Ratchet and Clank: Quest for booty micro review
Waiting for the Mirrors Edge demo to finish downloading I decided to try out the latest Ratchet and Clank adventure, quest for booty. QoB is supposed to be a short and sweet downloadable game that will be a fun expansion to play for previous fans of the series and a simple introduction for players who’ve yet to experience Ratchet and Clank.
I’m probably neither of these groups since I have played some Ratchet and Clank tools of destruction but never actually bought a Ratchet and Clank game. I am however a big fan of platformers and Tools of Destruction really gave me a taste for the gameplay.
QoB starts the player off with a great intro sequence and superb voiceacting with some geeky humor. It looks stunning and the level of graphical and sound polish is just amazing. QoB is a very sleek product… Which makes the bad side so much more dissapointing. You see, those were the good points. The Control doesn’t feel sleek at all, there is no introduction and it certainly isn’t pick up and play. In some platform elements (climbing comes to mind) the controls are just wonky. Jumping is jerky and collision isn’t obvious because of the cinematic camera, I find myself hitting air in front of enemies or walking into fire because the damn camera is trying to be Gears of War.
Level design is also pretty bad. At least for the first few levels. The pirate cruisers at the start of the game are just copied and not very interesting. When I land on an island I have no idea where to go because the ultra-realistic scenary doesn’t give any hints and I still can’t see much because of the camera. Maybe there is a map or a way to look around but I still haven’t figured out all the control yet. This is a downloadable short and fast game, I didn’t intend to do anything but just pick up the controller and play for an hour.
To summerize this game is actually quite good. It’s funny and plays really well. It just dissapoints to no end when you’ve played Tools of Destruction, why does a game with more time for polish play worse?! If the control is exactly the same, games have moved on, why hasn’t the controls been improved?