Welcome To The Dreadzone! (Ratchet Gladiator (PS2))

Member Name: Stunt 101

Product:	Ratchet Gladiator (PS2)
Date:	06/12/06 (1177 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastically Written Story, Some Of The Best Graphics And Sound On The PS2, Fantastic Multiplayer.

Disadvantages: Short Story, Similar To the Previous Games, Can Be Very Easy, WHERE'S CLANK?

-(Game Information)-
Name:Ratchet: Gladiator
Publisher:SCEE
Developer:Insomniac Games
Genre:Sc-Fi Shooter
Release Date:Nov 18, 2005
Age Rating:3+ for Fantasy Violence and Mild Language
Number Of Players:1-4 Offline or 1-10 Online
Online:Yes
Developer Site:www.us.playstation.com
Product Site:www.ratchet-gladiator.com
Memory Card Usage:400KB

-(History)-
Insomniac games are a company of Sony. Their first game was Disruptor. After that they went onto making the game series that redefined platforming, Spyro The Dragon. Insomniac gave up the license to make Spyro games to Universal games. In 2002, Insomniac released Ratchet and Clank, which was a great game. Since then the Ratchet series has been one of the best platformers around.

-(The Story)-
Ratchet: Deadlocked starts where Ratchet and Clank 3 finished. Ratchet and Clank as well as the nerdy mechanic are flying in space while basking in the spoils of their latest efforts to save the world. Suddenly the trio are captured by a underground and very evil tycoon known as Gleeman Vox who runs a TV show called DREADZONE. Dreadzone basically pits captured heroes against one another by taking them away from their massive job of saving the world and forcing them to compete for bolts, fame, and most importantly ratings. Now Ratchet must escape by competing in the contest and WIN! The story is very well written with lots of twists and turns throughout the course of the game.

-(The Controls)-
The controls are great and fairly simple. You have your standard shooting and platforming controls, but you will also have commands to give to your robot buddies (more explained later in the review). To shoot you have to press either R1 or the circle button. You also jump by pressing the X button. Seeing as you have lots of weapons, you'd hope that it would be simple to swap weapons around, and it is. All you have to do is press R2 and you can choose your weapon by moving one of the analogue sticks in the direction of the weapon you want. To make the controls better they are really responsive. Overall the controls are great as they are simple and responsive.

10/10

-(The Gameplay)-
This time around the game focuses more on shooting, and hardly on platforming. Once Ratchet is captured, he is customized into a true Dreadzone competitor, from head right down to his now-concealed tail. Clank is in charge of communications, and Al is given the job of watching over Ratchet's new sidekicks, two combat bots. For the first ever in the series, Clank is not rested on Ratchet's back. What this means is that Clank's participation in the game is confined to supplying gadgets (it's all taken care of automatically, so you won't have to find and collect them like in previous entries in the series). This also means there's almost no platforming to the game at all. Sometimes you'll have to make a few jumps, which is made harder without the advantage of Clank's gliding capabilities, but those instances occur hardly. The swingshot and grindboots still are still here, but a lot of the platforming mechanics and gadgets are gone. A reward for not having much platforming is the inclusion of the bots which, thanks to the extremely smart artificial intelligence, follow you everywhere. Aside from providing some power against opponents and being an excellent pair of decoys, they can be issued commands, like tossing electromagnetic pulse grenades on shielded enemies or bypassing hacker orbs found throughout the levels. Even though the bots can die, they can be revived at any point during the game as frequently as necessary. Seeing as there's not much platforming, combat is more important in gameplay. Aside from the 'classic' wrench that Ratchet carries all the time, you can purchase up to 10 different firearms. This is less than in the previous games, and you'll notice the artillery has been streamlined to include only the game's more-serious weapons. Each gun represents something semi-realistic, whether it's the pistols, shotgun, or sniper rifle or the mine, grenade, turret, or shield launchers. Perhaps the most absurd weapon (and my favorite) in the game is the really expensive Harbinger, which acts as this iteration's RYNO, the classically devastating gun from the first game. After a lot of use, a weapon will automatically level up, which earns you an alpha mod for that weapon. Alpha mods boost attributes, like rate of fire or the gun's ammo capacity. Although not all the alpha mods can be used on every gun, as you acquire more of them you can mix and match them to your liking (if the game's automatic placement doesn't suit you). You'll also be able to purchase a few of the alpha mods, but it's a waste of money until your second play-through, since the ones you receive automatically from leveling up are sufficient. Omega mods on the other hand, give your weapons a little more power and can be bought at any of the vendors. Each weapon can have at most one omega mod, but you'll be able to use the same one on multiple guns. Omega mods give flavorful attributes to the otherwise plain weapons in your arsenal, for example the frost mod freezes enemies upon contact and is the most useful of the omega mods, yet the the morph mod which lets you turn enemies into explosive barnyard animals (in lieu of the missing sheepinator), is definitely the most entertaining. The big combination of the alpha and omega mods makes your weapons both more effective and more stylish. Of course, weapon leveling doesn't just stop there. After you reach level 10 with your guns, which will take frequent use over the course of the entire game, they become really powerful. The fusion rifle becomes the antimatter rifle, and the dual vipers become the dual raptors. And with the name changes come more and bigger carnage. After completing the game for the first time and then beginning another one, the shop will carry a "mega" version of any gun that has reached level 10. Mega makes the guns even more powerful, and it ensures you'll be able to run through a second play-through while blasting everything in sight.

