All these things, of course, were in rather stark contrast to Clank's part of the game, and we assume that's the idea. While Clank moves quickly and is now far more capable as a melee combatant (we could even buy him a kick from the familiar Gadgetron/Agency vendors that would round off his normal melee combo with a little extra zing), he's still a secret agent with an emphasis on the secret part. That means that stealth is the primary focus here rather than Ratchet's more gung-ho blow-up-everything-that-moves approach, and as such Clank's weapons are designed about eliminating threats without direct contact if possible -- or better still creating new routes that get him around enemies.

His Razor Bowtie-a-Rang, for instance, can hit enemies from afar, even caroming off nearby targets to hit others, but it can also slice through ropes and wires to create new paths, as we did in the Boltaire Museum and later in the neon glitz of a Neo-Tokyo planet by bringing down entire signs to make bridges. An ink pen can goop up lasers to shut down alarm triggers, and rocket boots finally give the little guy a much-needed source of both double-jump power and a coasting long-range fall. All these things are meant to get the little guy from Point A to Point B without being seen, which in turn rewarded us with an experience boost for stealth. More life (sorry, Nanotech) is always a good thing. Even when enemies are unavoidable, a head-on confrontation isn't always necessary. Catch them off-guard and you can kick off a simple sequence of button presses that if pulled off quickly enough (not a huge deal at least early on), will result in a stealth kill sequence.

And so, as we tooled around the museum, inking out laser grids, stealthily eliminating guards and kicking and punching our way through various crates and museum antiquities (we apparently favor destruction over timelessness), we eventually came to where the Eye of Infinity would be held. We said "would" because the case had already been broken. Off to find the real thief! Oh, wait, before we did that (which would eventually lead us to a meeting with the Countess Ivana Lottabolts, but we'll have to save that encounter for another time), we should mention that Clank isn't without his own examples of just how agile and flexible the little guy can be.

At multiple parts during the missions, be they where we pretended to be a statue to avoid patrolling guards or the increasingly more complex rhythm-action segments that started with just hitting the face buttons in time with the music and eventually graduated to including the d-pad buttons as well while we slinked, limboed, and flipped through a huge laser grid toward the end (and that's after we used the same rhythm action sequences to eliminate a bunch of guards leading into the main chamber). The sequences popped up fairly often, and much like Ratchet's sequences, may have happened a bit too often, but we're suckers for timed button press sequences -- especially with how complicated they eventually got.

Secret Agent Clank certainly looks like it's going to finally give our favorite of the Ratchet & Clank pair his chance to shine. Though a combination of solid visuals and engine tech, responsive controls and more than a few moments where Clank's debonair side was finally allowed to properly shine, it seems Ratchet's pal won't be relegated to sidekick status for much longer.