Ya girl is sick as fuck this week which means I’ve been doing very little other than reading comics and playing Ratchet and Clank games so here we are already, back at it again, with a very strange sequel. I feel like the conversation around these games kind of portrays the evolution of this series as a few pretty hard breaks in style – like later we will get to the one where we flip from kind of Attitude Humor to Orchestral Heartful stories where Ratchet loves friendship or whatever and the jokes go from being about how Amazon would shoot you with a gun for money to like, a robot doing the macarena or something. But the first stylistic break, as it’s discussed, supposedly comes right here in Going Commando, where a revamped control scheme leads this series pretty much immediately to its place as “a third person shooter, with some platforming,” rather than “a platformer where your weapons are mostly guns,” or at least that was my understanding.

So I was a little surprised to find that it didn’t REALLY feel that way to me, much. Certainly the game has more in the way of obvious combat arenas, with bigger open flat areas to hop around in with your guns, but these are as often as not designed considerately with interesting terrain and enemy placements so I rarely felt like I was being asked to just charge a room loaded with enemies I was ill equipped to deal with, which happened a lot in the back half of the first game. Strafing is nice to have and the Lara Croft Strafe Jump in particular feels very good, but I ran into an issue where when I tried to shoot while doing this it would often break my lock on and start shooting my gun off to the side. This game wisely scales the damage guns do so early weapons (which tend to be more conventional things like pistols and the absolutely A+ video game hall of fame shotgun here) become much less effective over time, which also means that the weapons that are really the only viable ones in the levels where weapon choice actually matters somewhat have really limited ammo and these snafus did tend to hurt. These kinds of little things defined my time with the game.

There are a lot of THINGS in this game, and a lot of things to DO, but none of them feel quite right, or as good as they did before if they’re returning items or activities. For example, there’s a space combat minigame that you’re forced to engage with multiple times throughout the campaign and there are many optional challenges across the multiple bespoke maps for this minigame you can do too. There’s a shop where you can buy many upgrades for you ship in offense, defense, speed, and cosmetics. Mission objectives are varied, as are enemy responses based on the maps you’re in. And yet the ship feels kind of shitty to control?? Not bad enough to make finishing the levels difficult, just bad enough to make them tedious. There’s only one real enemy type to engage with and they’re not smart enough to be fun to engage with or actively threatening but they also come in such numbers occasionally and your ship lacks the movement options you would want to see in this kind of arcade setup to make up for the kind of floaty controls on it that you’re always in a low level state of being pestered. They’re not too hard, they’re not too long, there aren’t too many of them that are mandatory, and the activity is surprisingly full featured, but it feels like the mark was missed on it.

This is everywhere. Hoverbikes replaces hoverboard races and just kind of feel worse to control and have less going on mechanically. There are glider courses that are again not particularly long or challenging but ARE deeply unfun to break up the pace. There are only like two levels where you play as Clank and his mechanics have been both expanded and heavily streamlined to the point the levels may as well play themselves. Several guns from the previous game return and you get them for free if you have a save from it but they don’t feature the big new levelling mechanic from this game and they’re obviated almost immediately because their damage sucks. The trespasser minigame has been changed from a methodical puzzle to a minigame that is somehow both based around twitch reflexes and trial and error. It feels like there was a concerted effort to stuff this game with STUFF, to make sure you’re always Doing Something, and to generally actionize the proceedings. I just don’t think most of these mechanics got enough time in the oven, which makes sense, because this game had to have come together in, what, ten months? I will give them one though the combat arenas are really cool and challenging areas with like, unique bosses and shit in them in addition to a plethora of neat missions with a wide variety of objectives and big cash rewards, really good time.

The core of the experience though is still jumping on stuff and hitting guys with a wrench and/or bullets and I think that’s pretty much as good as before if not better! I think if there’s less platforming here and an increased emphasis on gunplay it is only to better accommodate the diverse array of weaponry available, which is a little bit more creative than the first game’s, and in tandem with Ratchet’s more shootery control scheme, the aforementioned level design does give them more of a chance to shine I think. God bless Ratchet 1 I did spend most of my time running around in a circle or charging enemies head on. So if the split before was like a hard 70/30 it’s maybe now closer to a solid 50/50 imo, and more evenly weighted too. Where the first game definitely started to lean more heavily into the combat in the last few levels, which did leave kind of a bad taste in my mouth because I DON’T think of that as that game’s strongest element, here you’re still being asked to utilize gadgets and platforming muscles all the way to the end in pretty much equal measure. The most visually and mechanically engaging rail grinding sequence in the series to this point happens right before the final level and I was quite happy to have it be a mandatory bit.

The story of Going Commando kind of fucking blows, and part of that is because this game was again written by people who are not writers but this time the structure was a little more ambitious and complicated and it’s in part because I was expecting too much from the sequel to a game that was ACCIDENTALLY strongly anti-capitalist, written and created by capitalists, produced within possibly the most intensely capitalistic artistic medium that there is today. Really that is on me. That’s my fault.

So it’s been a few months since their previous adventure and Ratchet is getting a little itchy to both have something to do again and keep his sense of importance and celebrity going, so he’s really overjoyed when Abercrombie Fizzwidget, the CEO of Megacorp, a company from the next galaxy over that is way bigger and more evil than either of the two evil corporations from the galaxy in the first game, begs him for help on a top secret mission to retrieve a stolen project from his company’s R&D division. He plays to the duo’s egos by bribing Ratchet with commando training and a fancy suit and ship, and Clank with a cushy corporate job, and away they go, entirely unquestioning of this man, or this situation, which are both extremely suspicious. This is a great setup for an ironic inversion of the first game’s premise. It of course turns out in a twist, I guess, about halfway through the game, that Ratchet and Clank ARE stopping a thief from stealing from Megacorp, but the thief was the good guy the whole time and R&C are actually working for the bad guy whoaaah! And things kind of start to fall apart? Because after being betrayed and left for dead by Fizzwidget Ratchet and Clank are like “pfft he did that by accident let’s go find him” and then they spend like a third of the game chasing this guy around, led by the nose, refusing to believe this dude is evil or that he made monsters on purpose or that he tried to kill them, even after they side with the thief, Angela, who to drive the point home is also an angry scientific genius lombax like Ratchet lol.

