Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
Insomniac returns with one of the best PS2 games yet.
Published: November 20, 2003
Mashing genres is all the rage these days. I use the word "mash" because more often than not the combination of elements fits, but you're still getting a couple different parts of different genres under the guise of a new game rather than the elements blending seamlessly into something that feels greater than the sum of its parts. Insomniac's second Ratchet & Clank game feels like more of the latter, with just a few new elements sneaking into the mix to push it into new enough territory that the old basically feels new.
R&C2's biggest upgrade comes in the form of experience, which we'll discuss in more detail in a second. The RPG bread and butter is more at home in R&C weapons-heavy action platformer world than you'd think, and the relatively simple inclusion keeps things interesting nearly until the end. While nobody will praise the sequel for breaking new ground, the second game in the Ratchet & Clank universe does right by those that dug the first game, and fixes many of the problems that wronged the rest.
Take, for instance, the character of Ratchet, who most felt was at the bottom of the list of original mascots in the PS2 pantheon. By retrofitting his duds and attitude, but still keeping the core, Insomniac managed to transform a foil for the obviously cooler Clank character into someone you can actually feel good rooting for. Sure, he still looks like a loose collection of combined clichés, but at least he acts a whole lot more like a hero, and the change is one of a few subtle tweaks that showed that the SoCal developer was eager to listen to the fans and press in molding their newest franchise.
The aforementioned inclusion of experience elements into just about every part of Ratchet's design, and the continuation of weapons and armor that upgrade throughout the game click in such a natural way, it's a wonder why this isn't a more common trait. By doing what you do anyway (read: blow $#!^ up), the downed enemies add to two experience meters; one for your weapon, which eventually graduates to a bigger, faster, burlier variant, and another for your health. By throwing these two simple upgrades in, suddenly those of us who are suckers for a little leveling up, RPG-style, have something that erases the normal monotony of killing lots of baddies for 20 hours or so straight. It may not win everyone over, but having a reward at the end of all that tedium certainly makes things move more quickly.
While the story is as much of a part of the game as the first R&C, it does offer a very slight upgrade on the all-too-familiar scenario of the universe in peril by a madman/doomsday device/catastrophe. Originally hired by Ambercrombie Fizzwidget, an eccentric inventor and head of Megacorp (think The Gap for all things technology), the heroic pair are asked to recover a top secret experiment from a thief. They do, of course, but that's where things begin to fall apart. The true identities of many players slowly get revealed, adding the now-familiar set of twists and turns that made the first game's story so entertaining.
And that's really what R&C2 is all about: entertainment. While Ratchet is less of a whiny little catbitchthing, the same sense of humor that the first game possessed permeates everything about the sequel, keeping it light despite more dire circumstances. The addition of a handful of new, wildly inventive weapons and their upgrades, the return of all the old weapons, plenty of in jokes aimed at people that played the first game (or a certain other Naughty Dog title), and tons of unlockable goodies means you'll definitely get your $50.
Things aren't perfect, though. Some of the problems that haunted the first game are still present. While the overall difficulty of the game is rather low, the checkpoints in place on some levels are frustratingly far apart, meaning you'll have to replay the same length of a level over and over. Granted, this was probably done to encourage fighting and thus leveling up more weapons and health, but it's nonetheless annoying. There's also too heavy a reliance on fetching one item after another. The same sequence of getting an item, finding a video, flying to a new planet and repeating tends to make things feel a little stale after a while.
Still, if you're going to be stuck visiting one planet after another, at least you can rest comfortably in the fact that each and every one of them will be gorgeous. The collaboration between Insomniac and Naughty Dog for the Jak & Daxter/Ratchet & Clank engine has helped both parties immensely, though it's truly impressive to see how the different developers use the advances from each other to push the engine in different ways. While Naughty Dog chose to go the seamless, immersive high-detail route, Insomniac seemed content to simply up the scale of the worlds you'll visit. Just as in the first game, when you first touch down on a planet, you'll get a wide shot of a massive vista. On average, there isn't as much going on with the same overabundance of ships as the first game, but the planets are undeniably larger.
