+amazing draw distance for a game of this era, with flying cars and far-off buildings filling out the backgrounds of each stage.
+there's a couple stage designs I thought were pretty fun: one of the later game ones that I can't remember at the moment, and the second stealth section right at the end of the game was pretty well planned.
+bosses are fine across the board, not very many of them tho.
-without a doubt the biggest thing that kills this game is the controls. I understand not having over-the-shoulder aiming in a 2002 game but there's no strafing for 75% of the game, and the strafing that does exist is cumbersome and doesn't allow you to jump. this means aiming manually is usually impossible while moving, especially if the enemy is above your elevation. there's an auto-aim mechanic that works well for the throwable weapons but is impossibly finicky for weapons like the blaster. all of this is compounded by how sluggish the camera moves, even on the fastest setting. most of the encounters in this game boil down to shooting in first-person at a distance and slowly progressing through each of the levels.
-the level design is bland overall. each planet generally only uses a handful of different enemies, each of which gets thrown at you in waves as you progress through each area. a few areas have more interesting design than this but this is generally the room structure for every planet in the game. combat design rarely extends beyond "we put a bunch of this one enemy in front of you and now deal with them all at once". this is interleaved with surface level puzzles (ie the water ones) and the occasional shooting or clank segments.
-both the rails and the hoverboard sections are so slow... there's ways to maintain speed but it doesn't feel very fluid tbh
-a lot of the presentation feels lazy, as in a lot of abrupt cuts, flavorless text (the transition slides that are black with basic text on them before cutscenes looks bizarrely cheap), and static menus that pop up with no flair
-checkpoints are at a severe premium sometimes in this game. if this game could move a lot faster ie had a better aiming system then it wouldn't be bad, but considering how plodding the pace is it feels like a huge chore to get sent back.
-for whatever the game is annoyingly dark, I don't know if this is a ps3 ver problem or not tho.
-speaking of which, the ps3 version chugs a lot near the end, especially during the final boss fight. as if the game didn't already feel sluggish enough
-ratchet also has too much inertia for a character in this genre, and it makes the game feel like an ice level the whole time. the clank additions to his platforming arsenal improve the movement somewhat, but then at points you're not allowed to use them, limiting movement options in a game that desperately needs them.
probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I remember playing tools of destruction as a kid and enjoying it, so I think it's just a matter of how ancient this entry is and the blueprint for third-person shooters having not been laid out yet. regardless, I enjoyed maybe an hour of the total time I spent with this game, and was completely miserable the rest of the time. it's odd to find a game that's so outwardly competant but feels so poor to actually play.
+there's a couple stage designs I thought were pretty fun: one of the later game ones that I can't remember at the moment, and the second stealth section right at the end of the game was pretty well planned.
+bosses are fine across the board, not very many of them tho.
-without a doubt the biggest thing that kills this game is the controls. I understand not having over-the-shoulder aiming in a 2002 game but there's no strafing for 75% of the game, and the strafing that does exist is cumbersome and doesn't allow you to jump. this means aiming manually is usually impossible while moving, especially if the enemy is above your elevation. there's an auto-aim mechanic that works well for the throwable weapons but is impossibly finicky for weapons like the blaster. all of this is compounded by how sluggish the camera moves, even on the fastest setting. most of the encounters in this game boil down to shooting in first-person at a distance and slowly progressing through each of the levels.
-the level design is bland overall. each planet generally only uses a handful of different enemies, each of which gets thrown at you in waves as you progress through each area. a few areas have more interesting design than this but this is generally the room structure for every planet in the game. combat design rarely extends beyond "we put a bunch of this one enemy in front of you and now deal with them all at once". this is interleaved with surface level puzzles (ie the water ones) and the occasional shooting or clank segments.
-both the rails and the hoverboard sections are so slow... there's ways to maintain speed but it doesn't feel very fluid tbh
-a lot of the presentation feels lazy, as in a lot of abrupt cuts, flavorless text (the transition slides that are black with basic text on them before cutscenes looks bizarrely cheap), and static menus that pop up with no flair
-checkpoints are at a severe premium sometimes in this game. if this game could move a lot faster ie had a better aiming system then it wouldn't be bad, but considering how plodding the pace is it feels like a huge chore to get sent back.
-for whatever the game is annoyingly dark, I don't know if this is a ps3 ver problem or not tho.
-speaking of which, the ps3 version chugs a lot near the end, especially during the final boss fight. as if the game didn't already feel sluggish enough
-ratchet also has too much inertia for a character in this genre, and it makes the game feel like an ice level the whole time. the clank additions to his platforming arsenal improve the movement somewhat, but then at points you're not allowed to use them, limiting movement options in a game that desperately needs them.
probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I remember playing tools of destruction as a kid and enjoying it, so I think it's just a matter of how ancient this entry is and the blueprint for third-person shooters having not been laid out yet. regardless, I enjoyed maybe an hour of the total time I spent with this game, and was completely miserable the rest of the time. it's odd to find a game that's so outwardly competant but feels so poor to actually play.