Now Jak & Daxter have seemingly been retired for good, Ratchet & Clank would appear to have this market pretty much sown up. So much so, in fact, that the R&C games probably don’t actually need to be any good. So it’s always doubly pleasing when they turn out to be so darned good. A Crack in Time is no exception, and our famous duo now even have the entire universe at their disposal, as for the first time, they can travel through space with you in full control.
During the game you’ll play as both Ratchet and Clank, who have been separated. Little Clank has been abducted by the Zoni on behalf of the evil robot dictator, Dr. Nefarious, in order to discover what he knows about “The Great Clock”, a mystical device Nefarious believes will allow him to travel through time and thus rule the universe. Nefarious welches on his side of the bargain with the Zoni and attacks them, but before he can access Clank's memory banks Clank escapes and tries to return to the great clock in order to make it safe from Nefarious’s clutches. Nefarious is naturally furious (he’s a bit mental at the best of times to be honest), and vows to take control of the clock and annihilate the universe, the Zoni, Clank, Ratchet, Jak, Daxter, Mario and probably even Sonic, as well as all the other stuff that evil masterminds always threaten to do.
You start the game playing as Clank finding his way to the Great Clock, using time-freezing bombs to slow some obstacles down to make them easier to traverse. Then you get to play as Ratchet, who naturally sets out to save Clank, travelling from planet to planet to track him down and getting both help and hindrance along the way. Help comes from many of the locals, and the only other living Lombax, General Azimuth. Hindrance comes in the shape of Captain Qwark, a vain, self-important idiot who takes the credit for all Ratchet’s good deeds while getting in the way at every opportunity. Quark is the comedy relief of the game, and acts a lot like Futurama’s Zapp Brannigan.
Clank’s platform sections are mostly set within the Great Clock and have a dreamy, heavenly appearance, they’re mostly simple to complete and the only combat involves batting a few enemies’ projectiles back at them, clobbering a few who get too close and slowing things down with time bombs. Your brain will get a really good workout when the time puzzles start to appear though. The time pad puzzles may be the thing that makes or breaks the game for you, and I’ll try and explain them as simply as I can; they crop up in certain rooms that would require several people to be able to get out of the room because, for instance, a pressure pad needs to be held down or a door held open in order to progress. You stand on a time pad and activate it, then perform the action you want the “recorded” Clank to do; then you return to another pad and perform another action necessary to escape the room. The first couple of these were fairly easy to get by, but when you get to a room with 4 pads and six switches that all need to be pressed at one time or another, and six separate actions that all need to be recorded and synchronized perfectly, I can see “Little Jimmy” running to Mum or Dad for help. In fact, I can see quite a few Mums or Dads running to Little Jimmy for help too...
Exploring planets and moons with Ratchet is the main part of the game, and as usual upgrading and customizing Ratchet’s sizeable collection of weapons plays a huge role too. Once again though, I found myself using the same few weapons that actually seemed to have a purpose, and cursing the weapon selection interface. Ratchet also gets himself his Dad’s old pair of jet boots to play with, and although you can use them at any time to zoom around the expansive worlds, many levels feature set courses to grind along and hit set ramps etc.
Crack in Time is heavily influenced by Star Wars, but we noticed smatterings of Futurama, Ren & Stimpy, Back to the Future, Final Fantasy and several other sci-fi sources - all good, and all done respectfully, although someone does dig an elbow into Mario’s ribs at one memorable point.
Insomniac have certainly done a good job of answering criticisms of previous games by supplying us with a decent sized game with plenty of varied action. The visuals are simply stunning in places, although the textures aren’t amazing there’s always so much happening on-screen that you’re sure to be impressed. Some of the spot effects, explosions for instance, look like they could be in a much more serious game and the water is the best we’ve seen in a game yet - period. The problems arise with the sheer number of weapons (most of which you’ll use a couple of times then not bother with), and the way that they’ve limited the ammo for the good ones in the boss battles so that you have to use the poorer ones. There are a couple of memorable weapons, the Negotiator is a powerful rocket launcher with lock-on capabilities, and the latest Rift Inducer 5000 opens a portal to another dimension from where a tentacled monster will snatch enemies. Many of the weapons are imaginative and fun, but as with most of the R&C games most of them have very limited uses, and only get used when you’re all out of ammo for the good ones.
While I’ve got my “Complainer 5000” gun out, the camera is also frequently terrible; often zoomed too far out when you’d like to be close, and then sometimes too close for you to be able to see anything. I’m not going to complain too much about it though as one of my favourite platform adventures of all time (Mario Sunshine) had a terrible camera too – way worse that this game’s in fact, and the fact that I played them both to the end is testament that if a game is good enough, you accept its minor flaws and live with them. The whole upgradeable/customizable weapon thing has of course been done before (most weapons upgrade the more you use them and some are customizable for different effects), but did they really have to pop up a game-freezing screen every darned time you get an upgrade? This annoying feature caused an untimely death on at least one occasion and is remarkably intrusive – how it got past the game testers I don’t know.
Ratchet’s space flights won’t be threatening Elite as my favourite space combat game of all time, as they’re quite simplistic and played in pseudo 3-D only, everything is locked on the same 2-D plane so although you can loop and roll, you’ll never get “lost in space”. Even out in space the game looks amazing and some of the bigger battles with enemy ships will have you wondering how many asteroids, explosions, missile trails, flames, lighting and particle effects the PS3 can display before it goes bang!
I also wonder who the game is really aimed at; the in-jokes are often done solely for the Star Wars generation, some of the gameplay (particularly some of Clank’s time pad puzzles) seems too tough for the kiddies and at times the game will test even the seasoned gamer, if only because of the length and intensity of some of the boss battles.
I really enjoyed Crack in Time, but (and I’m ashamed to say it) it’s the first game to make me throw a joypad for many years. The game’s fiddly controls (not helped by the original PS3 pad and its slippery L2/R2 buttons) and overlong boss battles (which are made difficult purely because of the over-the-top amount of action on-screen and craftily rationed ammo) nearly spoiled the game for me, and sullied the plentiful moments of near genius that the game supplies. If you’re a Dad/Mum and you’re buying the game for you then you can expect the most entertaining and complete R&C game yet - if you’re buying it for the kids then expect some frustration and calls for help at the game’s trickiest points, of which there are more than a few.
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