The Good: Where combat is concerned, most of Ratchet's new weapons (and even some of his old ones) remain fun to use hour after hour. As for puzzles, all of the Clank-only stages are well-designed, with the last of them providing a genuine challenge. Insomniac's trademark humor maintains a welcome presence throughout!

The Bad: One thing that I've always loved about the R&C franchise has been its perfect blend of platforming action and puzzle-solving; unfortunately, the first two-thirds of A Crack in Time alternates between Ratchet-only levels devoted entirely to action and Clank-only levels devoted entirely to puzzles. Whereas above-average action and above-average puzzles blended together to make earlier R&C adventures truly awesome, that same synergy is sorely missing from most of A Crack in Time.

My only other major gripe with this title was that it felt like Insomniac could've produced an amazing 5-hour game but instead padded A Crack in Time out into a merely adequate 8-hour experience. For example: there's nothing particularly enjoyable about being locked inside a room, forced to fight wave after wave of the same two enemy types as they warp into said room with no end in sight, but that tiresome scenario plays itself out on multiple occasions. Plus, one boss fight even gets re-used!

The Stand-out Moment: The long-awaited reunion of Ratchet and Clank, natch!

The Verdict: 8.0 (out of 10)

On the one hand, I feel like saying that Insomniac should've moved on from Ratchet & Clank like they did with Spyro the Dragon: creating a new franchise for a new console after producing one great trilogy for the previous generation. On the other hand, maybe I'm just a jaded old man who should be playing Resistance instead!

The Good: Where combat is concerned, most of Ratchet's new weapons (and even some of his old ones) remain fun to use hour after hour. As for puzzles, all of the Clank-only stages are well-designed, with the last of them providing a genuine challenge. Insomniac's trademark humor maintains a welcome presence throughout!

The Bad: One thing that I've always loved about the R&C franchise has been its perfect blend of platforming action and puzzle-solving; unfortunately, the first two-thirds of A Crack in Time alternates between Ratchet-only levels devoted entirely to action and Clank-only levels devoted entirely to puzzles. Whereas above-average action and above-average puzzles blended together to make earlier R&C adventures truly awesome, that same synergy is sorely missing from most of A Crack in Time.

My only other major gripe with this title was that it felt like Insomniac could've produced an amazing 5-hour game but instead padded A Crack in Time out into a merely adequate 8-hour experience. For example: there's nothing particularly enjoyable about being locked inside a room, forced to fight wave after wave of the same two enemy types as they warp into said room with no end in sight, but that tiresome scenario plays itself out on multiple occasions. Plus, one boss fight even gets re-used!

The Stand-out Moment: The long-awaited reunion of Ratchet and Clank, natch!

The Verdict: 8.0 (out of 10)

On the one hand, I feel like saying that Insomniac should've moved on from Ratchet & Clank like they did with Spyro the Dragon: creating a new franchise for a new console after producing one great trilogy for the previous generation. On the other hand, maybe I'm just a jaded old man who should be playing Resistance instead!