An improvement over the first game in pretty much every way, however much like the original by the end of the game the difficulty reached a level of more annoyance than challenge, throwing more enemies than you have ammo to deal with without grinding bolts to get more weapons, causing me to have to run back to the store in between checkpoints just to have enough ammo for the other half.

Also I don't know if it's because I took a significant break near the end or what but the story felt like it suddenly just ends, like it's building up, there's a final reveal and then you blink and it's the credits and final cutscenes

Una secuela que mejora a su predecesora:

Con el lanzamiento de este juego, mejoro muchos apartados de su precuela en muchos aspectos.

La jugabilidad esta vez si, introduce el desplazamiento lateral, haciendo que los combates sean más divertidos y frenéticos. También añade el detalle de que las armas mejoran con el uso y ambas mecánicas se reutilizarían para muchas entregas que saldrían después.

Gráficamente se ve mejor que el juego anterior, aunque más específicamente en los escenarios y los modelos de los personajes nuevos, ya que los personajes de juegos anteriores como Ratchet o Clank se ven iguales que del juego anterior.

La música compuesta por David Bergeaud se me hizo mejor que la del primer juego y con mejores instrumentaciones.

El humor sigue manteniendo la esencia del primero pero aun más salvaje a la hora de satirizar al capitalismo.

Lo malo, es que su dificultad es algo inconsistente, ya que habrá planetas que te resultaran pasables, pero otros sin aviso se vuelven un puñetero Dark Souls de la PS2, por suerte se invento una nueva mecánica y es la de los blindajes, para que esos planetas que no podáis pasarte, lo puedas tolerar.

En resumen, una de las mejores secuelas de los videojuegos y uno de los mejores juegos de Ratchet & Clank, que recomiendo mucho si tienes una PS2 y nunca lo has jugado, se lo recomiendo.

The R&C train continues as I move right onto the sequel. It's still a very recognizable game from the first, but this game has a TON of small but super significant improvements over the original, so I was pretty immediately drawn in. It took me around 12 hours to finish the Japanese version of the game while only getting a couple collectibles.

In this game, Ratchet & Clank find themselves where they ended the first game: watching TV at home. When suddenly, an eccentric inventor from another galaxy transports them to his location and tells them he needs their help to recover his stolen Protopet! After 2 weeks of commando training (off screen), Ratchet and Clank set off to save this missing Protopet and figure out just who the real bad guys may be. The story is certainly better and more involved than the first, but its overall presentation is still pretty similar. Most characters just amount to being little more than quirky item vendors you meet only one time, but it's still entertaining, and the overall resolution to the story is fun. Ratchet & Clank's banter is still fun as ever and it's a pleasing overlay to the platforming action of the main gameplay.

The main gameplay is very similar to the first game, but with many improvements. It's still a series of planets with a few branching paths in each. You kill enemies to get money to buy weapons to keep going through those planets to find more tools and guns and navigation data to new levels. Just how much better this game plays than the first game cannot be overstated, though. You can FINALLY strafe! In a third-person shooting game, this helps the combat out MASSIVELY, as you can probably easily imagine. On top of that, Ratchet also moves way less clumsily than he does in the first game, and his jumping and walking are tighter overall. Checkpoints are more frequent as well as actually being told to you when they happen, there are far less annoying and awful minigames (although there are still a couple), and ammo boxes actually respawn now between deaths so ammo is far less of a worry.

The guns are also better across the board, with nearly all of them being far more generally useful rather than the more circumstantial-to-useless feeling so many guns in the first game had. They also level up as you use them, going from normal to upgraded, and helping your favorite guns stay more relevant through more of the game. Ratchet himself also has an XP bar of sorts now, as killing more enemies will eventually trigger you to gain a new quarter of a life container (they're basically like hearts in Zelda), so you end up dying a LOT less even though the game's enemies do hit harder as you progress through the story. This game, like the first, still has an issue with some super weapons and armor (which reduces the amount of damage you take across the board by a percentage) being HORRIFICALLY expensive and requiring hours and hours of grinding for cash to acquire. A lot of the normal guns and armor are also quite prohibitively expensive, but the game really doesn't expect you to collect them all on your first playthrough (given that the game has a new game+ mode of sorts).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is a radical improvement from the first game in just about every way. It plays so much better I was actually happy to chase some of the more silly in-game side quests, like collecting every crystal and moon stone, simply because I was having so much fun with the combat. It's not quite perfect, but it's held up damn well and is still very worth playing so many years after its release.

The first Ratchet has some pretty big and obvious flaws, so Going Commando gets to make some big and obvious fixes up front. You can strafe! Auto aim is way more generous! The puzzles aren't as slow and annoying! You have way more health! Ammo is cheaper! Within the first ten minutes you can immediately tell this is a huge step up.

