Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

"Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is such a disappointment."

Seeing the words "Ratchet and Clank" and "disappointment" in the same sentence actually hurts to hear and hurts even more to write. But, as sad as this news is, it is true. With a lack of classic Ratchet and Clank elements, such as humor and innovation, and whatever else was left took a step backwards in development. Ratchet and Clank Future at best, feels like Insomniac only put in minimum effort and at worst, doesn't feel like Insomniac made this game at all.

Game play in Ratchet and Clank Future is solid, but nothing you haven't seen in other Ratchet and Clank titles. The first aspect is the control scheme. Buttons are where they should be. The Look mode is botched; the reticle is no longer moveable unless Ratchet is actually moved himself, making it difficult to accurately aim thrown weapons or gadgets. Furthermore, the camera in Look Mode is stuck moving slowly, making it difficult to utilize its First Person capabilities. The combination of an unmovable reticle and an untoggle-able camera speed results in a look mode that is half First-Person, half Third-Person and all clumsy. It would be wise to either return to the classic Look Mode or go First Person or even both, but combining them and giving no option to toggle them is unwise. There are no other complaints here.

The enemies in Ratchet and Clank Future are harder to defeat and come in relentless waves but still have shoddy A.I. in this installment.

Bosses in Ratchet and Clank Future aren't difficult enough, easily dispatched in minutes with the properly leveled weapons.

The weapons are some what of a let down. Sure there is a flamethrower, but only a few of the weapons were innovative (Nano-swarm, Groovitron), some were just clever add-ons to existing weapons (Shard Reaper, Buzz Blades), and the rest were old stand-bys like the Standard Pistol and Bomb/Grenade. The traditional sniper and shield weapons were snubbed.

The weapon upgrade system, in which you upgrade specific aspects of a weapon (firing rate, damage, etc.), was an interesting idea, but needed more implementation then just the first 5 levels.

The platform challenges ranged from mostly boring and bland, to pretty exciting, but not having it's potential utilized. There were too many grindrails in Ratchet and Clank Future as they are not very interactive and just aren't very fun at all. The carnival part of the 4th level comes to mind was very fun and should have been its own level.

A minor technical issue is that blue and white is a bad choice of color for maps and displays as they do not contrast each other very well and make reading the maps and displays difficult. Other than these issues, Ratchet and Clank Future's game play is solid.

The graphics in Ratchet and Clank Future are prettier and shinier than previous installment. Metal looks more metallic, rocks look rockier, fire looks fiery-er and water looks wetter. The levels don't look very graphically impressive. I mean, it's technically impressive, but the level looks so generic and boring.

Another aspect that took a big downgrade is explorabilty. The levels don't feel very explorable. They feel so linear and constraining. This especially hurts considering how far you can see. You see so many things you want to look at, but you can't. There's so little to explore here in Ratchet and Clank Future.

The department that Ratchet and Clank Future suffers the worse is the story. The story begins in this latest installment as Ratchet is being targeted for death by Emperor Tachyon for being the last Lombax. Ratchet must find the Lombax Secret, a device rumored to have defeated Emperor Tachyon's race during the Great War, before Tachyon finds it and enslaves the universe.

First off, the story suddenly drops you in the middle of this story and ignoring the established continuity of the Ratchet and Clank series save for name dropping and cameos. It leaves many unanswered questions like what happened to the Starship Phoenix and Sasha. What happened to Clank's Holowood Career? Questions like this pop up as you travel through this empty galaxy.

Yes, Ratchet and Clank Future feels empty because there are so few characters to meet. From Spyro the Dragon to Up Your Arsenal, one of the fun-est aspects of Insomniac games was that you met and interacted with new people. Or you met with familiar people. It didn't matter, it was so fun. Even if you didn't, you always introduced to a new planet with a holo-vid. Not in Ratchet and Clank Future. There's little interaction amongst the few characters present and introducing us to new planets have been effectively 86'd. Furthermore, what few interactions between the characters are nulled out because you can't hear them over all the noise and music. Usually, when a character talks, all the noise and stuff quiets down so you can hear it. Not so in Ratchet and Clank Future. Much of the personality of the Battlebots are lost just because you can't hear them, meaning Ratchet and Clank Future loses 33% of it's personality just because the developers didn't add a few more measly lines of code.

The part of the story that suffered the most was the ending. I won't spoil anything but it is the worst Ratchet and Clank ending ever. All Insomniac games have a feel good ending with the story resolved. Ratchet and Clank Future is very sad and ends on a cliffhanger. The ending was so bad; it made me not want to New Game+.

Overall, Ratchet and Clank Future is very dissatisfactory. It feels like Insomniac cut a lot of corners and dropped a lot of things just to make deadlines. It has forgotten its roots and purpose; it's supposed to make the player feel glad and happy after the ending, not depressed and hanging. Sometimes it feels like it's little more than a showcase for the PS3's superpowers, especially with the grind rail sequences. It just doesn't feel right at all. Maybe the real Ratchet and Clank game got lost in the shuffle and struggle and stress of Sony's frivolous demands, disregard for quality and plain corporate greed.

6/10 for somewhat botched, yet solid game play, an empty-feeling story with little comedy, technically accomplished graphics and overall lack of innovation found in the Ratchet and Clank franchise.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/28/08

Game Release: Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (US, 10/23/07)