Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Here are the games I'm planning to get (I already have Valkria)  
 

• Super Street Fighter 4 (It was announced really quickly)
• UFC 2009 (Yukes should stick with Dana's Boys)
• GT5 (Come on, I know it will not have the firebird until DLC time but hey - DAMAGE - and not the sucky kind and not "The Player should had died Burnout damage)
• BlazBlue (Whatever new version coming out)
• Star Ocean 4 International (PS3) (Ok, This is the Enterprise version of the franchise and some say it got worse after a certain point - but Im a completist) 
• DMC4 (duh)
• Blitz The League (liked the first game)
• NBA The Show (Sony has gotten better with the Baseball Game and the Basketball game is damn close)
• Uncharted 1 and 2 
• Heavenly Sword 
• Folklore (Wanted to buy it because of the Japanese advert way back when)
• Ratchet and Clank (And the PSP version)
• Midnight Club LA (Played the other versions)
• Yakuza 3 (Better than GTA4 ever was)
• GTA4 (when they have all of the DLC the 360 has)
• Soul Caliber 4
• Other games such as White Knight Chronicles 1, Tekken 6, God of War Three etc

 
On the PSP side: 
 

• GTP (60 Frames, 800 cars and I hear you transfer data from there to GT5! What's not to like)
• MGS Peace Walker: When Naked Snake becomes the bad guy.
• Valkria 2 (when ever its ready)
• That Bancho game what ever its called
• Holy Badman (Dead Penguins are the new Cool Cats)
• Patapon (UK Version)
• Soul Caliber Broken Destiny (and sadly we cannot take Kratos to 4)
• Persona and Persona 3 (the first game back in 96 was done in the Dawson's Creek style - in someways it made it more authentic and in other-ways it fell flat)
• Other such games from Level 5, that will take years to translate...

 
That will take awhile for the PS3 side to get to 25 games (I have 30 something on the PS2 side) and more than I have for any version of the Gameboy on the PSP side (I have 15 now to add GTP later) Im gonna have to keep them in a safe place nobody will find them if you believe the conspiracies out on the net...
 
As for the WII... What did i tell yall? Its a damn mess I hear. Some choice info: 
  

System Menu 4.2 seems to be bricking non-HBCed Wiis. It doesn't matter whether you've ever installed the Homebrew Channel or hacked your Wii, people who have never even heard of HBC are having these issues.

The problem appears to lie with an incredibly shoddily programmed update to boot2 of the Wii. boot2 is basically the area that "starts up" the Wii. According to the people who have developed HBC, the code for Nintendo's updated boot2 is prone to making write errors, therefore making the possibility of bricking your Wii extremely high, whether or not you have ever hacked or modified your Wii.

Here some more: 
 
 And some more: 
 

The really simple version is that ECC is extra bits that can be used to get a good, error-free read even if some of the data is errored somehow.

All forms of storage—Flash, disk, whatever—have a certain tolerable amount of errors. Makes them cheaper since they don't have to junk so much in manufacturing. Using various strategies like bad block remapping and ECC, they then present a certain amount of reliable storage to the rest of the system.

As I understand it, the Nintendo update code wasn't doing ECC properly. So if your boot2 area had errors, the update was more likely to fail than with code that did write out the ECC bits properly. So, if there was some problem reading that area back, boot2 would come back corrupted.    

Now im not the greatest Computer Wiz out there, but when a thing need to "Start Up" said system - to prevent homebrew or pirates, fails because the homebrewers realized that thing used to start the system is "fucked already and we don't even touch it" - and then for that same company to go and fix a problem that isnt the cause of the issue - and have it mess up non - HBC systems reeks of very bad planning. There are more complicated issues with this and you should check (not that I condone this) the many boards and forums that deal with such things. 
 
Its proves a point I have. Ninty had us, but they didn't get us. Sony has recovered (50,000 for 4 weeks straight is still nothing to sneeze at in Japan) 360 has lower prices and is setting up Jasper (a bit too late though). This should be news right now - but give it 2 weeks -  the media is always late on these things.  
 
But why in gods name Ninty would create a boot up system that bricks the system during an update. They had over 30 - 50 some updates during the Wii's life span with no problems. As soon as they see a chance to hurt the sons of bitch pirates... they cant even do that right. 
 
