POSTED 5/7/12


THE RATCHET & CLANK TRILOGY

Sony

Right, cue ‘Wacky Sax’ and... GO!

Before heading up a trilogy of saucy pun-laden PS3 titles, Ratchet – of the felinistic space species Lombax - and Clank – robot - had a trilogy on the PS2, of which two had vaguely FNARR-inducing titles. Benny Hill would’ve been proud. This is them, but stretched, massaged, made-over and otherwise gussied-up so that anybody who missed them the first time hopefully won’t be as dumb again.

Sure, there are signs of their decadesque age, notably in old school screen ratio moments where big black bars don the sides of the screen like, umm, big black bars down the sides of the screen. Curiously, many of these scenes – usually video - appear horizontally squished, so could have been stretched and not suffered. Still, play screens look spiffy in a pleasantly smooooooooooth kinda way. We also recommend camera control-flipping straight up, or you could be driven insane. Insane we tells ya – BWAHAHAHAHAHA-DWIBBLE-DWIBBLE-PLBBBBBBBBBBBB!!! Ahem. Anyhow, you’ll hardly spend playtime dwelling on such minor moans, as the engaging gameplay will, erm, engage. Fuck we need a thesaurus.
 
If you’ve NFI, the original trilogy comprised three of the best 3D platformers on PS2. Some may argue ever. We haven’t much time, so this’ll be the five minute argument. One key was the delightfully The Damned-inspired ‘Smash it Up’ ethos. Crates abound for crushing, yielding bolts – the local currency - and power-ups for the plethora of increasingly wonderfully bonkers weaponry that unlocks as you progress, be it defeating Vogon-esque space bullies, rescuing fuzzy-wuzzy petty-wetties or dropping a despot doctor determined to destroy all biological life everywhere. Kind of like an intergalactic Italian landscaper.

Love platformers? Here’s three for the price of one, and they’re three of the greats. Strip to your undies, jam into fast forward, crank up the sax and get thee to a games emporium.

CLICK THIS!



CLICK THIS!