Things are pleasantly detailed, texture wise, and there's less of an occurrence of the odd terrain morphing going on than in the first game. While the texture work isn't as detailed or high-res as, say, Jak II, the trade off is in a framerate that's nearly always a butter-smooth 60 fps. The lack of overall surface detail is more than made up for in sheer geometry and architecture. Just as in the case of the first game, the worlds' sense of self and style is fantastic, and though the planets are generally quite diverse, you still get that same feeling that they're part of the same solar system. The fact that the same kicks out to progressive scan is also a nice touch, though the decision to have things default to 16:9 isn't. It's doubtful that some gamers will ever know things are off aside from the fact that everything feels off. If anyone's reading this and is wondering why things look a bit stretched, it's because the video settings are funky. Make sure you have widescreen off unless you have a 16:9 (think plasma or LCD wall-mounted flat screen) TV.
I loved Ratchet & Clank's quirky mixture of b movie-style warbling notes and poppy percussive loops. R&C2 does this one better, including the same style, but occasionally slipping into more complex movements. It's nothing overly dramatic, but there were a couple levels were I began humming along with the music rather than just digging on it's eccentricities. Even with these perhaps more familiar aural bits, things are still wonderfully unique. David Bergeaud has managed to craft a completely unique score that's now intrinsically bonded with the R&C games.
Once again, the voice acting is stellar. The change in Ratchet is due in no small part to James Arnold Taylor, who did a fantastic job of helping the character grow up a bit. The addition of Steven Jay Blum (who did the English voice of Spike in the Cowboy Bebop series and movie) and Kath Soucie (who's lended her voice to almost innumerable cartoon series) were nice touches, especially in the case of the former who managed to fill multiple roles along with some of the more permanent cast.
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando managed to inject some original concepts into the formula and borrowed a couple from other genres. The result is a game that's different enough from it's predecessor to make it a better game. If/when R&C3 hits, it'll have to innovate a bit more and depart from some of the things that the previous two games have recycled, but for now, the second game in the series stands as one of the best games on the PlayStation 2. It's incredibly polished (right down to the packaging and instruction manual), still plenty humorous, and endearing enough that it should be a holiday purchase on everyone's wish list.
R&C2's biggest upgrade comes in the form of experience, which we'll discuss in more detail in a second. The RPG bread and butter is more at home in R&C weapons-heavy action platformer world than you'd think, and the relatively simple inclusion keeps things interesting nearly until the end. While nobody will praise the sequel for breaking new ground, the second game in the Ratchet & Clank universe does right by those that dug the first game, and fixes many of the problems that wronged the rest.
Take, for instance, the character of Ratchet, who most felt was at the bottom of the list of original mascots in the PS2 pantheon. By retrofitting his duds and attitude, but still keeping the core, Insomniac managed to transform a foil for the obviously cooler Clank character into someone you can actually feel good rooting for. Sure, he still looks like a loose collection of combined clichés, but at least he acts a whole lot more like a hero, and the change is one of a few subtle tweaks that showed that the SoCal developer was eager to listen to the fans and press in molding their newest franchise.
The aforementioned inclusion of experience elements into just about every part of Ratchet's design, and the continuation of weapons and armor that upgrade throughout the game click in such a natural way, it's a wonder why this isn't a more common trait. By doing what you do anyway (read: blow $#!^ up), the downed enemies add to two experience meters; one for your weapon, which eventually graduates to a bigger, faster, burlier variant, and another for your health. By throwing these two simple upgrades in, suddenly those of us who are suckers for a little leveling up, RPG-style, have something that erases the normal monotony of killing lots of baddies for 20 hours or so straight. It may not win everyone over, but having a reward at the end of all that tedium certainly makes things move more quickly.