The moment of betrayal, where Ratchet and Clank lose all the nice shit they’ve been given poisonously by the corporation and are left to die, should also be the moment where they realize they’ve been played, and snap back to the skepticism of the world and the powerful people in it they had in the first game. This game should be like, premised around the fact that they can’t see the strings controlling them because they’ve joined the Captain Qwark tier of elitism at the beginning, and it is, sort of, but once the rug is pulled nothing changes for them materially or in their attitudes. Ratchet and Clank are broadly the straight men to the galaxy’s wacky and shady antics in this game in a similar way to the way Ratchet was in the first game but they don’t have like, CHARACTERS in the same way that they did, they don’t really react to things appropriately or at all beyond like “oh man we gotta stop the monsters!” which is kind of the only thing they say in the game, over and over again, when talking about their objectives.

If I had to guess at the intentions of the writing team I would think that this was done to make them believe Fizzwidget was a good guy up until the reveal at the end of the game that he’s actually been impersonated by Captain Qwark since before the beginning of the game, who invented the monsters and the crisis around them in a ploy to invent a bad guy for himself to defeat so he could become a hero figure in a new galaxy like he was in the first game’s, but this doesn’t make a lot of sense either, on multiple levels. First this should parallel Ratchet’s character turn, because it mimics his desire to hold onto the fame he briefly had and that was slipping away from him in the wake of the first game, which in turn mirrored Qwark’s motivation for working with the villains in that game in the first place, which led to his downfall and disgrace and current situation. You would think this might, I dunno, lead to Ratchet maybe learning a lesson or something, thinking about it at least, anything? But he doesn’t, this isn’t a game ABOUT Ratchet and Clank really, it’s just a game where they’re our tour guides through a plot that they’re not really personally invested in and have no real reason to care about beyond, y’know, thinking people dying are bad. The only reason they seem to care at all though is because Ratchet is ostensibly working for Fizzwidget which is the other problem here, Ratchet is IN LOVE with this asshole, in LOVE with him.

I don’t really understand why Qwark had to BE Fizzwidget for the entire game unless he was specifically planning to bring Ratchet into it for revenge, which he seemingly does, but then his actual plan doesn’t really have anything to DO with Ratchet and is really about re-attaining his personal status, so then why wouldn’t he just be like, working WITH Fizzwidget, from a writing perspective? Because this game is basically a nonstop parade of Megacorp’s many evils, he’s not a good dude. But RATCHET thinks he is, and when they find the real Fizzwidget at the end of the game, Ratchet is like “oh SIR, it’s an HONOR to meet you at last SIR would you DEIGN to allow me to KISS your BOOTS with my UNWORTHY LIPS my DEAR SIR” like what the fuck are you talking about man this is the most evil person you’ve ever even HEARD OF. The whole thing is just so confused, it’s like, a very simple outline full of really obvious themes and easy slam dunks to make and they just don’t do ANY of them it’s very weird. The dichotomy between making every second of the game about how evil Megacorp is and then having the boss and I think maybe founder of Megacorp (?) show up and be the coolest dude who we look up to is so galaxy brained I do not know how they did it.

DESPITE THIS THOUGH, the margins of the game are still full of the wonderful and fun little details that make LIVING in the world of Ratchet and Clank seem like even more of a nightmare than living on Earth, but are very funny and often creative when they’re in my Playstation. In broadening the scope of the satire some of the jokes are way more potent here, like a school field trip getting a tour of a weapon factory an oohing and ahing at gigantic warheads that decorate the lawn or the increasingly deranged and upsetting violence in the advertisements in this game, less frequent but more effective. I enjoyed the pseudo hippy guy who is found on two planets and tied to two awful sidequests, one of which is one of the worst areas in any video game ever made, but who imparts his “wisdoms” and powers in exchange for fees he insists he doesn’t want or need. A particular highlight was the henchmen squad of the game, Thugs-4-Less, who are mostly a generic “guys who look tough but actually are sensitive and like unexpected things” gag but enhanced by the fact that they’re still extremely evil and murderous on top of that which I thought was nice. Their boss just genuinely cares about their well being, and wants them to get their benefits and their picnic. There are more jokes that aren’t directly related to the satire of the setting too, beginning the series’ march away from its initial themes and towards whatever it’s going to be on the PS3, I guess, but they’re mostly pretty funny as well. Like there’s a random monster you need to talk to at one point who has sapience and is wearing like, a smoking jacket with a cravat and maligning his plight as the only guy in his species who can talk and Clank just says “A burden often accompanies self-awareness, sir” like what a weird thing to include it’s pretty good.

I’m similarly mixed on the aesthetic sensibility of the game. The first one had this kind of cool grungy sensibility, where menus were displayed on physical monitors with crt screens and stuff and there is still an attempt to do some of that but now everything is just kind of a buzzy blue with a sleeker look to it. It’s a similar vibe but certainly a less involved one too, kind of the same feeling as a lot with this game. There feels like there’s less depth to the color palette, with a higher percentage of levels and time spent in similar graying beige-ish factory-ish settings. There are certainly highlights but I think there might just be too many levels in general? I would be okay if these games had like eight really good levels instead of fifteen with some stinkers.