So folks, you mean to tell me your girlfriends bought a system with 7 year old tech - for 261 bucks (ecomany of scale folks), sells 2.5 million during the bubble and now some of those wii's have the chance to brick? 
 
Sounds like a bad investment to me. Not unlike how the media makes a mockery of your GF's.  
 
But then again, maybe they will get it and realize Bayonetta and games like it wern't the bad boys or girls of Video Games. 
 
Maybe the bad boys, acted like the good guys - in order to save something they lost over the decade. Maybe Endgame was always right about the Wii and we are just getting to the truth. 
 
More later, with why I hate the Pirates - and why the Go should have waited a little "while" longer. 

As some of you may or may not know, I got a PS3 exactly one week ago.  In that week, I have had good times and sad times so far (the good times greatly outnumber the sad times).  I have purchased Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Killzone 2, Resistance: Fall of Man, Valkyria Chronicles, Uncharted Drakes Fortune, Fat Princess, Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty, and Marvel Vs Capcom 2.  I think that this is a very good list of quality games for the PS3 and will keep me entertained for quite some time.  Below I am going to detail my experiance with two games that I have played the most, and what I like about them. 
 
 
 I have completed Tools of Destruction and I have to say that it is one of the best in the fantastic Ratchet and Clank series.  It was the first game that I popped into the blu-ray drive of my PS3, and I remember asking myself why 360 platformers could not be that colorful and good looking (Kameo was close).  I played this game almost non-stop from the time of purchase to the time that I completed the story.  The story was a hell of a lot more mature then previous entries in the series but still just as funny.  The best line ever was uttered by the Dread Pirate Captain Slag.  "Ye wouldn't begrudge a poor pirate his booty would ye?"  I laughed out loud at that line and at many other lines in this game. 
  
 
 
 
Killzone 2 is also an amazing game.  I have really only played the multiplayer portion of the game, but I must say, I'm hooked.  For all the haters of the game that some might say is just Halo in another universe, I have to tell people that Killzone is much more visceral and what halo SHOULD have been.  Its dirty, gritty, and has 32 player online with no graphical loss at all.  It is the best and most realistic looking console video game that has ever been released in my opinion.  My only real gripe with it is that the single player campaign sucks balls.  Thankfully I am really only playing it for multiplayer good times.  This game is graphic, and a very acurate portrayal of war in general (especially in Multiplayer with the changing objectives and such). 
 
  
 
Now I have mentioned above that I have had some sad times with my PS3.  The sad time occured while I was playing Uncharted.  I'm maybe just under an hour into the game, and it locked up on me.  Complete and total freeze with no reason for it.  I almost cried when it happened because the last time that a game froze on me, it was an indicator of an impending RROD on my XBox (I have only had one RROD on my 360, but it happened before Microsoft implemented its current warrenty system).  I looked into the issue, and discovered that Uncharted is aparently having issues with Firmware 3.0.  I was so relieved that I found this out, but at the same time it makes me sad because it means that completing the game could become a chore (its been amazing so far though and I don't want it to be painful to play). 
 
On the hole, I have throughly enjoyed my time with my PS3.  I cannot wait to complete the games that I have in my library so that I can expand it with even more quality titles.

I just beat Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, I thought it was a pretty good game overall; however the lack of meaty checkpoints annoyed me frequently. I suppose the next thing I play is Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty. You know, I hate when you know what is suppose to happen and you're waiting for it to happen only to be disappointed in thinking the story is over cause what you're told happens, but then the story continues and you think maybe the internet lied to you? Turns out it doesn't lie, at least not very much (looking at you Wikipedia!). I guess I'm having fun with Trash Panic, however it is really difficult. I would still recommend it since it is just five dollars. The last thing I takle will be Final Fantasy VII, since it is so long; cause I've played two hours and not much has happened (WTF!)! I leave my ranting to the internet, heh.

Given that this is the time of year that school decides to pick a fight with me (and inevitably win), I thought I’d write one last blog before things get too serious and I’m busy studying or at least guiltily procrastinating.  Since I last decided to relieve myself of game related opinions I haven’t played many new releases.  This is largely down to my disinterest in most of these games (Street Fighter IV being a prime example of this).  However I did play through Resident Evil 5 as well as some slightly older games.

