http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3168544
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3169367
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Previews: Ratchet and Clank: Quest for... We test-drive Ratchet's bite-sized adventure. You're reading an E3 2008 preview, which we've broken into three sections to make it easy to sift through during this week of convention madness. Check out E3.1UP.COM for all (meaning words, screens, and videos) of our E3 2008 coverage.What's the game about? Okay, you finished Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, right? So you won't mind if I talk about how Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty title takes place immediately after the "Clank disappears" ending of R&CF: ToD and focuses on Ratchet's search for Clank, right? If not, whoops. But that's the story goal of this new R&C installment. The more meta-gaming goal of R&C is to provide a small, downloadable R&C experience to tide people over between the major Blu-Ray releases in the R&C franchise. In short, this is a quick, 3-4 hour mini-R&C game (which costs fifteen bucks) that should get you prepped for the inevitable next R&C. What's new for E3? Pretty much everything, as this is the first real appearance of the game. I got to see the basic setup of the game, and solved a whopping one puzzle before the Sony rep asked me to stop playing. Ratchet zips off to find Clank, but after a crazy bunch of stuff happens, he finds himself on Merdegraw, a sort of pirate-infested island. Along with some other characters from R&CF: ToD (like Talwyn), Ratchet has to figure out what's the deal with Captain Darkwaters' buried treasure. Along the way, Ratchet will be finding himself in a new hub area: a local village filled with people who have specific tasks for Ratchet to do, which usually gives him items which he can then use for other missions or general advancement. These varied missions utilize the traditional run, jump, and shoot gameplay of the R&C series. The main additions are a "light and dark" element (where Ratchet has to zip around dark areas with special lights), new pirate puzzle elements, and the one element I had hands-on with: the push/pull of Ratchet's wrench. At certain times, I had to use Ratchet's wrench to shoot out a sort of energy stream that attaches to certain objects, and yank the stream back, pulling said object down. The one puzzle I did with this involved pulling down springs in order to bounce up the top of a broken space windmill to fix it. What's our take? It is, in the end, a full-on Ratchet & Clank game. Just one that's a few hours long and therefore significantly cheaper than a normal retail release. Some people have commented that "three hours is pretty much all I need from a Ratchet game," but if you actually like them, that short playtime might just make you want more. I already know from my brief playthrough that I still like Ratchet, and I'll probably complain when I get around to finishing it so quickly. I mean, I still want more Portal, so I'll probably want more Ratchet once I swallow this R&C tidbit. |
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3169367
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| Reviews A PSN treat for fans who can't get enough of the loveable Lombax. > Reviewer's Blog > Review Crew Profile  Having played every other console Ratchet game, I'm well prepared -- and excited -- for whatever the series might throw at me. Even a bite-sized, $15 download-only epilogue to the excellent Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, which is what we're getting with Quest for Booty. All of the familiar Ratchet hallmarks are here: sky-high production values, snappy all-ages dialogue, and pitch-perfect action platforming. For whatever it's worth, Booty looks and plays every bit like the retail game -- excepting its brevity, which will be most evident to fans of the series. Booty is a rollicking few hours, polished to a sheen and even better-paced than its full-length predecessors. A small handful of new worlds offer a relatively wide variety of Ratchet action; the first level drops you in, guns blazing -- but by the time you're off to the second world, it's just Ratchet and his trusty wrench, making for a more platforming-heavy mini-adventure. The wrench sports a new magnetic power that pulls platforms toward Ratchet and manipulates the environment in a few simple ways; it certainly falls in the "new to the series" column, but it feels more like a test-bed tool than a seamless addition to Ratchet's gadgetry. At times, it's used cleverly and skillfully, but it sometimes feels like an annoying, added step. Booty doesn't rest too long on any one thing, though, and right when your trigger finger starts itching, you're slowly given your guns back (though the Tornado Launcher still sucks). While it's easy to assume otherwise, Booty's levels don't feel like Tools of Destruction B-sides. Rather, they're just more of a good thing, and (unless my eyes deceive me) they even look slightly better thanks to some lighting trickery and less repetitive textures. Regrettably, the narrative doesn't feel quite so advanced; considering it picks up right where Future leaves off -- with Clank having been taken by the time-controlling Zoni -- Booty tromps off with its own side story, ending on the same cliffhanger with little more resolved. You have to admire the ambition of doing anything in so little time ? developer Insomniac even managed to squeeze in a heartfelt moment between Ratchet and ladyfriend Talwyn -- but a little evolution in the series' first overarching plot point (at least, the only one that anyone really gives a damn about) would've been nice. Here's where it gets tricky: I finished Quest for Booty in about two and a half hours. Add a little more if you're somebody who doesn't play videogames for a living, but take it right back if you're any sort of Ratchet fan. Just to be very clear: I don't care about the price -- I'll pay $15 for a few hours of Ratchet every time. That said, I would've ultimately preferred something a little different for the download space -- the high production values go a long way toward legitimizing PSN as a delivery medium, but I can't help but wish for something more along the lines of the side-scrolling Capt. Qwark levels from Up Your Arsenal. Quest for Booty's a fine addition to the Ratchet & Clank world, but what should've been a love letter to fans ends up serving better as a taste of what outsiders are missing -- and, as a fan, that makes me just a little bit sad. |
