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I always feel for any PoV or review that I should make it clear that a game cannot be judged alone on a simple play through. As opposed to very linear games, one's experience with a game is often incredibly subjective and provides an alternative experience to most other gamers. But I feel like my opinion is still valid and I do try and provide some objectivity when it comes to a game from a series which I haven't played, for your submission, my review of Ratchet and Clank: All-4-One:
Loading up the game, I have an update and an installation, usual fare, but an animation starts and it hopefully gives me a taste of what the game has in store for me.
It's a bit like Dreamworks animation and style of comedy sans a bajillion pop culture references and licensed songs thrown in your face. The humour is light, a bit offensive in some places - the introduction of the President has a sexual reference - but I doubt it's anything to truly worry about if you're buying the game for your kids.
I have to admit, I'm not a fan nor have I ever played anything in the Ratchet and Clank series. I thought at the time of it's initial release it was like a Jak and Daxter clone. With a little research I've found it to be a lot more, with quite a large and substantial fanbase.
The flashing head of Ratchet keeps me sane that it's still installing, I go grab a drink and return at 100%, Trophies installing, etc. The opening logo looks fairly mundane and cheap with some floating creatures with grabby claw thingys and sparks shooting from the back of the logo.
Now I can play on or offline, depending on my preference but first I select my Profile, like to customise myself for the match. However, I'm informed that this is just for trophies and skill points, neither of which I have when I haven't even played the game yet. I check Skill Points regardless and see a few cool names and achievements I could rack up as the game progresses. The Extras do house some cool cinematics, such as the one which played during the installation and I hope there are more hilarious ones like it.
Being without friends during the time of playing, I decide to jump online, but this is where I hit a snaffu, as it's known in the industry. It seems that Ratchet and Clank All 4 One is one of the first new games to require an online pass. I open up my game, look at the manual as instructed and find a code, all is well but I have to get out of the game and go to the Playstation Store.
Luckily for me the code works and then I have to go back to the game, whilst the codes download and install, so I can play online. So finally, I get back into the game, without a hitch, goes past all the screens, hitting buttons furiously. I head into the matchmaking servers and have to sign some agreement which I clearly do not read and accept blindly. Somewhat amusingly, I can actually go look back at that agreement. I'm then greeted with a trophy thanking me for waiting, talk about superflous achievements.
I decide to find a game because I've never been one to host a party (just stacking up loneliness points here) and I'm found with a few options for how I want to find said game. I don't care who I play as, having no attachment to the series, I don't mind the difficulty, I don't really want cheats and I don't mind if I'm with friends, where they are or if the game is in progress. So I just Find Game and I'm given a flurry of more games.
There are names, locations (as in levels, not countries or continents) and there are the amount of slots left and something called Grief. I'm assuming these are players who have either been cited for griefing or if it allowed on the server. I jump into a Polar Sea match because I'm a big fan of ice maps in multi games. I'm President Qwark and am just waiting till I realise I'm the one who has to launch the game.
Apparently I'm meant to be playing co-op with a buddy but I settle into just a three set with the other players (who has a friend playing beside him/her) and I start the round and the game looks pretty mediocre and I begin to expect mediocrity. It's your usual ice-cap level, but then the game begins and I think of taking back those words.
The game is chaotic, fast paced and absolutely incomprehensible from the get go. I'm dropped into a match and then there are robots flying, there are pigs on the polar caps. Everything and anything is happening all at once. I know from simple gaming logic that I should be shooting everything around me, but I can't really aim because of the fixed point of view and then I fall off an icecap and into the water and die but am brought back a few seconds later. Then I realise I can fly and dart around and shoot and a whole range of stuff but eventually I run out of bullets or flares or fire or whatever and I don't know what I'm doing anymore. The other players drop out and I have to cancel the game.
I'm dropped back to the main menu and decide to host my own game in a place called Octonok Cay. The level looks something out of Uncharted and it's decided - as a party of one - that this is a good thing. I feel like my online experience was mildly marred by the fact I'd played PayDay The Heist the morning of starting this review, but I slug through and after a few minutes I get one player, then I get another and decide to wait it out even more...gives me time to write the review.
The graphics look fantastic, first and foremost, it's a game that has got a lot of detail in it's characters, but not in it's design. I say design separately because to me it is a separate part of the game. The design is the menus, the font, the colours, the effects, but I guess it could also be the animations and cinematics seen through out the game, which to be honest are the only coherent and interesting things about the game. Everything else just seems so meh to me. I'm not a fan of the game so I feel I cannot comment on it well enou-Oh the game is about to start.
When I start up the Octonok level, I'm given a cute little animation which I thought may or may not have been an Attenborough-esque documentary about the separation of energy from people's "pets". The level begins and I'm given a tutorial on working together co-op energy blast style for the game. I worry as I watch this, my fellow player will drop out of the game but as a reviewer, I felt it was necessary, or I might just be a selfish idiot...however, I go through 10 different animations and the other player drops out. Alone again, I decide to write more.
