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| Source // PlayStation |
I have just said that while I consider myself a Ratchet & Clank fan, I trailed off during the PlayStation 3 games. Perhaps I had seen it all before, or found entertainment elsewhere and had just moved on. Well, after playing Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction I can confirm that I didn't trail off during the PlayStation 3 games - I never touched them in the first place.
After finding great success on the PlayStation 2 and seeing some spin-offs hit the PlayStation Portable, the HD era came calling. Can you imagine what a Ratchet & Clank title would look like in HD? How Pixar-movie-like it might feel? Can you honestly say you weren't expecting what you saw when it was time to see what the future held?
Tools of Destruction kicks off the Future series, a not quite soft reboot, not quite next chapter in the adventures of Ratchet and Clank, and it makes sure to shower players will all the graphics.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Fun Times
Sadly, the PlayStation Store doesn't want to show off Tools of Destruction with gameplay, so you're either going to have to imagine how it plays (hint: like every other Ratchet & Clank title) as I describe the joy I had when playing it. And then continuing to play it. And then getting annoyed with it but still making progress through it. And then playing it some more.
It is wonderful. For whatever reason, I must have thought this was boring back in the day, but here and now, it feels like I've been taken back to the good old days where I played Ratchet & Clank for hour after hour. Like Metroid Prime, if I recall, I feel like a kid again. To get that nostalgic hit of Ratchet & Clank, I could faff around with trying to get the PS2 games working, or I could enjoy what are essentially brand new titles to me in glorious HD.
And so I began to thoroughly enjoy Tools of Destruction. The evil Emperor Percival Tachyon is hell-bent on irradicating the Lombax race, of which Ratchet is the last survivor (ignore the canon of their being another Lombax on the PS2). They're exceptional engineers, the Lombax, and war from the past resulted in them using a superweapon which resulted in Tachyon's race getting kicked off their home planet or something. Details, details, who needs to worry, look at how lovely the animation is.
The first level of Tools of Destruction is full of setpieces that give players a sense of what they'll be getting up to - combat, exploration, all sorts - but also a taste of just how swanky this bump in graphics will get.
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| Source // PlayStation |
The city soon makes way for more natural environments, where, as in previous games, each planet has a distinct look and feel. Robots and glass make way for bugs and rocks, but the gameplay is still the same old run around and destroy everything that's a threat, smash open crates, hoover up bolts and buy silly weapons, only this time, there's Sixaxis motion control too.
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| Source // PlayStation |
You can - and I eventually did - turn them off in the settings, but sequences where you skydive or have to cut giant holes in walls make use of the motion controls and they just weren't working for me. You couldn't really know for sure which way Ratchet or his tools would move, resulting in getting walloped in the face by a rocket and nobody wants that the future is at stake.
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| Source // PlayStation |
From time to time, they upgrade him with new gadgets he and Ratchet can use on their travels, but to Ratchet it seems like Clank is talking nonsense and getting upgraded behind his back. In fact for much of the game, Ratchet is more concerned with tracking down Tachyon and dealing with the other bad guy the duo soon bump into, a robot pirate named Captain Romulus Slag.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Frustrations
I'm not sure how long I've been playing Tools of Destruction for, but I have just met up with some allies in the form of Talwyn Apogee and her robot sidekicks Cronk and Zephyr. I have absolutely no idea what their relationship is to the plot. I don't remember why I'm even at their asteroid base, and at my current save point, I don't know why I've just gone through an arena-combat like warzone with Cronk and Zephyr.
Even with subtitles on, Tools of Destruction isn't making much sense to me. I get that I'm after Tachyon because he is after me, but beyond that, I'm honestly just going through the motions - land on a new planet, explore a new planet, do challenges on a new planet, leave for next new planet. It's the Ratchet & Clank formula. It looks amazing and you can seemingly spend an hour playing around on each planet before the next step of your journey, but you're still being whisked along, rather than let loose on the galaxy.
I suppose that's always been the case with Ratchet & Clank games. You could travel back to a planet to further explore it, especially with new pieces of equipment to aid you in opening up new routes of exploration, but you still generally followed the bread crumbs as instructed.
Here, I'll gladly do that, because each new world offers a fresh new environment to play in, but when much of the plot is fleshed out during in-game chatter that isn't subtitled and takes place under the sounds of gunfire, it's not too great for those trying to follow along.
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| Source // PlayStation |
It's also not quite the flawless experience that the graphics might suggest. Camera issues, ironically, caught me out from time to time. You've got control of it on the right stick, of course, and a lock-on/strafe button on L2 allows you a better chance of success in combat but trying to work the two together often didn't work out for me. I'd waste ammo shooting at nothing, usually, which as far as worst-case scenarios go isn't too bad, I suppose.
