Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Of the many Ratchet & Clank games I've played, this is the second I've beaten.

The controls are like any other third person shooter. Move with left thumbstick, move the camera with the right. Shoot with R1, and hold L2 to strafe. Very intuitive, very easy.

The story gives you some more background into why the Lombax are missing. Not that the story is too deep.

The gameplay is like any other R&C game. Shoot stuff to get bolts, power up your weapons through use, and buy ammo/weapons with bolts. This is the first time I saw the new system of upgrading your weapons with crystals, which was a nice touch. I'm sure this came about in an earlier game, but this is the first I experienced it. Using crystals, you can power up your weapon in a variety of ways - more bolts from kills, more crystals from kills, more ammo, more damage, or something specific to the gun (faster shooting, acid explosions, etc.)

The graphics are good. The keep it a cartoony, so it has the R&C feel to it.

The voice acting is good, and the sound effects are quite nice. I just finished getting myself up to a 3.1 sound system, so I enjoyed the explosions a lot.


Things I need to gripe about:

They use the six-axis in a few unique ways, most of which were not enjoyable to me.
1) In a hacking mini-game, you use it to move a ball around a grid to connect circuits. I'd rather just use the left thumbstick
2) To control a specific weapon's destruction path, which makes controlling your character, your view, and it's path extremely difficult. It's unique, but not really enjoyable. This was the only weapon not at max level by the end of the game.
3) In very short mini-games where you are controlling Ratchet as he skydives down to a planet. Typically I just end up spinning it in a circle, as that avoids most enemies/missiles headed my way.
4) It also plays a small part in a pirate dancing game. This was the only tolerable one.




The checkpoints are abysmal. There were numerous times where a 10-20 minute stretch of the game was extended by 40-50 minutes because I kept falling off a ledge and having to repeat an entire sequence of rail-riding mini-games, or platform jumping nausea.

Falling off ledges and getting thrown back to the last checkpoint is very anti-climactic. I would rather die from getting shot or swarmed by mobs than falling off a ledge. And yes, there are lots of places to easily fall to your death.

Things that were fun:

Leveling up weapons, and blowing up enemies with more and more powerful weapons. That's tons of fun.

Keeping your weapons levels and your bolts on death is also great. This was the only good part of the checkpoint system. I found a great spot early in the game where I could kill a huge group of enemies, then jump off a cliff - keeping my earned bolts, crystals, and weapon levels. I used this exploit to power level 2-3 weapons very early on in the game. Pew pew pew, jump off cliff, repeat.





To borrow from Austin's blog:

What I expected: a simple third person shooter with neat weapons that I could finish in a few days.

What I got: a simple third person shooter with neat weapons, made longer by a horrible checkpoint spacing.

Would I recommend the game? Yes, because despite it's flaws, it was a really fun game.

How could it have been better? Make the six-axis controls optional and fix the spacing of the checkpoints.