q-Force and All 4 One, Ratchet and Clank starred in a string of titles that were as slick and innovative as anything Sega or Nintendo could muster, and which continued to astonish as they moved from PS3 to PS4.ģD platformers are out of fashion now, with only Nintendo capable of serving up a hit, and replaying the Ratchet and Clank Trilogy on PS Vita this seems a dreadful shame. They were stars once – the heroes of arguably the best platform series on PS2. ![]()
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