Except that the weapons in this game - even when you use them and level them up - feel a little on the weak side. The default rifle, for example, whatever it's called (I really ought to know) fires these massive fireballs, like burning baseballs, towards a target. A little bug ought to go down to one or two of those, right? A little robot maybe one more? It just doesn't feel like they do.
I've got it all the way up to level 5 now where it chucks out a spread of shots, so I expect this grumble might start to go away, but the other weapons are just as hit or miss. A weapon that drops gooey monsters on the floor to act like mines is next to useless, and a gun that shoots motion-controlled tornados sounds great on paper but isn't in practice.
I often resort to the same few weapons, just cycling through them as the ammo ran out. If that's my playstyle, then I guess I should look into the new upgrading system. On top of the levelling up, you can spend a new currency - whatever that's called. Have I even been paying attention while playing? - to dump points into a skill tree of sorts for each weapon, increasing their damage, accuracy and so on. It feels a little cumbersome, but to be honest I haven't really touched it to know for sure.
Instead, I just buy a Groove-o-tron ball, lob it into the middle of the action, watch every enemy start to dance (even turrets, it's great) and wail on them in the precious window of time I've got available to me. This is Ratchet & Clank. Deploy a silly weapon into a firefight and watch the chaos ensue.
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| Source // PlayStation |
I must admit to getting annoyed and shouting 'Bullshit' a few times, but I do it for love, not hate. I don't like dying to the same bloody turrets again and again because they overwhelmed me with firepower as I ran out of ammo at the wrong point, having to go back five minutes to the last checkpoint and struggle again.
I especially don't like failing what should be easy. Do you know what should be easy? An auto-target prompt telling you where to shoot a doohicky, and that doohickey not hitting its mark. Really? What's the point of a lock-on mechanic that doesn't lock on? It wasn't a weapon, thankfully, but my goodness did it frustrate.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Further Fun Times
And yet I want to stress, especially because the PlayStation Store is running out of images, that I really want to play more Tools of Destruction. Even when I don't know what the plot is, even when I don't like half the guns, even when the checkpoint system can go to Hell, I want to play this game because I enjoy it.
It reminds me of the fun I had with Ratchet & Clank way back on the PS2. I may not be exploring these environments with as fine-toothed a comb as I did back then, but I'm making sure to take my time and explore what my ageing brain can actually make a note of, and my rusty skillset at least try to tackle.
Ratchet & Clank games are all about the fun, and it gives it to you in so many ways. Great character work, excellent visuals, a soundtrack to get stuck into, weaponry to dazzle and delight, upgrade systems to work towards, and bolts to collect. Thousands of bolts, springs, sprockets. I've just got the upgrade for magnetized armour, making the collection of bolts easier. When you smash open a special crate that gives you a bolt multiplier? Heaven. WHY ARE RATCHET & CLANK BOLTS SO GOOD?
Final Word
I've not finished Tools of Destruction, but I intend to. I don't have the rest of the PS3 titles, they've not made it to this 1001 list, but I may well be tracking them down too. However. How much of that is down to Tools of Destruction being good, versus what I think of the Ratchet & Clank series?
The game is not without its faults. There are annoying little moments that force you to do something all over again, there are elements that feel useless, and there are tacked on motion controls, but if you want an action platformer that just wants you to have fun, you can do far, far worse.
For fans of Ratchet & Clank, it's a no brainer. Is it the best of the series? The best so far? Maybe, maybe not. I don't think I'll form any special attachment to it like I may have done with the PS2 games, but make no mistake it feels great for me to be playing Ratchet & Clank all over again. It feels like a fresh start, which of course it sort of was. I'm just giving the series the benefit of a decade to sit and gather dust before realizing that fresh take on it all. That can't be good for the upcoming PlayStation 5 game...
Play Tools of Destruction. Have yourself a bit of fun.
FILLING YOU IN
Well, I've now completed Tools of Destruction. The plot made a little bit more sense as the game went on, but it's not an incredible story. Bad guy(s) steal a fancy hat, taunt Ratchet, get their comeuppance, roll credits. The story was wrapped up only for Clank to then be abducted by the Zoni, so now I do have to track down the other PS3 games.
It played very much as I knew it would, but my two main faults with it were that the checkpoints are awful, and some of the weapons feel incredibly weak, even if you've levelled them up. They can be further upgraded with raritanium, I believe it is, and I did this with some of the more frequently used offerings, which seemed to help, but you run out that stuff quick, even if you've hunted down the secret stashes of it.
Good and bad, through fun times and frustrations, I did like Tools of Destruction. It's not the best, but it's still really rather good.
Fun Facts
Remember when the PlayStation 3 controllers didn't have rumble due to a patent dispute? Tools of Destruction was one of the first titles to make sure it included rumble support when it eventually came to the system.
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, developed by Insomniac Games, first released in 2007.
Version played: PlayStation 3, 2007.