Official Website

Platform: PlayStation 2

Genre: Action

Number of Players: 1 - 4 + Online

Peripherals: USB Headset, Broadband Adaptor

It's a pretty special thing when you can make a game series with each and every title outgoing the previous ones in terms of just about everything. The first Ratchet & Clank was a game that I am comfortable in saying, I didn't think was going to be anything special for me, but I was wrong. It was downright addictive in every regard; from the gameplay to the story to the destruction and mayhem that was at the core of it all. The second R&C, Going Commando, outdid the original and brought in quite a few new methods of madness what made it that much more entertaining and addictive. The hype for Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal has been big, with magazines and websites that have the luxury of having a debug unit giving the game perfect scores most of the time, and that alone was more than enough reason to get excited about seeing the two most unique heroes come back to the PlayStation 2 once again.

Ratchet, the unemployed Lombax mechanic and his diminutive robot sidekick Clank have saved the universe twice at this point, and it looks like the third time is the charm. The game wastes little time in giving us the lowdown, after we see Clank in his new profession; an actor (and star) of the holo-series Secret Agent Clank. But a news broadcast shows that once again, there's an menace that is threatening the galaxy, and the aliens have started by attacking Ratchets home planet. The two soon learn that these aliens are under the control of Dr. Nefarious, and there has been a single person to beat him in the past; Captain Qwark . . .. who now thinks that he's a monkey. So, Ratchet and Clank need to find a way to restore Qwark's memory as well as kick some alien butt along the way.

The second game of course gave us some reference to what Qwark had been up to, but the third installment of the series marks his return, and he's just as arrogant as ever. You can guess who is taking all the credit for Ratchet and Clank's accomplishments, and it's Qwark, and he  has overwritten the exploits of the dynamic pair. But, he's not the only character to make a return appearance. Skidds, the hover board champ for the first game, is back as well as the computer geeks, Al, and even Helga. They form Qwark's new force that is going to stop Nefarious, the Q Force. But, you can guess who is out doing all the work, but it's all in a days work for Ratchet and Clank.

I have to say that Up Your Arsenal takes everything that has been great about the R&C games and improves on it even more than with the last game. It was strange to see an action game have an experience-based style of play added, but it worked with the last game, and it's even better now. Ratchet of course will gain experience based on the enemies that he defeats as do your weapons, but the change comes in the fact that now your weapons can be upgraded five different levels to maximize their potential. The game does bring in quite a few new weapons, but that's always been the case with the R&C series. This installment sees such nasty pieces of gear such as the Infector, a weapon that actually hits your enemies with a virus and causes them to attack one another, or the dreaded Spitting Hydra, a gun that will allow you to lock onto multiple enemies and fire away (this increases as you upgrade your weapon.) Going Commando gave players the option to download previous weapons if they had a save file present on their memory card, and this is true here, and that has been extended to both of the games. Of course, you also will see some weapons return in the game without even needing to purchase them, such as the Suck Cannon.

Also returning in UYA are the arena stages that will have Ratchet fighting his way through a variety of stages, all with various goals to keep in mind. Some are straightforward and have you destroying everything while others might limit you to a certain weapons or even cycle through your available arsenal, others may place a time limit on you, and then there are those deadly boss battles. But, the game goes a little beyond that, and Ratchet will find himself helping out the local space military, the Galaxy Rangers, as they fend off Nefarious' forces, thus giving you more mini-missions to participate in. The rewards for all of these, most of the time at least, will be bolts, though you may run across the occasional weapon or item along the way. UYA also has brought in a trophies room, and there are two ways to get them. Some will be found in various stages, but others you will have to earn. They don't really seem to do much, but it is a nice way to brag about your accomplishments. There's even a slightly different style of play included with the Captain Qwark Vid-Comic. These will first off serve as a way to give us further details into the life and times of the Captain, but then players will play their way through a mini-adventure filled with side-scrolling action. These stages are short, but there are some very important icons to collect that will keep Ratchet on the healthy side, and even skill points for those that can master the stages and perhaps a cheat code or two may be mentioned in the game that applied to these sub-games.

