This is the most conflicted I have been on a game this year. There is so many fun details and aspects to this game that had me smiling such as how big ratchets eyes get when he begins to slide on ice, or the really goofy hologuise ability to sneak into a robot base (you wave at your fellow robots to break in its really cute). The issue is that every time you think "hey maybe this game is fun" it throws some bullshit at you to immediate sour the experience.

Starting with things that I enjoyed about this game I was immediately drawn to the cutscenes and interactions between Ratchet and Clank as well as other characters such as Qwark and Drek. I caught myself smiling and even laughing a few times at many of the cutscenes presented in the game. I am firmly convinced that if these had been worse I would have dropped this franchise and never looked back.

The other main draw is this game gives you a lot of items and tools to work with. Some of my favourites being the decoy grenade, the controlled missile and the earlier mentioned hologuise. The game gives you a steady drip of tools throughout and I enjoyed wondering what new tool/weapon I would unlock as the game progressed.

We start to get into some hit or miss territory on a planet to planet basis. Certain enemies such as the aliens on Blarg station (probably the worst level in the game off the top of my head) and those damn flying gunners towards the end of the game turned an incredibly lukewarm combat experience (this game is clunky as fuck) into a downright awful time. Not only are you constantly fighting the controls and praying your blaster will lock onto an enemy, but you frequently just...run out of ammo and health. This games ammo and health drops are abysmal. While the ammo situation gets trivialized in the late game by the PDA allowing you to spend more money to get ammunition anytime, the health is a constant nightmare to manage. It really felt like the perfect storm to cause tilt because of the very unforgiving checkpoints, very infrequent health pickups and just constant lack of ammunition. The icing on the cake is that ammunition spent before dying is lost for good. You end up spending bolts restocking your ammo supply,which depletes your total amount of bolts. This eventually leads to the exhilarating gameplay of farming up bolts to progress the game.

To be honest the only reason this is a 5/10 for me is because I played this on an emulator with save states because my first foray into this game on the ps2 frustrated me too much. I used save-states at points where I felt there should have been a checkpoint, but would frequently wait to see where the game would actually put me back to and they were...rough. The game in its base form would most likely have been unfinished and been rated a 4/10. With the wonders of modern emulation I found myself enjoying this game more than I disliked it (barely). Despite the 5/10 this game is really more a 5.5/10 (the smallest margin into enjoyment I can give a game). I wouldn't recommend this game without emulation. I for one and relieved that its over.