While the story is as much of a part of the game as the first R&C, it does offer a very slight upgrade on the all-too-familiar scenario of the universe in peril by a madman/doomsday device/catastrophe. Originally hired by Ambercrombie Fizzwidget, an eccentric inventor and head of Megacorp (think The Gap for all things technology), the heroic pair are asked to recover a top secret experiment from a thief. They do, of course, but that's where things begin to fall apart. The true identities of many players slowly get revealed, adding the now-familiar set of twists and turns that made the first game's story so entertaining.
And that's really what R&C2 is all about: entertainment. While Ratchet is less of a whiny little catbitchthing, the same sense of humor that the first game possessed permeates everything about the sequel, keeping it light despite more dire circumstances. The addition of a handful of new, wildly inventive weapons and their upgrades, the return of all the old weapons, plenty of in jokes aimed at people that played the first game (or a certain other Naughty Dog title), and tons of unlockable goodies means you'll definitely get your $50.
Things aren't perfect, though. Some of the problems that haunted the first game are still present. While the overall difficulty of the game is rather low, the checkpoints in place on some levels are frustratingly far apart, meaning you'll have to replay the same length of a level over and over. Granted, this was probably done to encourage fighting and thus leveling up more weapons and health, but it's nonetheless annoying. There's also too heavy a reliance on fetching one item after another. The same sequence of getting an item, finding a video, flying to a new planet and repeating tends to make things feel a little stale after a while.
Still, if you're going to be stuck visiting one planet after another, at least you can rest comfortably in the fact that each and every one of them will be gorgeous. The collaboration between Insomniac and Naughty Dog for the Jak & Daxter/Ratchet & Clank engine has helped both parties immensely, though it's truly impressive to see how the different developers use the advances from each other to push the engine in different ways. While Naughty Dog chose to go the seamless, immersive high-detail route, Insomniac seemed content to simply up the scale of the worlds you'll visit. Just as in the first game, when you first touch down on a planet, you'll get a wide shot of a massive vista. On average, there isn't as much going on with the same overabundance of ships as the first game, but the planets are undeniably larger.
Things are pleasantly detailed, texture wise, and there's less of an occurrence of the odd terrain morphing going on than in the first game. While the texture work isn't as detailed or high-res as, say, Jak II, the trade off is in a framerate that's nearly always a butter-smooth 60 fps. The lack of overall surface detail is more than made up for in sheer geometry and architecture. Just as in the case of the first game, the worlds' sense of self and style is fantastic, and though the planets are generally quite diverse, you still get that same feeling that they're part of the same solar system. The fact that the same kicks out to progressive scan is also a nice touch, though the decision to have things default to 16:9 isn't. It's doubtful that some gamers will ever know things are off aside from the fact that everything feels off. If anyone's reading this and is wondering why things look a bit stretched, it's because the video settings are funky. Make sure you have widescreen off unless you have a 16:9 (think plasma or LCD wall-mounted flat screen) TV.
I loved Ratchet & Clank's quirky mixture of b movie-style warbling notes and poppy percussive loops. R&C2 does this one better, including the same style, but occasionally slipping into more complex movements. It's nothing overly dramatic, but there were a couple levels were I began humming along with the music rather than just digging on it's eccentricities. Even with these perhaps more familiar aural bits, things are still wonderfully unique. David Bergeaud has managed to craft a completely unique score that's now intrinsically bonded with the R&C games.
Once again, the voice acting is stellar. The change in Ratchet is due in no small part to James Arnold Taylor, who did a fantastic job of helping the character grow up a bit. The addition of Steven Jay Blum (who did the English voice of Spike in the Cowboy Bebop series and movie) and Kath Soucie (who's lended her voice to almost innumerable cartoon series) were nice touches, especially in the case of the former who managed to fill multiple roles along with some of the more permanent cast.
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando managed to inject some original concepts into the formula and borrowed a couple from other genres. The result is a game that's different enough from it's predecessor to make it a better game. If/when R&C3 hits, it'll have to innovate a bit more and depart from some of the things that the previous two games have recycled, but for now, the second game in the series stands as one of the best games on the PlayStation 2. It's incredibly polished (right down to the packaging and instruction manual), still plenty humorous, and endearing enough that it should be a holiday purchase on everyone's wish list.
