Ratchet & Clank

[Foggle]

Just finished playing through Quest For Booty again. That was way, way better than I remembered. Very good game - definitely worth playing for R&C fans. A couple of the shooter parts drag a bit, but the platforming is spot on and the combat is as fun as ever.

This is my new personal ranking:
Going Commando
Up Your Arsenal
A Crack In Time
Ratchet & Clank
Quest For Booty
Tools Of Destruction
Deadlocked
All 4 One
...
Size Matters
Secret Agent Clank

[Spark Of Spirit]

I enjoyed what little I played of ToD, but so far I'm not feeling it as much as Deadlocked. It's weird, because I didn't think I'd like Deadlocked so much, but ToD feels a bit off to me.

[Foggle]

ToD definitely gets better as it goes. It's kind of neck and neck with Deadlocked on my list. The spaceship levels are the series' best though, IMO.

And All 4 One is... okay. Probably worth picking up for $10 or so. Certainly better than the High Impact games, in any case.

[Foggle]

Apparently the R&C Collection is one of the worst yet (still far better than Silent Hill and Splinter Cell, though). From what I hear, it has tons of bugs and glitches. Hopefully they patch it in time for the NA release, I really want that proper widescreen support and UYA multiplayer...

[Spark Of Spirit]

What??!?

I heard this was being made by the ebst makers of these HD games. Such a shame. 

[Foggle]

There's a bunch of little glitches everywhere. The side meter doesn't disappear when you get out of the water/put away the suck cannon, a bunch of textures have the wrong colors, FPS drops that weren't in the original (though the overall frame rate is far smoother in this one), music that doesn't loop properly, cutscenes and audio that don't play at all, weird animation bugs, broken multiplayer lobbies, etc.

To be fair, these all seem like easily fixable issues, and people who've played it are saying that the EU release was obviously rushed out the door by Sony. This is most apparent by the fact that the UYA port feels a lot more unfinished than the other two. They're probably still working on the collection right now and I assume the NA version will be patched up and perfect by release.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Then I guess I'm glad the NA version was delayed for whatever reason. These HD ports seem to be getting sloppier all the time, I really hope they can fix this one.

[Foggle]

None of it really breaks the games (like I said, far better than SC and SH), but they're inferior to the PS2 versions at the moment.

[Spark Of Spirit]

So I beat Tools Of Destruction.

It was... okay. I mean, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the game (except the awful, awful tilt controls) but I mean it doesn't really do anything new. It's standard Ratchet & Clank. The Leviathan Soul idea was cool, but outside of two planets, I didn't even see any options to find more and the Smuggler disappears halfway into the game so that pretty much feels forgotten. The weapon upgrade system is nice, but its a bit annoying because you don't seem to get too many crystals to use them. On the flip side, you seem to get thrown way too many bolts in this game. I had all the guns and armor purchased before I even reached the last planet and I didn't even trade in all my Leviathan Souls yet. This is a real change from the other three (or four) where I would still have things to buy for the next play-through.

The biggest qualm was with the difficulty. Enemies tend to be bullet sponges by the end game, that one teleporting enemy that they spam at the end sops up ammo like nobody's business and that final boss took WAY too long to go down. Enemies took to long to go down that most of my weapons were max leveled by the end game, again without even trying to use them all. Platforming was fun, but there wasn't much of it. I think there was less platforming then any of the other R&C games which is a shame because that's part of the fun. It didn't even have arena platforming challenges like UYA did.

Speaking of the arena... What happened? There was no challenge at all. GC was next to impossible, and UYA had a ton to do, but this one was so sparse.

All in all, I'm not really sure what to say. It's R&C and it's a good game. If you have a PS3- grab it. But on the whole, it's a letdown compared to the PS2 games. There's less to do, less exploration (I got like 10 gold bolts playing the game normally... that NEVER happens in this series), the weapons have less kick, and the pacing seems off, but there's nothing really bad about the game. It's like they spent so much time making a HD R&C game that they forgot to add any spice to it. It's such a bland game.

The prison level was cool, however. So was storming the space station and quite a few other levels, they just don't add up to outdoing the PS2 games.

[Foggle]

My thoughts exactly on ToD. You'll probably like QFB and CiT much better, as they're of far higher quality IMO.

[gunswordfist]

I beat Crack In Time last night. It was a decent game over all. I wish there was more enemy types and better guns though. I'll get the real final boss or whatever later.

[Foggle]

I beat Crack In Time last night. It was a decent game over all. I wish there was more enemy types and better guns though. I'll get the real final boss or whatever later.

It's great, but it's fairly different from the other ones, which I think you'd like a lot more. The PS2 games, specifically.

[gunswordfist]

I remember liking Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal more. I can't really remember why though.

[Foggle]

I remember liking Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal more. I can't really remember why though.

More satisfying weapons, higher difficulty, faster pace, extra action, better space shooter levels, etc.

[gunswordfist]

I remember liking Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal more. I can't really remember why though.

More satisfying weapons, higher difficulty, faster pace, extra action, better space shooter levels, etc.

That might be it