alpha99's Blog: Finished: Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (PS2)

Good
- Usually maintains the Ratchet look and feel.
- Excellent voice work from the Ratchet cast.
- A few cool new weapons.
- Decent Ratchet story.

Bad
- Weapons horribly underpowered.
- Awful camera.
- Unbalanced enemy damage.
- Lack of sound effects with "oomph".
- Overly difficult in spots.
- Bad "mini-game" levels (hover-boarding / Giant Clank).
- Slightly unresponsive controls.

I think it was Sunday night or something, I happened to see my copies of the Ratchet series on the PS2 and I really wanted to play through the series again; unfortunately it was too late, so I had to go to bed. So Monday afternoon I remembered something, they ported R&C: Size Matters to the PS2, so I checked things out and 25 bucks later I was ready to try a "new" Ratchet game.

Quick verdict? It's a pretty good game, no where near the level of anything Insomniac put together, not even close... That right there is the sad part about Size Matters, it looks like a RC game, but something always feels wrong. The best thing about PSP Port is that they changed the controls back to the original PS2 controls, so I assume it is much easier to play than on the PSP. Other than that though, there are too many nagging problems to fully enjoy this RC game.

First off, it is a PSP port so the graphics are a bit washed out and the textures are blurry. Though, if I use my imagination, this is one damn fine looking PSP game though. Tied for the biggest problem is the CAMERA, it is too close to Ratchet and you lose enemies behind you all the time. You start to get in to the habit of "180 jumping" where you jump, then spin to face the enemy that you can't see behind you and shoot. It is extremely hard to get the camera to reset behind Ratchet, so you just give up.

The other major problem is the game's balance, it is all over the place. Even with armor that says it reduces damage by 60% doesn't do a thing. Most attacks will do 10 damage and since you can only earn up to 50 hit points, that means you get 5 or less hits. In addition there are couple of bosses that require far too much practice and luck. Why? Because of the next issue with Size Matters...

The weapons are highly under powered. Even at their final forms at level 4 they are still weak sauce. You will run out of ammo before you even clip a 1/3 from the boss's life bar even with the most powerful gun attainable in the first playthrough. There are some creative weapons in Size Matters to be sure, like the Bee Hive Mine Gun and a sniper rifle that shoots mines... But when the fully powered "Shotgun" takes 5 hits to kill a simple robot, I think High Impact Games missed the point of the Ratchet games... Blowing lots of shit up.

In fact there are hardly any breakable objects in Size Matters, I don't know if it is a PSP limitation, but in the older PS2 titles once you got the crate smashing power up (jump then square button) all kinds of things would break, lamp posts, windows, plants, rocks, lights, signs and bolts would flood the screen. You are mostly limited to crates in Size Matters.

The game is also very low impact in the sound department, the music is thematically in the Ratchet series, but sound effects are too mellow. Sometimes you don't even know you got hit because there are no sound effects for it. There is just no punch to the sounds of the game.

The story is kind of interesting, but I didn't think the game was as funny the other Ratchet games and all the cut-scenes are pre-rendered, so your Ratchet is wearing armor, but he's not in the scenes which really kills the continuity. I'm going to stop before this should end up a "Gamer's Rant" instead of a Finished Article....

Summing up: a tad frustrating and unbalanced, less than 6 hours, weapons have no power, horrible camera, passive sound effects and a lack of humor. I can't even imagine trying to play this game on a PSP, it is hard to play even with full PS2 controls. I know I made Size Matters seem like the worst game ever, but that is only because of the legacy of the Ratchet series and Size Matters just doesn't keep that up. Regardless of all my negatives and nit-picks I did have some fun and I enjoyed playing through a "new" Ratchet game.

I don't know what is coming up on here on the blog, but keep an eye out for updates, you never know when one will pop up. Talk to you soon. Loading Complete!