Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction Comments by Kristan Reed

first :P

Looks and plays great. I will buy this.

The demo was ace.

krudster: can you invert the aim in FPS control mode?

I knew this would be an 8 before I even clicked on it. :)

/is the oracle

Personally, I'd give it a 9. It's not perfect (certainly not the rather abrupt ending), but pound for pound it's the best game I've played this year I think.

"krudster: can you invert the aim in FPS control mode?"

I'm 90% sure you can. You can invert the standard camera controls for sure.

Although to be honest I rarely used the first-person view. Most of the weapons lock on automatically.

Yes you can invert. I love this game, personal 9, but I haven't had too much trouble with the camera, though I can see where you are coming from. It'd be nice if it had a more difficult setting though, it really is incredibly easy, but still bags of fun which is the main point.

Finally those "Toy Story graphics" that K guy was talking about...

I still haven't quite gotten around to finishing R&C3 yet, but when I do (and when I get around to buying a PS3) I'll definitely be getting this. Can't say the lack of multiplayer really worries me at all.

Looks gorgeous too.

Both companies made those claims, not sure if one was in jest of the other, or whether it was a coincidence. One might have been copying the other too.

It was both frod, that comment actually was a cheeky reply to Kaz.

@ JMM: He could be imitating the Sony bloke too, though. Most MS PR people have zero imagination in their comments, notable exception for that snake Peter Moore...

We all know how these things go...

Someone said it about the PS2 though.

8/10 is a rubbish score

RUBBISH

Apologie: "wow PS3 am winner 360 teh sux lolol"

Just about to pop into town to get this, anyone know where is selling the cheapest copy?

Lol, indeed, the comment on online is just priceless. There was a very clear decision made that the 5% of people who enjoyed the online in the PS2 versions weren't worth it for this version, and that instead the large fanbase wanted a great single player game. So given the time they had, they invested it all in the single player game. They may do some multi-player stuff again in the future, but only when it is really worth it. In the meantime they will continue to focus their considerable online effort on Resistance (obviously they'll be working on part 2 at this point) (though they haven't excluded a possible small online R&C component at some point via PSN should demand indeed change with the PS3's better online support).

Thankfully Mario can be played online though eh?

Oh, wait.

@ElNino

I found the supermarkets generally sell it cheapest. Tesco, Asda or Sainsburys provided you find a store that sells games.

I'm 90% sure you can. You can invert the standard camera controls for sure.

Aretak: cheers

too many games, I shall get it after xmas, when it will be a bit less to buy...I cant justify buying anything until I have finished aroange box, COD 4, and next weeks mario...toooo many games!!!

When you take something out of a game that people like, are we supposed to pat them on the back for it and let it pass without comment. I don't give two hoots about the lack of online, but there are a lot of people who probably do care.

I played the Demo and just rusted in boredom! Dumb enough to have bought the game and hoped for any difference!

What is new here? Where lies the challenge? What is the juice of the game?

Pretty visuals, lively and well animated cut-scene, great sound! That sums it up for me.

You jump, blast, run, fly and what else.... this on itself are ingredients that make a great platform game right?

Yup! But I found the balance between all these features often to heavy relient on blasting and often lacking any sense to continue on playing or caring abour the furry thingy with rabbit-like ears.

Funny enough I did enoy Kameo a great deal more!

Bring on Mario Galaxy!

+1 @ frod

I'd rather have an extra 3-4 hours than an empty online lobby.

To be fair, the empty lobbies were probably more down to the abysmal implementation of the PS2's online service than a general unwillingness to play it. I wonder what the percentage uptake would have been with an Xbox Live-style service behind it.

@Cheboury: You've got 30 of almost RPG-like (as in extensively upgradeable) weapons and you're surprised about having to use them a lot? :D Well, I understand your disappointment really if you're looking for more of a platformer, but that's what the R&C franchise has always been about.