I absolutely love this style of animation, music, narration and clunkiness of it all just fits with the style of the game. I don't know why this was the design of the entire game, not the gameplay but the menus and everything else would have been a lot more effective and notable if they had gone this way, rather than a ridiculously meh and tame, oh look we're in space, look at all the spacy kind of things we have, listen to the space music and how it tries to feel epic but I don't feel it. Whilst I'm not a fan of the Halo series, either, their music does give me goosebumps and gets me ready for the game.
Ratchet and Clank is far from being a bad game, I just feel like it has a lot of potential that I'm not seeing as a first time fan. The gameplay is a mix between Ghostbusters and Pokémon as you go through the game with some great weapons, which are hilariously outlined to you in cinematics. The gameplay in Octorock is a lot more linear and fun than the Ice-Cap level, the game provides you hints as you go and what attacks you can do, rather than the very fixed position of the last one. This is how I imagine the Ratchet and Clank series.
The gameplay is fun with friends and can get incredibly heady at times. The animation is slick and smooth on screen and the levels have all this crazy background action that just makes me want to just pause and see what's going on at all times. There is a lot of fun to be had just listening to the characters speak and their personalities ring true to the character designs and from what little I know about the series. The levels are really well designed and the camera shifts just to the right angle and where you need it to be.
Playing through the many levels, I realise that this is where the game shines. You can't really get bored of this game simpy based on variety. If you're mor of a platformer co-op level person, they've got plenty of levels for that, for the shooting gallery enthusiasts, there are enough incentives, achievements and everything else to leave any player bemused for hours...but this game is just not for me.
The game has enough to draw you in, but not stay for the experience. The style of everything, from the characters, to the animation to the voices, makes me want to explore the Ratchet and Clank Universe, but not enough to play this game. If you're a Trophy-getter, than sure keep the game, have your fun with friends, but I feel so ambivalent about the game that I think it should have included a level or two from the old game just to whet my appetite for the series a bit more...but even then it may not patch anything that I didn't really like from the game...which I will begin to nitpick even more from here on in.
The game can drop out at some points and then is picked up by a simple host migration so you can't really drop out of the game at an unfortunate moment, even when the host has to go for dinner or get married or whatever. The game is really meant to be played with friends, preferably in a room together, rather than online. You need a lot more co-ordination than originally expecteed and I highly suggest playing offline first getting weapons and achievements before you really start playing. The game has enough for new fans, the levels, the trophies, the comedy, but I feel there's not much there to actually fill you in on the rest of the series, which is probably good. It's a gateway game and it kinda makes me want to go play the other games, I think there's even a new HD release coming out pretty soon, might pick it up, might not...but if you're a fan of this game, I highly suggest this, it feels like a big love letter for fans, much like Serenity is to Firefly fans or Republicans are to Fox News.
So that was my time playing Ratchet and Clank All-4-One. I really feel this game is one for the fans. I feel everything in the game, bar the animations, characters and a few of the levels, it's really just a standard affair run and gun type game and I feel I'm alone in this series, as if I've turned up to a party just after everyone has just seen something and already made an in-joke about it, which will be forever recanted by easily amused friends for years to come...I'm gonna go play PayDay The Heist.
Loading up the game, I have an update and an installation, usual fare, but an animation starts and it hopefully gives me a taste of what the game has in store for me. It's a bit like Dreamworks animation and style of comedy sans a bajillion pop culture references and licensed songs thrown in your face. The humour is light, a bit offensive in some places - the introduction of the President has a sexual reference - but I doubt it's anything to truly worry about if you're buying the game for your kids.I have to admit, I'm not a fan nor have I ever played anything in the Ratchet and Clank series. I thought at the time of it's initial release it was like a Jak and Daxter clone. With a little research I've found it to be a lot more, with quite a large and substantial fanbase.
The flashing head of Ratchet keeps me sane that it's still installing, I go grab a drink and return at 100%, Trophies installing, etc. The opening logo looks fairly mundane and cheap with some floating creatures with grabby claw thingys and sparks shooting from the back of the logo.
Now I can play on or offline, depending on my preference but first I select my Profile, like to customise myself for the match. However, I'm informed that this is just for trophies and skill points, neither of which I have when I haven't even played the game yet. I check Skill Points regardless and see a few cool names and achievements I could rack up as the game progresses. The Extras do house some cool cinematics, such as the one which played during the installation and I hope there are more hilarious ones like it.
Being without friends during the time of playing, I decide to jump online, but this is where I hit a snaffu, as it's known in the industry. It seems that Ratchet and Clank All 4 One is one of the first new games to require an online pass. I open up my game, look at the manual as instructed and find a code, all is well but I have to get out of the game and go to the Playstation Store.
Luckily for me the code works (despite it being for EU and UK) and then I have to go back to the game, while the codes download and install, so I can play online. Finally, I get back into the game, without a hitch, goes past all the screens, hitting buttons furiously. I head into the matchmaking servers and have to sign some agreement which I clearly do not read and accept blindly. Somewhat amusingly, I can actually go look back at that agreement. I'm then greeted with a trophy thanking me for waiting. Talk about superflous achievements.
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Comments
Big fan from the beginning of the series (can't wait for an HD Remaster!!).
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