The game is a weird experience. I don’t really want to call it a mixed bag because the core of the game, which really is what you spend MOST of your time on, the running and gunning and jumping, is great, and great the whole time, and really a blast. I have my issues with the story but the optional cutscenes and a lot of the moment-to-moment goofs were really good! The music was outrageous, incredible, maybe on average better than last time. It’s really all that extra content, the story, whenever I thought about stuff for too long the seams started to show. It’s hard to judge an experience like Going Commando, but I guess I don’t really do that here. I liked it, it was fine haha.

One of the most paradoxical sequels I have ever played. Mechanically a huge improvement on the first game, which adds in features that make total sense for a sequel and refines what was there. It is also much worse than the original and made me raise my star rating for the original.

There is so much here that I love: the opening, first few levels, refined combat and the great sense of humor remain in tact, the fact that Clank isn't with Ratchet at first because he just wants to stay at home and kick back is incredibly funny, and I have to say that the first half of the game lives up to the hype and is where the game is at its absolute best. The combat can offer more unique challenges due to strafing, the platforming is as tight as ever, and the dialogue maintains that snappy wit that made the first game so enjoyable to get through.

The second half of the game, after the Thief's identity gets revealed, is a very dramatic nose dive to the finish line, leading to an interminable final level and shit boss fight before the game just runs out of steam.

A lot of it has to do with the game being over-designed. During development they found that players were favoring weapons, so weapons could only level up once, the hope being that it would make the player have to use more of the weaponry on hand. The problem here is that by the end of the game, EVERY WEAPON that isn't the Minirocket Tube or Plasma Coil is not worth using. Lancer, Blitz Gun, Mini Nuke, all become completely irrelevant in the end. So they essentially took different steps to get to the same problem.

The final level will just become the player picking enemies away with the plasma coil and minrocket, running back to the ammo vendor to refill, and going back to do it again. It becomes as unengaging as the final level of R&C1 being sitting in a corner using the visibomb to deal with every enemy. But at least every tool in R&C1 CAN be used! They don't just completely fall off at a certain point, the game allows you to try whatever method works, whereas Going Commando strong arms you into one playstyle.

I should note that this game was made in about 10 months, which is fucking crazy and irresponsible for a publisher to insist on something like that, and the fact that the game is this good and this packed with content is nothing short of miraculous. But its story being strung together haphazardly and levels becoming very uninspired makes it very apparent that at a certain point a game just had to get done. The story still has the great satire on capitalism and consumerism that defines this series, and is very biting and funny in regards to that, but the actual narrative thrust goes nowhere and the ending is a total flatline. It's like they just ran out of time to actually round things out, compared to the original having an actual for real ending that is the culmination of character arcs.

The biggest issue with the story is not only that Ratchet has been sanded down a little. Nowhere near as dramatically as he will be in 2016, and he still has definition here, but I can't help but find the more dynamic and changing character in the first game more compelling, as we see him become heroic and learn a lesson. Here the game strains to find something for him and Angela to do when they talk but is incapable to extract any character from it whatsoever. WASTED CHARACTER!!! AH!!!

I want to compliment the battle arena though. That is a great idea and is a ton of fun, implemented perfectly and is easily the highlight of the game and a great way to play with the weapon sandbox.

Back to my ANGER!! The hang-glider stinks, throw it in the trash. The tractor beam is so worthless they might as well have not even bothered. The snowbeast yetis are worse than anything in the first game, it's alien to me how no one realized what a stinker they had on their hands there.

That's the biggest issue, is that the shit here is stinkier than anything in R&C1! The bad bits of Going Commando are fucking horrible. Giant Clank might be the worst thing ever put into a game, whenever an enemy knocks you back the camera swings towards Clank, messing with the perspective to such a degree you have to readjust. Bad! The regular Clank sections are still as unnecessary as ever, slowing down the pace to a grinding halt. Stupid! Why do ammo boxes only ever give me visibomb ammo? I am in the middle of the final boss that takes a fucking hour to beat, I need ammo for the guns that actually work on him!!

Oh, and the charge boots. The fucking CHARGE BOOTS. In a game with some really punitive checkpoints, having a device that is basically designed to blast you right off the sides of cliffs is a Dick Move. There's no way to stop it once its started, and you will always do it by accident while throwing your wrench, it's like a troll gadget. You have to turn it off so you don't accidentally kill yourself while playing casually, but you have to turn it back on to zoom through the empty, flat levels when you need to refill on your Minirocket Tube ammo.

I have been nothing but incredibly negative here, and I think the game earns it with some truly nasty design choices, but it's just too well made to truly deserve less than 3 stars. I played through all of it, had fun generally, loved the world design and art direction just as much as the original. I still think it's leaps and bounds better than any of the Jak games, and most PS2 platformers for that matter. I think back to some of the minigames in the first Sly Cooper and am tempted to give this 5 stars just for not being that game, but given how good Ratchet & Clank was, it's hard to not find the ways this one takes a step back to be a massive leap backwards.

This was a worthy sequel to the original. Insomniac did a great job of giving you more amazing weapons, making the world, well galaxies, bigger, made more laughs, and the gameplay overhaul was huge. The gameplay is so much better in this game than it’s predecessor. Then why do I give it the same ranking as the original. Simply one big thing and one small thing. The small thing is the end boss didn’t feel like a final boss. It felt much smaller and I assumed there would be a bit more I guess. The main gripe with this game is the story was just meh at best. I get that a run and gun platform shooter isn’t usually big on story but I’ve loved every other Ratchet story and this one just didn’t hit with me.

With all that said this a very solid game that stands the test of time and has me excited to continue my Ratchet and Clank journey.

I really love this game even in spite of the snow yetis. This is the game that introduced the now standard feature of weapons that evolve with use. The game's just bigger in scope compared to the first and the shooting is improved with some much needed features like the ability to strafe while shooting. This game also starts the tradition of a hidden museum that features developer commentary and content that was cut from the game. It's a lot of work, but I wish more games would do something like this.