This review read more like a 9/10 really... Camera Issues & no Multiplayer -2???

More like camera issues + no multiplayer + not too difficult + no enough online features = -2

@krudster: even in the last generation the Xbox didn't have that big a live uptake. But the important part of the point here is that it's not that they don't think there wouldn't be any interest at all in online features, but that they had a choice between spending considerable resources on online features or adding a few hours of single player. They made an analysis of which of the two would please the largest part of their audience, and I think they made the right choice. Personally I thought that the online mode of the previous R&C games were quite cool, what with the magneto boots giving some interesting plays ... but they really didn't need to have another Resistance (R&C's old online modes are all in Resistance after all), while non-online gamers really needed a great single player game.

Of course, it may still be the wrong choice. I think to test this, they should attempt to release a simple PSN R&C online mini-game.

I agree that achievements would have been good though. They have them in Resistance after all, and Uncharted does them great also. And they could have patched them in with Home later (or maybe they'll still do that eventually who knows). But I guess it's already pretty amazing what they managed to do within one year.

Actually, I don't think he thought of the difficulty as a negative really. I'm gonna try and get my sister to play it and see what she thinks of the difficulty.

theres a huge issue in the spaceship sections where you cant invert the controls...thus making 3 of the skillpoints almost impossible to get if you cant use "normal" controls...

i really love the game and id say this review (and its score even though everyone is big on saying scores dont matter|) is one of the better ones around...its being overrated all over the place (i am a HUGGGGGE R&C FAN).. the game is ace it just isnt anywhere near as good as the third game and its biggest problem is that it strives to be something it is not in the story and lacks the humour of the last games... i smiled a bunch of times and giggled in places but on a whole not hugely funny.... although there is some awesome ps3/360 jokes in there...

and yeah even challege mode is stupidly easy

Sooo... not an AAA title then... PS3lol, Ratchet & Meh.

/coat

@Arwin

You are right about one thing.... I admit... guilty of never playing any of the previous installments before.

I know that everybody looks for something different in a game but at some point if it ain't fun it just ain't cutting it for me.

I guess it is like one of those films that you view on a first watch and kinda dislike only to like it the second time you watch it.

Problem here is.... with so many freaking games coming out i probably won't be able to give R&C a second chance until late 2008.

Just to clarify, 9-2=7

@Krudster, didn't the R&C system have 'achievements' long before most other games with their skillpoints system? And they're still present in this R&C, right?

theres skillpoints in it..theyre not so much skillpoints though as they all take almost no skill to gain

Picked this up at lunch today - finally got around to playing the demo last night and loved it! The graphics are astounding - it's certainly a visual treat.

I'm impressed that no one has mentioned halo 3 yet.

I'd go as far to say that Insomniac pretty much invented the achievements system as we know it.

Ok, but I don't really see how being able to add those points (all rather arbitrary to me) to a great heap to have an overall score which basically depends on how much money you have or how much free time you have or whatever. The only thing I like is that you can compare yourself to someone else (yes I have a 360 too) and be competitive that way if you feel like it, but that doesn't really increase the value of the single player game all that much - being able to get skillpoints (and there are 750 of them in this game??) and complete those is itself a much greater addition then also being able to compare them.

Anyway, it makes sense for a website like this one to prefer stuff like gamerscore's considering how well they've integrated their forums with Microsoft's features, eh? :) But let's not forget the core values of a game, is all I'm saying.

Look at Call of Duty 4, receiving a 9/10, but it's a 1024/600 upscaled game. And on both systems, even. Who'd've thought eh?

(*with a 5 hour SP mode, bad compression in the video, budgetted textures and basically a very DVD limited game made worse by the 6.8 GiB of space avialable on Microsoft's system - thanks Microsoft, even the PS2 could hold nearly 9GB, see Champions of Norrath).

EDIT: exactly, that's what I thought they basically said on the Full Moon's podcast with Major Nelson as a guest (fun stuff)

Well I've never played a Ratchet Title so I'll be looking forward to this.