There are minor changes to some of the games aspects. When you hit a vendor, in the past you would have to cycle through to each weapon to buy more ammo, but now it's simple: MAX ALL! This will max out every weapon you have, and this saves a lot of time. You can still purchase upgrades for your ship, but they seem to be more cosmetic and at this point, I have yet to run across any stages that even require space combat, but don't worry, Ratchet will find a few areas where the action goes to the extent of using some type of gear instead of putting his body in harms way. The skills points have returned again, but they seem to be a little simpler to obtain this time around, as are the titanium bolts that you will find in the game. Luckily, you can also see on your selection screen for the planets how many of these you have collected and how many are remaining. Another chance that is great is with the weapon selection rings. You can now set up two different rings that can be toggled between and additionally, the game now keeps track of the last three weapons that you have used.

The gameplay itself remains fairly unchanged for the most part. You will still get reminders or instructions on how the game works in general, all thanks to that handy Gagetron device that you have. If you've played any of the games before, most of this will be fairly familiar for you, but first time players aren't going to need to worry about being too lost with how everything works. If you forget something along the way, you can always go into the sub-menu for a refresher course.

Now, if single player action isn't enough for you, there are still some more aspects to Ratchet & Clank that haven't been seen with the series before. The most important thing is that R&C can now be played online. Take all of the things that developers love to include with online first-person shooting titles and apply them here and you get the general idea, but these modes of play ultimately were something that were born to be a part of the R&C series. You can start off by choosing the skin you would like to appear with, though I will note that I saw far too many people playing as Ratchet when I was online (I selected Mr. Bones for myself, though the Snowman came in as a close second choice.) Once you've got that figured out, you can either start your own game or join one in progress, and the online modes are where things turn to complete chaos, but in a good way. You can go for the standard death match, and to be perfectly honest, any game in the FPS genre has nothing on R&C. The death matches here are fast, brutal, and insanely entertaining. The same is true of the old standby Capture the Flag game or Siege Mode (the usual red against blue.) Like with other online Sony games such as SOCOM, players can create Clan, use the USB headset for voice chat, and even create a buddy list so that you know who is online. For those of you that don't have the broadband adaptor though, you aren't going to be left out. There is an offline multiplayer mode with the same types of games, and while its decent, online is the best method of play, outside of playing the actual game itself that is.

The graphics for Up Your Arsenal are ore or less like they have been with the R&C games, though there are minor improvements here and there. I didn't notice any type of breakage, jagged edges, or lines interfering with game play, though I will mention one instance where there were some slight issues with polygons (a tree interfering with my view) but after over 12 hours of play being invested at this point, we're only talking of one instance. The cut-scenes still match with the actual look of the game perfectly, and there are a good deal of cinematic presented along the way, all with a good deal of charm and comedy, and it's important to note that Nefarious might be the best villain in the series to date. I also didn't notice any issues with the graphics playing online nor and slowdown of any sort, and that's a big plus for any game.

I do have some advice regarding the Ratchet and Clank series for both Sony and the developers, Insomniac, as I know that they do see the reviews. Up Your Arsenal is perfection as far as the series is concerned, and at this point we've been seeing a game a year. The PS3 though is just around the corner, and while we all love the R&C series, I'd have to say to give the game a breather and wait until the next system. Too many games have been the downfall of many a series. Tomb Raider is a perfect example of this, and personally I don't want to see this series fall into the game boat. Also, don't put Ratchet & Clank into another form of game like soccer, street fighting, golf, or racing (see also Megaman Soccer and Crash Racing for examples on why this is a horrible idea.) A cameo appearance is fine, but no offshoot series. A PSP game is fine, but since this game has already received such high marks from just about everyone, I'd say let Up Your Arsenal be the last R&C game and give us a new game with the launch of the PS3. You could pack it in with the game, but sadly the days of the pack-in title with a new system are dead and gone.

So, we might be a little late getting the review done as we did get our copy late, but needless to say if you've read any other reviews that have been talking up the glory of Up Your Arsenal, they aren't wrong. Some might see it as being the same game with new weapons, but this is one of those cases where minor changes and enhancements have improved the game so drastically it might be hard to go back and play the others. Which does bring up the fact that if you've never played any of the Ratchet & Clank games, the first two are now Greatest Hits titles, so I'd have to suggest picking up all of them. Ratchet and Clank might seem like just another platform game, but let's also keep in mind that something like a Mario game can be finished in roughly three or four hours where as R&C is going to give you hours of play time, both on and offline. Insomniac has done some amazing things with this franchise, and what they managed to do with it next is probably going to have us all floored, but until the next game comes, Up Your Arsenal may very well be the best platform action game on the PlayStation 2 and is one that I would have to put onto my growing list of "must have" titles for the 2004 holiday season.

It sure beats the heck out of smashing things with your butt.

-mike-