Nothing more and nothing less then a Ratchet game.
Ratchet and Clank have hit Sony's Playstation 3 and are ready for a brand new adventure in Ratchet and Clank Future! This first installment in the new series, "Tools of Destruction", is a return to formula after the combat focused Ratchet: Deadlocked. Insomniac attempts to bring back what we all remember from the first three Ratchet and Clank games on PS2 and succeed, but do nothing more.
The story is definitely more fleshed out this time around than we are used to. The game starts off with Metropolis, a staple of the Ratchet and Clank universe, being attacked. An emperor from a distant galaxy named Tachyon tells Ratchet to turn himself over or he'll destroy Metropolis. The duo of Ratchet and Clank escape from the menace and are soon traversing the Polaris galaxy fighting pirates and discovering more information about the elusive Lombax and Cragmites.
The first thing you'll notice are the beautiful graphics both in-game and during cuscenes rendered using the in-game engine*. It has a distinct cartoonish feel and is close to Pixar level. It definitely matches the style. The world, for the most part, is rich with color and life. There are few boring parts visually of Ratchet and Clank.
The gameplay is really fun, but still has the same problems the old games had. It's got all of the great weapons you'd expect from a Ratchet and Clank game, but it's light on platforming and is also extremely easy. I was hoping that now that we had reached the "Future" we'd get new gameplay, but it's the same thing we had on PS2. The gameplay could definitely use refinement.
All in all, this game is a great buy and anybody who's a Ratchet and Clank fan or has kids can't go wrong with this game.
4/5
*NOTE: The opening cutscene is rendered using the in-game engine, but is played as an MPEG to hide load times.
