Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters

(PS2 port)

Rating E10+

Score: 6.5/10

Ratchet and Clank start off running around impressing a reporter, until she’s kidnapped! Now they must journey through the galaxy to find her again. This game is available on the Playstation 2.

The Ratchet and Clank series has always been a great shooter/action game and this one stays true to the series’ roots. Players can choose to defeat enemies with Ratchet’s trusty wrench close-combat style, or with one of many different guns, like the Lacerator, the perfect pistol for one-on-one battles, or the Acid Bomb Glove, which eliminates groups of enemies in a flash.

If you think your gun is underpar, you can upgrade it by buying attachments for it or using it repeatedly. Armor can be collected too. Collect all the armor in a set to have a special armor with different abilities, like changing Ratchet’s wrench to a burning torch.

Even with all this stuff, you can get through most of the game by only tapping one button. A lot of times the game changes from being a sci-fi shooter/action game to being a repetitive beat-em-up game.

The game doesn’t look much better than it did on the PSP, and that’s not a compliment. The environments are blocky and horrible by PS2 standards.

The music, though good, also suffers. Sometimes, halfway into a stage, a cut-scene will appear, and the music will stop and not start again. This gives an awkward silence in the midst of battle. The music starts again after another cut-scene.

Mini-games are a nice addition, but lack much entertainment value. Skyboarding suffers from bad turning issues and the worst hit detection I have ever seen. Landing perfectly can spell game over for you but luckily you have unlimited continues.

A destruction derby can be played as well and even though it is decent in the sense of hit detection and steering, it’s just flat-out boring. You just attack, and attack, and attack.

Sure, you can drive as well, but why would you? Opponents barely go after you, so continuously attacking one person at a time is the easiest and fastest way to get it over with.

Multiplayer is repetitive too. Most enemies take a big chunk of health away, making completing your objective before, or with, your buddy that much harder. Also, all enemies respawn shortly after death, so completing objectives can be a real pain, since once you almost complete your objective, the enemies respawn, forcing you to kill them again since their attacks are too strong.

Sometimes, you can be quick enough to kill the enemies, complete your objective and beat your buddy. Most of the time, though, you’re not quick enough. Maybe you’ll just should “What am I supposed to do – stand there and wait? Why would I do that?” in a fit of rage.

Personally I think this game should have been left on the PSP. It’s wrong to port a good PSP game to a Playstation 2 just to milk gamers of their precious money unless you ramp up the game, as the game designers did with Twisted Metal: Head On’s port to the Playstation 2.

Ratchett and Clank: Size Matters is an example of a great game which only translates into a “decent” port.