Weapons aren't your only choice of destruction as the game also has a few different vehicle types as well. The one you'll use and abuse the most is the landstalker, a spidery looking machine with both machine gun ammunition and explosive charged shots. In the landstalker you'll be able to kill the larger enemies quicker, and you'll get past obstacles that can only be bypassed using the charged shots. You can still command the combat bots to do many activities, which will prevent you from having to keep getting in and out of the vehicle to do them yourself. Other vehicles, like the puma, which is a buggy of sorts, the hoverbike, which is a floating motorcycle and the hovership is an air-based vehicle aren't used nearly as much as it should be during the single-player game. All these vehicles can be used during the multiplayer, although they do tend to unbalance the gameplay significantly, given how strong they are. The gameplay occurs in 11 different places which include 10 planets and the Dreadzone battle station, a gladiatorial-style arena where you compete in tournaments to upgrade your contestant ranking. Most of the gameplay takes place on the 10 planets in the form of linear challenge-driven campaigns. As the latest hero to be forced into Vox's terrible enterprise, you'll need to make your way through the main objectives while staying alive and protecting innocent bystanders whenever possible. Aside from these required objectives there are also dread challenges, which aren't part of the story , though they give you necessary experience points to unlock additional planets. Dread challenges are usually time-limit or arena-based missions that take place in the location you just completed. Combine them them with the skill points, 15 off the beaten track tasks on every planet and there will be a fair bit to do before you reach 100%. Skill points are acquired from the side quests, such as those that require you to "shoot down 15 of the floating TV cameras" or "kill two enemies with one mine-launcher." You'll get a few of them during the course of natural gameplay, but you'll probably need to look them up specifically to get them all. Getting skill points unlocks additional content that can be found in the "extras" menu, such as the ability to turn on interesting and absurd weather effects or "super bloom," which is an apparent dig at the effect's overuse in video games. There is, in fact, a ton of extra content, although most of it is for aesthetic purposes and can't be carried over to the multiplayer gameplay. You can use the game's currency, which are bolts, to buy practical things like weapons and modifications, or you can simply buy up different customizations for Ratchet and the combat bots' appearances.