An almost perfect sequel that fixes every problem I had with the first game.

Strafing was a master stroke addition to the series, but more importantly than anything else, Ratchet is now fast and responsive and only moves when you're actively giving inputs, fixing every problem the first game had with platforming and combat. The health upgrades, weapon upgrades, and armour are also welcome additions. On top of all of that, the game has a banger soundtrack.

I don't have much to say about the gameplay besides that it's still tons of fun and I love revisiting this game every couple years.

My only criticism is that in trying to be bigger and outdo its predecessor, like many other platformers of the time, it's a tad bloated and not all of the new features are good. The arena was good enough to become a mainstay of the series, but other additions like the vehicle races and Giant Clank battles range between okay and annoying. Ship battles are a good idea, but feel a bit awkward to control in this game, and were improved in later entries. The collectathon exploration levels are another idea with a lot of potential, but needed fleshing out more. The desert environments these levels take place in are very dull and become monotonous fast. The PS3 Ratchet games executed the idea much better.

There are also a few too many weapons. Some of them aren't very useful and it's better to save your bolts, but new players won't know ahead of time which ones to skip.

But taking all of this into account, I think this game did a better job of growing and evolving the series than its contemporaries such as Jak and Sly did. Although those series introduced some very unique and interesting ideas too, the new mechanics added in this game were a lot less awkward and clunky than some of the new mechanics in those games, making this one much more replayable for me.

Going Commando is my second favourite in the series after Deadlocked and these two are by far my most replayed games in the series.

A solid improvement on the first game. Combat is far more bearable now, and i actually felt encouraged to try out different weapons because of the upgrade progressions. Level design is still superb too and kept me lookimg forward to more.

However for all it does better, i still felt frustrated in a few areas. The glider and racing sections particularly felt painful to play, and the ship combat was just so-so. Like with the first game, the last few levels are also a bit of a mess, practically begging the player to spam cheese weapons to win or get smacked with infinite enemies.

I ended up having an experience with better gameplay from the first title, but one that didn't really elevate it to a new height. It's still a great game and shout out to Vimm's Lair for letting jaded PC players like me give these games a go.

personal favorite of the PS2 R&C trilogy. levels are a great blend of straight gunplay action combined with platforming and exploration. lot of different gameplay styles going on too, even if they can be a bit sparse around endgame.

however, it is with a heavy heart that i can't give this the full five stars if mostly because of the fucking awful robot boss on snivelak. you know the one.

plus it's kinda clear GC suffers from a bit of missed potential in a few fields. the bogon galaxy is an interesting setting with all the things going on in its background, but i kinda wish the game and story did more to explore that. plus i'm still a little bit salty they copped out on megacorp as an antagonist figure in favor of making qwark responsible for everything bad in the galaxy, like come on.

This is a great sequel. The combat feels way better than in the first game for a few major reasons. The controls are tighter, autoaim is much more forgiving, checkpoints are more frequent, it's challenging but way more fair than the original, everything. Going into this series, I knew that the weapons were a major element. The first game didn't really impress with it's weaponry, whereas this game has a stellar lineup of weapons that are powerful and fun. This game has a much more satisfying sense of progression as well. Killing enemies leads to level ups to increase max hp, there's armor upgrades as well, and best of all... weapons can upgrade. Because of this, even the starter weapons can have utility late into the game. Asides from the unfocused plot and a terribly tedious boss battle, this is a great game that I can easily recommend. I'm excited about eventually playing Ratchet Deadlocked, since I really enjoyed the arena challenges here.

It's strange to read so many reviews say that Going Commando is where the Ratchet series started to find its footing, because ever since I was a child, I've always felt that this is where these games started to lose their way. Playing it again now only reinforces that feeling.

Going Commando is the game with which Insomniac introduced an internal "award" aptly named the Snowbeast Award, given to whichever member of their staff was responsible for the worst part of a game. I've always found this very telling. The idea for something like this probably didn't occur to them during the development of the first Ratchet because it doesn't have any dips in quality noticeable enough to warrant such a thing. By comparison, Going Commando's highs aren't as high and its lows are significantly lower to the point that even its developers noticed.

The gameplay mechanics Going Commando added are like a case study in why less is often more. Guns can now be levelled up, which means that you'll inevitably end up using some not because they're the most appropriate tool for the situation at hand or because you want to, but because you haven't killed an arbitrary number of enough enemies for them to be on par with the rest of your arsenal yet. In turn, this makes the bonus feature of allowing you to use weapons from the first game if you have its save data on the same memory card - a very cool idea in theory - pretty pointless in practice, because they (for some reason) can't be levelled up and are eventually invalidated by the new weapons as a result.

Strafing now allows you to aim and move just as quickly as when you're not strafing, meaning there's very rarely any reason not to be constantly shooting while jumping from side to side regardless of which weapon you have equipped, what enemies you're fighting or what environment you're in, because it's the best way to avoid damage in almost every single circumstance. Where the first game's guns were all functionally distinct enough from each other for switching between them all to be a conclusion you arrive at naturally, Going Commando's strafing homogenises its guns to the point where most of the reason to swap between them effectively comes down to tickling the dopamine center of your brain by seeing their level bars go up. In the rare event that you ever feel that you don't have the most appropriate weapon equipped while playing Going Commando, don't worry - its weapon wheel also now pauses the game, removing any potential tension or consequences you might have otherwise faced for misjudging the situation you've found yourself in.

The uniformity of most enemy encounters and weapons is exacerbated by how much less interesting the level design is than that of the first game. Flat, empty expanses devoid of anything to jump over, take cover behind or interact with at all beyond hordes of cannon fodder are found in relative abundance in Going Commando - this style of design would be fine if it were just relegated to the optional arena, but it regularly bleeds into main levels themselves, taking away from the adventurous appeal of travelling to planets that are meant to be diverse. Even where there is platforming (no longer the focus of the game, by Insomniac's own admission) it's largely disparate from the shooting, compared to the first game in which both sides of the gameplay formula were tightly interwoven with each other.

