Sony has been doing a great job re-mastering their best PS2 titles and re-releasing them for this generation consoles, and the latest series to get this treatment is Insomniac’s Ratchet and Clank Trilogy. The title includes Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, and also Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, and they have been re-mastered in Full HD and Stereoscopic 3D by Idol Minds with the help from Insomniac themselves. I’m a huge Ratchet and Clank fan, and I’m also a platformer junky, and seeing as how this generation this particular genre seems to be slowly dying out, Sony’s HD re-releases from the platform era seem to be the best way to get my fix and not lose my mind.
Audio and Video: The visuals have been tweaked perfectly and all three titles look nothing short of great. The game also flows really well with the frame rate getting upgraded to 60FPS in regular 2D and 30FPS in stereoscopic 3D. The camera needs a bit of fiddling with the settings to have the optimal speed of rotation, and the controls feel smooth and reactive for all three titles. The sound is great during gameplay, but like all re-masters, the cut scenes are sub standard (in terms of both audio and video).
Gameplay: All three titles follow the same recipe of awesome which has been constant in the series. People who have never immersed themselves in the PS2 era R&C will find them slightly different in terms of arsenal and features which have been used in the later titles, but the core components are there. The collection includes also the multiplayer mode for Up Your Arsenal, which includes several gameplay modes which are extremely addictive and fun to say the least.
Personal Experience: This is yet another great re-mastering of a great platformer series, and all in all it stands high above several titles from the current generation. The platforming genre has shrunk due to the FPS boom, but these re-releases help us rekindle with the platform era, and give some of us the joy and fun that games nowadays are starting to lack. Honestly I much rather travel through space fighting aliens with awesome and fun weapons than killing waves of soldiers from ethnic groups other than Caucasian in a middle eastern country over and over again.
Overall Rating: 9/10
Written by Matthew C