"Thiis review doesn't have "Ratchet" in the title!!! ...Dammit..."

Well, this was going to happen eventually. A week from the day I write this review, the Ratchet and Clank series made it's debut on the Playstation Portable with Ratchetand Clank: Size Matters. One Sony's best titles, this game truly has much value in it's name, and when a R&C game is announced, everyone stops to hear when it's going to be released. Now we analyze the series first impact on the PSP.

First and foremost, this game is short. I mean very short. You can beat this game in 5 hours. That is way to little adventure for any portable, and definiitely too small for any R&C game. Imagine just getting to the good part, and then realizing you just beat the game. That really sucks.

Okay, obviousy you want to know how this game controls, considering the other R&C games used all of the PS2 controller's buttons, and that we are missing two shoulder buttons and a right analog stick. Well High Impact games says they have us covered. Once you get into the game, you'll find the controls fairly done well. You use the D-Pad to strafe around, and the analog stick to move freely. At first it sounds hard to adjust to, but it becomes second nature to switch from Analog to D-Pad and back in the middle of a battle. Try me, once you get used to it, you really won't mind. The shoulder buttons are used to turn the camera around, which is beneficaial for strafing around a target. Press both shoulder buttons simultaneously to crouch. Circle is used to shoot your guns (which I will get to in a minute), square is, of course, the wrench button (they can't change that), triangle brings up the weapons selection, and X is used ot jump. Oh, and Select is used to go into 1st person mode. That about does it for controls.

The story is pretty straight-forward. A girl tricks Ratchet and Clank into gathering their own data for her "school project", and later, everything goes to hell when the team finds out a little more about cloning and galaxy dominance. I really don't like to spoil things for others, so sorry if it isn't very informative.

Graphix. Amazing. I can't believe that this game is on the PSP. When beautiful games come out on the PSP, it makes one wonder why the hell other games on the PSP look very poor in quality and the texture are poor. Not in R&C:SM. I stare at the beauty around Ratchet as I blast enemies away. The guns' effects are also ssomething to look at. One of the guns, the Scorcher, burns foes with a powerful flamethrower that leaves heat waves when it stops flaming. Even smoke comes out of the FT chamber. That's cool and detailed.

Ratchet is able to pick up various amounts of armor that helps to boost his abilities, give him boosts, and help him to defend enemy fire more effeiciently. A full suit of armor is separated into 4 sub divisions: Helmet, Body armor, gloves, and Boots. Having a full set of one type of armor will grant you that armor's secret powerrs. These are spread across the worlds you traverse on and can also be found in challenges, which make a small, more meager return in this pocket-sized adventure. These also look great, seeing as they each have their own design and effects on Ratchet's body and abilities. For example, the Wildfire armor, with all the pieces and nothing short, gives Ratchet firey steps, and adds fire to his wrench attacks and wrench throw. Not to mention you can hear the flames on his armor and wrench crackling. Nice.

The music is great, considering the PSP's poor sound system. The music gives you the old R&C feeling, some sound like soft and others fit right in the situation. When you are in a peaceful place, expect some nice, cool music. In the middle of a planet filled with monster and bots, you know to expect that good thrashing music.

Now the game play. This game is exactly like the old R&C games, so I'm going to explain this to newcomers. If you're already a fan of R&C, you really don'y have to read this, but go 'head if you want to.

I would say the R&C series is most famous for the amount of mods and upgrades that can be added to ONE weapon. That's right ONE! In other games, when people were given a selection of weapons, they would usually have to just use them all and decide on a favorite. But in R&C, just about any weapon can become a favorite. From the Acid bomb to the RYNO (yep, the RYNO returns fanboys) to the evil Agents of Doom, you can choose from over 10 different weaopns that ech level up a fair amount to give you an RPG feeling after a while. It's like each gun is a character that you can max out. On every other planet, there will be a vendor that sells Ratchet mods to his guns, incluing lock-on mods, charge-up-mods, extra chambers to the gun. Anything you can damn well think of, High Impact has beaten you there.

The usual strafing around enemies is here, and also the Giant Clank levels, except that these are more space shoot-'em-ups than his old blow-up-everything-on-a-satelite-planet-or-something levels. These space GC levels are amazing, able to fit what I can honestly say is the most enemies, Special FX, sounds, and pixels ever on the PSP screen. Even some games on the PS2, 360 and wii refuse to have too many things on the screen, because it might freeze up. Well not GC levels. They actually want to squeeze more in in addition to the things already on the screen. Enemy fire may be confusing to differentiate from the background colors however, bring GC down to an early scrapyard.

Minigames include the Clank Challenges (which become available to you later in the game) and the Skyboard chalenges (which may remind some players of Sonic Rivals because of its controls). These are very limited in challenge and number, and you can breeze through them if you get used to the controls fast enough. I wish there was more. I would love to explain the secrets such as skill points, titanium bolts, costumes, but you'll see them when you get the game anyway, so what's the point of that in a review, you know?

Replayability in this game is never a question of "Should I play this again." They give you an option after the game is over to replay the game with all your weapons' stats, your current stats and a new upgrade that you can buy for your weapons if they are maxed out already. This is exactly the same for all R&C's, so don't really expect anything different here.

All in all, if you're a hardcore R&C fan GET THIS GAME!! It's everything you'll find on the PS2 games, except it very short. You can beat this game in the morning, and then go on to play it the second playthrough in the afternoon and beat it twice in one day. THAT'S SHORT! But if you don't really mind that, then this isn't a huge barrier between you and fun. If you are not an R&C fan, I really suggest you play this game. Size Matters is in no way terrible (*sighs* except length, yes) and it may get your attention someday. I'm giving this game a 9, out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/26/07