Ratchet himself isn't nearly as bland as he eventually became in the post-PS2 games, but he's still not as unique as he was in the first game. Insomniac toned down his attitude in response to complaints that Ratchet was a "dick" in the first game, but that characterisation of him helped much more than it hurt. Not only did it add to his arc about learning to put revenge behind him and make his arguments with Clank funnier, it also just makes sense that the protagonist of a game in which you mow down several planets' worth of people would be a bit of a hard lad. Remnants of that side of Ratchet are still present in Going Commando, but in general he's a lot more inoffensive and doesn't stand out nearly as much from the crowd of 6th gen 3D platformer protagonists as he did initially, which is also at odds with the gameplay considering it's much more combat-oriented than the first's.

"Doesn't stand out" is a descriptor you can apply to other aspects of Going Commando, too. The HUD's no longer this rickety, retrofuturistic VCR-like interface which matches the look of its world, but something sleek and much more conventionally sci-fi. Health upgrades aren't contextualised as an in-universe product people have to buy anymore, and are instead a pat on the back you receive for killing enough things like in any run-of-the-mill RPG. Even Ratchet's outfit is more typical of what you would expect the protag of a sci-fi shooter to wear compared to the grimy mechanic's getup he was introduced to us with.

It's a testament to how enjoyable Going Commando is that I still think of it as a decent enough game despite all of this. I'd even go as far as to say that I'd have preferred the onslaught of third person shooters throughout the 7th gen to have taken influence from this rather than the cover-based route that most of them ended up taking. It deserves credit for being forward-thinking in some other ways too, like - for example - pulling off rotating 3D planetoid levels four years before Mario Galaxy blew everyone's minds (albeit a couple of years after Sonic Adventure 2 did it).

The first Ratchet is my favourite game of my favourite console, though, and neither at release nor now have I ever thought that Going Commando was a particularly satisfying follow-up to that, let alone "better in every way" as some have bizarrely called it. It's worth playing by any reasonable standard, but no matter how you slice it, I think it's quite a downgrade all the same.

Ratchet and his buddy Clank are back, Locked and Loaded going on a new action packed adventure as they venture through the even weirder and more corrupt Bogon Galaxy. Ratchet 2 is a very weird game for me especially since I loved the first game so much, i don't hate it in fact there's a lot to love about this game but there's a few fatal flaws that kept it from being a perfect sequel, I don't know if this game deserves an 7 or 8/10 but i think I'll give it an 7 just due to those good moments really hitting but there's unfortunately many flaws that hurt this game.

Looking at the development of this game, Ratchet 2 was greenlit just months before the original game's release with Visual Production of the world and setting starting in August 2002, The team had one goal in mind: Make it Bigger. They wanted to add so much to the original game while also fine tuning those elements that needed a bit of work in the first game, adding things such as newer and more ambitious Gadgets and Weapons, RPG Elements, more variety, a better and more comedic story. The answer is did they succeed? The answer is Yes and no (but mostly Yes). With only 8 months to develop this game along with doubling up the team it's impressive how well this game managed to be however it does have a few trappings around the 2nd and especially the 3rd Act.

This can be seen in the Story, it perfectly follows up the first game though not as well as Sly 2. Taking place a few months after the first game, Ratchet and Clank are being interviewed by someone (which i headcanon is the same guy from Spyro 1), while Clank is somewhat content with not doing much, Ratchet seems physically and audible disappointed not doing much of worth, luckily he wish of doing something greater as they are quickly teleported to the Bogon Galaxy by a man by the name of Abercrombie Fizzwidget, the founder and CEO of Megacorp who informs the duo of a Thief who had stolen Megacorp's most valuable experiment, The Proto-Pet. The Plot starts really strong, giving "Commando Training" to Ratchet to iron out his character from the first game while giving us 2 Comedic Villains (The Thief and the Thugs of Less Leader) that know how to get shit done to face off, one thing that they wanted to avoid in this game is having the pitfalls of Ratchet's so much so that they decided to quickly recast, I don't get the criticism of Ratchet undergoing an Arc, they may have overdone it a tiny bit but the complaint at the time was aimed at Ratchet having the arc in the first place, which is like complaining about how the Chris Tucker dude from Rush Hour isn't likeable from the start, due to this the character arcs are gone till Deadlocked which is a shame in my opinion since i feel it would have given the characters a bit more edge, but in favour the comedy here is amped up, the first game was funny but this game is on another level, Satirical Humour, Slapstick, 4th Wall Breaking, References etc, It's more of a treat to see these one off characters since you never know what your gonna get, however while the comedy is top tier the story just stops? It's weird after the Desert Planet you find out the thief is a female Lombax (Angela) who I don't really like since after her unveiling she's kinda used as a clumsy plot device and clearly didn’t get enough time to be her own character, and that Fizzwidget is a bit sus after "accidentally" injecting them/crushing their ship and "accidentally" giving them the wrong password. The game also gives some cutscenes of what happened to Qwark after the events of the first game, look if it wasn't clear enough along with Fizzwidget saying "Qwarktastic'', Fizzwidget is Qwark, but you have to wait till the last few minutes to find that out, one of the main reasons why the first game's story worked so well is that it felt so tightly written, every planet had agency and there was a sense of urgency as you progressed. In 2 you have a few stages with little to no story apart from "lol Megacorp is fucked up" then all of sudden something like the duo getting arrested or Angela getting captured, or them confronting Angela and realising they helped the villains, or the Proto Pet meance finally getting released into the world, these are good story moments both comedically and character wise but it takes a while to get to, plus the last 3rd of the game has this dumbass fetch quest of a Gadget only used twice, it just feels like they had all these cool planets and characters they wanted to use but didn't make a compelling story or reason to have them be in the game, like of course the Plumber returns which is cool since he isn't used as the almighty Chekvo's Demigod but they also use the RYNO Vender again from the first game to give you the 2nd flying gadget of the game (oh by the way he's really big now i guess). I feel the Plot could have tighten itself through having the Proto Pet Menace be released way earlier, also there's no Infobots, which was a great way to bridge gaps between Planets organically, Instead the characters either find these Floating Flat Screen LCD TVS or magically pull them out, it feels messy and like they ran out of Plot throughout the game so much to the point where the finale feels rushed with Chekvo's Infobot coming in at the last second, like with this definitely not thought out twist they have the original Fizzwidget come in and says Thank You for releasing me!, now being more posh than Qwark's impersonation but they presented that Megacorp was a rotten company for some time even if we assume Qwark did all those heinous stuff in a matter of a few months (which it wasn't) like they left employees to die in a swamp, drove Gadgetron (the company from the first game) out of business but maybe you could say Fizzwidget had a hard look at himself while inside the closet and evaluated all the bad stuff he did in the past now so it’s okay i guess.