Arwin sounds bitter.

Yes, but the *sixth* revision? That's stretching it a bit, even for the hardcore fans, of which I am one.

After playing the demo, I would have to say that I can wait on R&C. The main problem I had is that the game did not present any challenge. I pretty much thought that this was a problem with the demo and the full game would have different levels of difficulty to present some challenge but from all the reviews that I have read says the game is easy. Though the visuals are nice, I also need the gameplay to go with it and it looks like R&C doesn't have what I am looking for.

@Arwin (stupid non-quoting tags and ting)

"Anyway, it makes sense for a website like this one to prefer stuff like gamerscore's considering how well they've integrated their forums with Microsoft's features, eh? :)"

That's a bit unfair. Microsoft have made this sort of stuff available to anyone who wants it. If Sony or Nintendo had the same service I'm sure we'd see it here.

Also, I fail to see any difference between skillpoints and gamerpoints + achievements or how its a better (or worse) system. So the ability to compare them with your friends is surely an advantage and adds (however slight) another way to "play" games with your friends.

i never really paid attention to R&C on PS2, so not sure what it's all about -- is it a bit like Jet Force Gemini, or Metal Arms or something?

Really looking forward to this. I never played any of the previous installments and the demo instantly "clicked" for me. Great fun.

"should help erase some of the memories of a largely forgettable first 12 months"

I like this wording.

I finished this last week and I have to say 8/10 is fair... It's a must-play for sure, but two issues kept it from being a stupendously great game. First, the platforming was too "on rails," actually quite literally many times. I wished jumping on and around things required more skill from the player. Second, the non-Ratchet parts were a little bland and felt tacked on.

"Look at Call of Duty 4, receiving a 9/10, but it's a 1024/600 upscaled game."

If anything resulted in docking points from a review score, I would that upscaled scource resolution was sooooooo far down the list as be visible from space (no that makes no sense, but you know what I mean).


"Microsoft have made this sort of stuff available to anyone who wants it. If Sony or Nintendo had the same service I'm sure we'd see it here."

Absolfrippinlutely. XB stats are available via RSS feeds, which is why it so trivial for any website to include them. If Sony and Ninty did the same thing, then the same case of affairs would exist for their stats too (if they HAD any stats).

I'm a pretty much die-hard 360 player* - FPS are my number one game and almost all of the good games on 360 seem to gel with my personal ideas of what constitutes a good game and most of my friends have 360s too - and I think this game looks awesome!

Along with LittleBigPlanet and Warhawk, PS3 owners are starting to get some fantastic games! I reckon by next Summer, if there's another price drop, the games could be compelling enough for me to bury my differences with Sony and their attitude over the last two years (which is what really put me off supporting them) and succumb. As long as Warhawk is still popular by then!

*Past and current consoles owned include: Commodore 64, Atari 520 and 1040 ST, BBC Micro, SNES, Megadrive, PS1, PS2, Saturn, N64, Xbox, Dreamcast, Wii and PC. Just in case people think I'm a) new to gaming and b) a Microsoft fan only.

I have played the demo - not much my type of game but the cutscenes and the animation of the characters really is on an incredibly high technical standard. Comparisons to Pixar are definetly justified.

@ kangarootoo

""Microsoft have made this sort of stuff available to anyone who wants it. If Sony or Nintendo had the same service I'm sure we'd see it here."

Absolfrippinlutely. XB stats are available via RSS feeds, which is why it so trivial for any website to include them. If Sony and Ninty did the same thing, then the same case of affairs would exist for their stats too (if they HAD any stats)."

Both of you are correct, but didn't you know that it is oh so fashionable these days to slander Eurogamer and accuse them of being 'bought' by games developers, publishers and console manufacturers? It's the done thing, don'tchaknow, among the more discerning type of frikkin' idiot.