There's also multiplayer and online play. I haven't played the online play, but i have played the multiplayer. The multiplayer modes are quite rich. For the first time ever in a Ratchet game, you'll be able to play the game cooperatively which means that any point during the single-player you can opt to play co-op by having a friend jump into the game. Playing two-player co-op means you don't get to have combat bots anymore, but both players will be given all the bots' capabilities, like use of the hacker ray and EMP grenades. In co-op you won't be able to use the same weapon at the same time, since you'll be sharing the same arsenal, but all collected ammunition and bolts will be available to both players. The one interesting thing is that you can't go too far away from each other, because once you reach a certain distance, the game begins a countdown timer. Upon reaching zero, you are both killed, and you must both begin the mission again. Since you must stay close and share weapons, co-op demands a high level of communication, especially on levels where you share a single vehicle (like the landstalker) and each control different guns. Co-op is also unique, because as long as one player stays alive, the game can continue. After each death, you'll have a short respawn time, during which the other player must stay alive or risk losing the mission. There's also a couple of deathmatch modes where you can have 2-4 players offline or 2-10 online.

9/10

-(The Graphics)-
Ratchet: Gladiator still has the same visual and aural style from the previous games in the series. The game is mostly smooth and very beautiful, packing in some bright colors, detailed environments, and splashy weapon effects. The environments are lush, beautiful and really stand out as you go through levels like wastelands, swamps and even space stations. Another great thing about the graphics are the cutscenes, they look similar to the cutscenes from Jak X, they are smooth, bright and very cool. It's only problem is some slowdown with the frame rate, which is definitely more noticeable in later segments when you have super-high-powered weapons and bigger visual effects. You can customize the look of Ratchet and both combat bots by buying and using the differently themed armor. Even little changes made in the menus are immediately obvious in gameplay, which adds to the game's strong visual style.

9/10

-(The Sound)-
The music and sound effects are great as well, but arguably the voice-over is really the star of the music and is what really makes the game's sound special. A mast majority of the levels are commentated by the two quirky, hilarious, Dreadzone announcers who are known as Dallas, a sleazy egomaniac and Juanita, a sadistic seductress. Their comments about Ratchet, the competition, and each other always adds flavor and humor to the gameplay. Though some of their lines are repeated and it sometimes gets a bit grating. Also your combat robots have a voice as well, who are actually funnier than the Dreadzone announcers. The dialogue is very funny. Sometimes the dialogue will relate to the game, but sometimes the dialogue is completely random, for example the announcer Dallas will say ''Have you ever wandered what's in the sauce'', which is completely random, and very funny. What makes the dialogue funny is the voice acting. Each actor does their job very well and reads their line with so much personality. Like the graphics, the sound still has the fantastic style from the previous games. There's also the fantastic multiplayer as well as online play for those who have access to online, but even if you don't you'll have tons of fun with the multiplayer.

9/10

-(Replay Value)-
A big problem is that even with the extra stuff you can get which most of you'll encounter during a second time through, the game is unfortunately very shorter than previous games. The single-player campaign will take you about seven or eight hours to complete, which is far too short for a Ratchet game, or a platformer for that matter. After that you'll unlock challenge mode which changes some of the rules of normal gameplay but not enough of them to mean you should play through the single-player a second time. It's quite fun to check out some of the higher difficulty modes and even though the contestant (or also known as normal) mode is quite simple, the exterminator mode is very hard and quite a challenge, even for Ratchet fans. Those who are familiar with the series i recommend should try to up the difficulty early on, or you'll breeze through the gameplay with little reason to play a second time, apart from completion.


-(Score)-
Controls=10
Gameplay=9
Graphics=9
Sound=9
Replay Value=9
Overall Score=9.2=Outstanding

-(Ending Comments)-
Ratchet:Gladiator looks, sounds and controls fantastically, but really it's the core gameplay that needs a change, otherwise people will get fed up of the series. But the game is really fun to play, even if it's similar to previous games. If you love the Ratchet series, but aren't expecting any massive changes to the Racthet formula then you'll loved Gladiator. And if you want a great game that boasts some fantastic graphics and sounds then you' enjoy this as well.

-(If You Like This I'd Suggest)-
Jak and Daxter
Crash Bandicoot
Spyro The Dragon

-(Where You Can Buy It)-
game.co.uk for £15.99
amazon.co.uk for £12.99
play.com for £9.99 but currently sold out

Summary: Great Platformer, But Nothing New.