I feel some fixes i would have done would be either keep the Qwark Twist but have it happen either when the duo get stranded in the Desert or when they get arested or just ditch Qwark for the next game since i still think his multi game arc could still work since let's be really he isn't really that funny or even threatening as a villain here since he isn't given the time needed to thrive or maybe tease him at the end of this game like Deadlocked and instead make Fizzwidget the villain like was intended, have Fizzwidget personally tell them that he's the big bad guy before they're arrested and despite the hold he has on the Galaxy, he just wants more money with the Proto Pet and the people of the Bogon Galaxy to respect Megacorp as company even more, present Megacorp as a company that was rotten from the start of the game instead of slowly dripping it any of the NPCs you talk to so resentment to Megacorp but can't do anything due to Megacorp being that Big, make Ratchet fully realise that in his pursuit of wanting to live the glory days, he accidentally helps the Villain fulfil his goal and should have had more light shed on it, realising that he needs to make it right, have this realisation after they get arrested, also in the Desert Stage Ratchet is fulling trusting of Megacorp and Clank is a lot more less distrusting, a sort of role reversal of the first game, and instead of a confused old guy he's more akin to how Drek was in the first game and will do anything in order to get what he wants, including kidnapping Angela or releasing the Proto Pet Meance early. Then at the end of the game we see him through everything at Ratchet, then after the final boss, we have Fizzwidget pleading Ratchet that all he wanted for people to respect his company again as it's been passed from Fizzwidget to Fizzwidget and as his duty he needs to preserve it for future generations, Ratchet lets Fizzwidget go and the ending (set few months after) shows that Megacorp is slowly but surely recovering to its former glory. I think the scenes with the Thug 4 Less Leader with Fizzwidget could show that he's more sympathetic about his actions, making the ending feel a lot more earned. I think that would work better than "Megacorp is bad or is it?" like they kinda discard it at the end for a cheap twist but while i do think my rewrite fixes a lot of the issues of this story, i feel it doesn't really matter? Like you can tell the animators (Yes Animators wrote this and the previous game) wanted to focus on comedy above all else which while is disappointing i can't complain here since the story isn't take as seriously as say the 3 Future games or Sly 4 where critique is warranted but since the comedy is done so well, i feel it shortcomings are sorta made up for.

But in terms of it's presentation, i feel Locked and Loaded keeps the same bar of the original while slightly dropping it, compared to the first game and let's be honest, apart from animation which is just as great as the first game if not more so is slacking compared to its other PS2 contemporaries, not bad by any means but i just find Sly 2 or even Jak 2 to look more aesthetically pleasing, the game looks good but i find more often that the colours look washed out, the game trades the rustic/cyberpunk aesthetics to a more clean and sterile aesthetic and this plus environments make it not as memorable as the first game, like for instance the game's take for Metropolis (Megapolis) is a great level with strong level design and an pretty cool and funny game mechanic of the robotic cleaners topped with some great callbacks, a decent boss and a nice Clank section but pales in comparison to Metropolis in terms of it Vibes and Level design, a lot of areas look great such as exploring an Illegal sky port, a large desert/tundra filled with crystals, the countless of unique factorys/test facilities that Megacorp owns, the beautiful greenary/forest areas, space vegas and even a not as cool "we reuse the first level but harder" thing from Ratchet 1 now with the airship from the beginning, however i feel a lot of the City's apart from Megapolis blend together into one Beige mess that while have great level design, don't do much to differentiate themselves from each other. I think this also goes for music, not bad, some great but mostly forgettable, again I don't have much to say about the Ost of most Ratchet games since they only really fit the mood/atmosphere of the stage and aren't my kind of thing anyway, but one thing that sorta stays same is the Voice acting, Mikey Kelly is replaced with James Arnold Taylor of Johnny Test fame and i think he does a mighty fine job doing his voice though i felt it was bit to far in order to make Ratchet have less of his edge, the voice acting is as good as the first game but there's some standouts like Steve Blum as the Thugs for Less leader, not only is he already a funny character but the delivery absolutely sells it for me, he manages to perfectly balance between threatening and insanely comedic, it's quite a shame he's barely used in the series again since he perfectly does what a Ratchet Villain is suppose to do.