Might as well start with the zombies.  I’m sure anyone who happens to be reading this (for whatever reason) is tired of hearing about RE5 at this point, so I’ll keep it quick.  It’s pretty good.  To be honest, RE is not a series I’m particularly fond of; the control scheme, the story, the very concept, none of it appeals to me.  That being said, I found the game to be fairly enjoyable.  The incredible graphics, intense boss fights and… hilariously bad presentation of local co-op, all fought against my apathy and made the game worth playing.

The next game that immediately comes to mind is Too Human (timely huh…).  For me, Too Human is the most frustrating kind of decent game.  At every turn, something just prevents it from being great.  Be it the slightly clunky controls, the somewhat off animation, or the fucking Valkyries. OK, so the Valkyries are decidedly worse than most other aspects of the game, but they’re still indicative of the problems that drag Too Human down.  Overall, I still enjoyed the game. Although it was largely down to the fact that Too Human is the type of game that I generally enjoy.

Next up, Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction.  I haven’t actually finished this yet, but I think I’m close enough to the end to form an opinion of sorts.  This is actually the first game in the series I’ve played, and it was mainly out of guilt for neglecting my PS3 that I played it.  The gameplay itself is not particularly compelling, but the story, setting, characters and colourful art style that surround it most certainly are.  The game has an all round (to use a technical term) pixar-ish quality about it, from the funny dialogue to the creative character design.  I’ll probably finish it in the next few days.

Besides these I have played quite a few other games that I don’t feel like writing as much about, these include:  Iron Man (…), CoD: WaW (good, but not good enough.  Sorry Treyarch, you just can’t win), Amped 3 (unbridled madness) and Need For Speed: Undercover (…).  On the DS front, I finally finished New Super Mario Bros and have spent shamefully little time playing Chrono Trigger.  I’ll play through it eventually.

This post has a lot of brackets...

Ratchet and Clank has had a lot og games over the years.  It's first game really sky-rocketed to the top and then the next games pretty much kept all of the same basics but changed the weapons and the story line.  What I felt made the series hit a down point was Ratchet and Clank: Deadlocked beause it got rid of all the old things people loved about Ratchet and Clank. Next, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters was made on the PSP and had put a lot of the old basics from the origanal game.  Then they came up the PSP game Sectert Agent Clank (it is said that it was meant to be like James Bond) that had you play as Clank most of the game.  Finally, the Rachet and Clank Future series was made.  The First of the future game was tools of destruction which when was made for PS3 did very well and is was of the top played and ranked games at the time, plus the next was called quest for booty did most as the one before except for the fact that clank is gone.  In my personal opinion I like the first Ratchet and Clank and Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction because for the first rachet and clank , it started it all and had a lot of great qualities about and tools of destruction because is reinstated those first thins in ratchet and clank and added new good things that made it great.  Tell me which of the games you perfered put of the series.

So a couple days ago I picked up Ratchet and Clank: Future. Now usually in a game, for me, graphics aren't a huge deal. For example, graphics like in Resistance, CoD etc. (realistic graphics that try to look like real life) although they look awesome don't really do much for me. Sure they're great but they don't really stand out. Now in a game like R&C or other kind of 'cartoony' games they are just awesome. They look so vibrant and different you can't help but love them. Anyways that's just me. There's tons of different gameplay in it and, despite what Gamespots review says, this is certainly a GOOD thing. I wouldn't have bought this unless Devian hadn't recommended it (when he was still on GS, 2007) so thanks Devian/sonic5227.

I reserved my copy of Skate 2. and I'm getting it at the end of the month. Looks awesome! I loved Skate. so this should be great. Oh here's me. Drinking coke. Yeah. I'm in the GB video too! I'm the guy who drinks right before the music gets really catchy! What an honor!

Well another podcast for you listening pleasure! (and a Happy New Year to you!)

So we are back and with a Playstation 3, this week we discuss Playstation games (namely Metal Gear Solid 4, Little Big Planet, Resistance, Ratchet and Clank and Uncharted), Left 4 Dead (with a full review coming next week), the plight of the FMV and CG Actors and round off with a talk about Space games!

Any comments post on the site (it’s free) or send us an email: theguys@beatbritish.co.uk

The podcast can be found here. The itunes feed can be found here.

I hope you all had a great holiday time, see you all as the year goes on!