But in terms of gameplay it's kinda like the story, while one core element really works, the rest feel a bit half-baked. When it comes to the moment to moment gameplay in terms of level design and gameplay mechanics Locked and Loaded hits it out of the park and manages to be as good as Ratchet 1 and even better sometimes, the game uses a lot of the same structure as the first game but fully merges both platforming and shooting into one little glorious mix of 3rd Person shooter goodness and some solid platforming, with Ratchet's new tighter movement and strafing it makes combat so much more frantic and controlled, the strategic feeling of the first game isn't lost however since new to this game is Weapon and Nanotech upgrades, While i welcome the Nanotech upgrades with wither fighting enemies or collecting them, i feel the Weapon Upgrades and the weapons themselves could have used a bit more work, I don't want to overwhelming negatives but the Weapons are handled a bit poorly, they only level up once and hell sometimes they completely change the function, like the Lava Gun which while still a decent level up feels way too different from the original use, also don't like how the Slim Cognito Mods you need to seek out and use Raritanium (which isn't very rare by the way). Most of the time however, the Weapon Upgrades come in handy mostly notably the Bouncer which becomes an absolute beast.

But i mean apart from that i don't have much to say about the weapons of Locked and Loaded, a lot use the same tropes from the first game, normal shooting weapons, crowd control, bots, remote control weapons, long shot beam weapons etc. The newer weapon ideas are pretty hit and miss unfortunately, having Gadgetron weapons is nice i suppose but it's obvious they were more for contextual reasons rather than any good feasible reason for gameplay, i found some weapons like the Chopper or Hoverbomb Gun feel like Weapons that were supposed to be in the first game since they feel more fit for that slower strategic gameplay instead since both trade off speed for stronger attacks making them feel insanely situational but other like the Bouncer, Blitz Gun, Zodiac, Pulse Rifle etc really work for this more action packed platformer while also keeping the strategy elements from the previous game intact, but i do have a few issues with the weapons and other RPG aspects of this game, for one i feel levelling them up takes a bit of time, not too much but just enough where there’s the feeling off “When can this level up?”, the other issues with levelling up is how they handled having Weapons, in the first game each weapon was useful throughout from the start right to end with maybe the exception of the Bomb Glove, In 2 first game Weapons are completely useless as the game progressed, while we're not there yet despite me feeling so luckwarm about Ratchet 3 I find how they handled weapons there to be better since they allow for 5 Levels while also balancing older weapons in the first act for other enemies in later stages, again not too huge of a fan of Up Your Arsenal but this is one aspect that UYA actually improves on previous games, but here not only are some Weapons are in danger of being completely outclassed but the encomny and enemy balance of this game is completely wack, sure you get more Bolts from enemies and Boxes since they are now Gold Bolts, this makes the original Gold Bolts to Titanium Bolts now which is neat I guess, but for some reason Bolt prices for Weapons and especially armour (another new RPG mechanic) are insanely expensive, unless you grind with the Maxi Games and Ship games good luck on getting all the Main Weapons in a first playthrough, speaking of Armour while I like the idea of Armour upgrades, again the economic issues really hold them back from being anything other than a neat little novelty, though they look really bad especially in the PS3 Version were the helmet isn't even on Ratchet's head and it's too big for him.

Also, it just feels like Locked and Loaded losses ideas and steam as it goes along, it gets better during the Hypnomatic quest since I find those levels to be a blast and the aforementioned Sky Port stage but Locked and Loaded 2nd Act levels never get bad per say but a bit boring, in 1 it felt each level was of a consistent quality expect maybe if it was a more obstacle like stage were some frustration could be had, each of them had interesting ideas with Gadgets while also balancing platforming and shooting but in Locked and Loaded 2nd Act levels just kinda don't do that? Again I can't stress enough they aren't badly designed levels but i just feel naturally blending the routes into 2 just makes them less memorable than the first game, this could also be attributed to the Gadgets but one thing that you can clearly show the devs losing steam are the bosses, The Maxigame bosses are inoffensive since they’re just suppose to be an sendoff to the challenge as well as the crystal hunting minibosses but as the game progresses each boss just get worse and worse, from the decent fights with the swamp monster and Helicopter to the great Uncharted esque chance with Angela or giant mech fight (if you’re using V2 Bouncer) to the unfair saucer fight, boring Thugs for Less leader Clank fight and the laughably anti-climatic final boss that you can snipe from a mile away which feels like a boss found in the Maxigames, it’s sucks because they have this great idea of using weapons/ammo from the game but you barely see it since it doesn't take long to beat him, i guess they wanted to make up from the final boss of Ratchet 1 huh?

The Gadgets and extra gizmos you get in this aren't as interesting as the first game unfortunately, first Clank gameplay has gotten a huge downgrade atmospherically, it seems that it felt like they wanted to get it over with since "Oh the first game had it so this one has to have it to" in the 2 scenarios (I.e Megapolis and the Prison Break) there's a lot less going on and your essentially just freeing Ratchet instead of soaking in the atmosphere of challenges that may seem easy for Ratchet but harrowing for Clank. Giant Clank however is the complete opposite, they introduced these Spherical world's which are neat little pace breaker that are unfortunately used once for normal Ratchet but they used like 2 or 3 times for Giant Clank, and it is awesome, they added strafing, a bunch of new moves and best of all, the frame rate doesnt shit itself! Now where I’m where I’m really baffled about Locked & Loaded is it’s Gadget line-up, of course you have a few returning ones like the Packs, Swingshot and Grind Boots when you save Clank and also a new version of the Gravity Boots which makes combat a lot better there but a lot of times the new Gadgets in 2 feel like there should be merged in some instances, like the Dynamo and Tracker Beam are 2 Beam gadgets but one is for Bots and Bombs and one is for platforms, could they not have been merged? Another example are 2 Flying Gadgets, The Levitator and Momentum Glider, while these work differently and are very fun i just found them weird since i feel the Momentum Glider is useless since the Levitator is just a better version of it, you also got 2 hacking minigames which while serviceable feel way too trial and error to be considered that fun or even puzzles for that matter. You also get the returning extra items from Ratchet 1 like the Mapper or Bolt Magnetic and even new ones like the Charge Boots which give you a long boost and the Box Breaker that breaks boxes upon slamming. Finally these 2 Gadgets have such cool ideas but aren’t executed the best, these being the Thermanotor and the Hyponomatic, the Thermantor allows you to freeze and refreeze water, this is such a cool idea but in the segments you have to use them in you have to be unfeasibly precise with when you time you shoot the Ice, and the Hypnomatic essentially allows you to be a twin stick shooter robot, while it’s fine and inoffensive it just feels like a waste due to how the 3rd Act is just dedicated to getting all the parts and especially since it’s used twice in the game, one being a tutorial and one being the final, not to mention there’s already a remote control robot in this game.

However despite how I’ve felt throughout this review, one thing that Locked & Loaded nails are the new Maxigames which are new side content ventures that allow you to obtain more bolts that may be mandatory once or twice they are introduced, everyone of these is great apart from Ship stuff which is just ranges kinda boring and really bad with the racing sections, all of these new additions are top-tier, the Hoverbike races are a lot more instance than the Hoverboard in Ratchet 1, you are always in your feet since you could flying through and then one crash could ruin everything, not to mention later on the Power-Ups you use in the stages can be used against you, and the Crystal Hunting stages, yes fuck the snowbeast but these are great, allowing you to explore these giant battlefields finding sellable, fighting enemies and bosses while also leveling up everything and oh the Arenas, fantastic addition, pure fighting bliss filled with non-stop action packed euphoria with each challenge being more unique and gruelling more than the last, this is how any platformer should do variety (mostly), keeping the core fundamentals and gameplay of the main game while also adding upon it and giving the player new and exciting challenges.

But overall looking at Locked & Loaded in a vacuum, yeah it’s pretty good but i feel it could have been better if they had more time to fully develop it’s ideas, when Locked & Loaded gets going with it’s core mechanics like the comedy, music, level ideas and action-packed gameplay, it’s a blast and even matches and surpasses to the first game but when it stumbles, it just kinda falls, it never gets awful which is why i may retract that 7/10 to an low 8/10 since that core is so strong but it’s flaws can’t be overlooked, yeah it’s funny but the story is a bit messy, yeah the music & level ideas slap sometimes but more times than not they mush together and feels a lot less unique that the first, yes that euphoric action-packed gameplay is redefined from the first game with better controls and bigger bolder action setpieces, but it feels like it’s just throwing ideas on a wall and seeing what sticks making for such an inconsistent experience when some stuff lands and some stuff don’t (like there’s Wrench Upgrades in this game why do you need Wrench upgrades???), in spite it all though, Locked & Loaded is still a good game with that core gameplay more than times that not being that fun and is also a solid entry in the series and this genre as a whole but the first game is better, Yeah i just found the first game’s presentation, levels and story to beat this one out due to how much more refined and unique they are, but hey, it’s better than Ratchet 2016 and Up Your Arsenal, so that’s something.

It’s a substantive upgrade to the very flawed original in my eyes. Gameplay is much snappier and more fun with strafing in the game and lock on which sometimes worked and sometimes did not. The upgrade system with weapons and life also adds much more to the gameplay loop, and the weapons here are really cool, though combat encounters don’t really challenge me to change or experiment much with my loadout. Level design and aesthetics of the planets are also very samey thoughout, which got more and more stale as I progressed through the game. I feel that there should have been a lot less levels here to keep the pacing going and prevent any stinkers coming in to drag the game down.

There’s also a whole lot more to do here with minigames and side content, but they feel very rough and not executed well such as the space ship missions and hover bikes contests and their terrible controls. The change ups do add intrigue to the overall gameplay experience but nevertheless they really detracted for me.

Electrolyzer puzzles similarly I’m not a fan of with the emphasis on reaction time rather than a decent level of puzzle solving with the last game’s trespasser puzzles. The arena was such a fun time though! It exemplifies GC at its best for me personally. The game really needed more combat encounters like this and a LOT less pedestrian platforming challenges.

The story here is…fine, very predictable. I might not be the target audience for the games, but I just find the characterization, comedy, and story overall to just be alright but never amounting to much. The whole “villain is actually not a bad guy thing and the good guy is actually bad” thing is here, and it exists. The story started out a bit ambitious but it never really took off into anything substantial. Ratchet and clank themselves don’t really have much interesting interactions compared to the last game, besides the part where Clank is captured for like one minute of the storyline.

I will say, it is interesting playing though these games with the hindsight of Insomniac being crunched to hell and back while making these games in the 6th and 7th generation. The cracks definitely show a lot despite this game being a step above the original. GC is an enjoyable time but some elements really drag it down for me to fully love or like, though the central gameplay loop here is excellent! Overall, it’s decent lol

Maybe I'll re-write or clean up this review at a later date, but I would like the world/my future self to know that this is my favourite Ratchet and Clank game. The progression between levels and upgrades is an elegant display of mastery of the systems introduced in the first game. Perfect sequel.

Only problem is the story is absurdly bad. I genuinely don't know if there's a single joke that lands properly for me. But as a game that you play with your hands, it owns. Perfect New Game+ experience, too. If at this point in time of you reading this review I have not written an Up Your Arsenal review, I'll summarize that the things I think it does worse than Going Commando are just having a few too many mechanics that gum up the works. Still a fantastic game worth your time, and the story and jokes are twenty times better, but there's just something about going from beginning to end in Going Commando that will never get old to me.

"Watch this" - pulls out comically large monitor from my left pocket

It is literally a 90's/00's Saturday morning cartoon as a video game which makes it extremely charming. I understand how much this game did for the series though I can't help but not enjoy how dated it controls. My standard for "gun-centric" platformers is Destroy All Humans!, which controls like butter to this day. I also felt like there was random spikes in enemy scaling which was jarring - common in games from this era but since I haven't experienced it in a while it came off frustrating. The door opening minigames are also really bad imo. Overall I enjoyed my playthrough - albeit a little frustrated by the end.