There are also a number of other smart design tweaks that aren't just fixes. Weapons gain exp now, which really encourages you to use everything in your arsenal. There are new optional challenges which means if you're stuck you can earn bolts to upgrade your character or get some new weapons.

Okay now the stuff that sucks.

The story is a complete mess. Character arcs aren't set up properly, or go nowhere, or don't exist. There are a number of twists that just don't land. It's hard to even discern what the overall narrative is. It very much feels like the thing has been hastily cobbled together into something resembling a complete story, but it doesn't feel cohesive. This is a shame because the characters and world on the first game were so strong, and it makes the sequel feel a little meandering and aimless.

The environments here are lovely to look at but feel a bit less lived-in. They rattle by so fast and there are very few characters to meet, so you don't get a strong sense of the world.

The game is really, really fun. All the design additions and fixes make this a really fantastic game to play, but it also feels more incoherent in its overall construction. Had a great time with it but like it less than the original.

The shooting is better than the original with cooler and more fun weapons, as well as an improved camera and strafing. It also retains the strategic weapon choice aspect of the first game and that's great. Of course the evolving weapon system is really cool as well.

The checkpoints got better compared to the first game, bolts and ways to get them are more plentiful. The health system is also more lenient which is good.

But that's just about it for the improvements. The story and humor are worse than the first one, and the planets are less memorable. There is also less emphasis on platforming in favor of more shooting segments which I didn't like.

The fun parts of the game (shooting, platforming) are constantly being interrupted by annoying minigames. Seriously, almost all of them are bad. The space fights, the levitator, the glider, the infiltrator, the electrolyzer - all shit.

The game becomes much more annoying after Boldan with very spongy enemies, I recommend the Meteor Gun + Lock-On mod combo, the shield and the Heavy Bouncer to make it tolerable (I sadly tried the shield way too late but it helped).

Also, there are many sections with seemingly impossibly hard enemies or constantly respawning enemies. I recommend that you treat the game as a speed-run and just skip past the enemies, most of the time it just works.

The game has a lot of "that part"s like the Snivelak boss, or Grelbin as a whole, or the respawning enemies on Damosel etc etc. People say that the original is unfair but this was worse. I know the game had a troubled and short development period so I can't be too hard on them for those though.

That might be a skill issue but I think the high bolt prices on the weapons and the upgrade grind discourage me from experimenting as much as I would have wanted, so I didn't realize just how useful some weapons are before I stumble upon that info on the internet.

I might sound overly harsh on this game, but in the end the great core gameplay is still there, and for every downgrade there was an upgrade so the score is just a bit lower than that of the original.

This game is a pretty great sequel. The first game laid a solid foundation, but this one refined a lot of things wrong with that game and more. The music, atmosphere, and writing are all as good if not better, but most importantly the controls are massively improved. Ratchet moves faster, jumps faster, and the direly needed strafing is added. The weapon selection is downright awesome, every one minus maybe the throwing stars was a blast to use. The game is packed with content, especially in the new game mode which has money multipliers to incentivize good play, and a lot of extra upgrades.

As for what didn't improve, the story is once again only fine. The humor does a lot of heavy lifting and saves it from being outright boring. The bosses are really bad. These guys range from pushovers to health sponges. The boss on Snivelak gets the honorable mention award for being one of the worst I've ever played in a game. The Giant Clank stages were also not very fun, as the huge boss health pools and slow movement make it a drag to play. Aside from these issues, Going Commando is a great game I could see myself coming back and replaying often.

so to start off I like this game a fair bit, maybe slightly more than the first one but I prefer it due to its more polished gun play and addition of strafing rather than it having more interesting planets (although the giant destroyed gadgetron facility was a really cool opening shot), I found the music a lot less memorable than the first game and also not as atmospheric, in the first game the music really set the tone and vibe of planets and had me turning my game volume up at several points just to be able to hear them to their fullest,

the game has sudden and abrupt difficulty spikes in the latter half that kinda come out of nowhere, I had been steamrolling everything up until the planet Snivelak and speaking of Snivelak the boss fight on this planet was absolutely abysmal and unfun despite the impressive technical aspect of it being accomplished on the PS2 and I felt very similarly about the spaceflight sections, while they are cool concepts and were smoothed out much more in later games I had alot of difficulty locating enemies and even hitting them as they are incredibly small targets,

the story of this game also kinda goes all over the place likely due the rewrites the game underwent and it felt incredibly inconsistent, arenas were introduced in this game and arenas having always been my favourite I was kinda excited to visit a PS2 ratchet arena that I had no experience with, I was sorely disappointed with the variety but had alot of fun with it nonetheless and really enjoyed some of the more specific challenges like surviving a ton of rounds with only 300 lancer bullets,

all in all I do like this game but it trades a lot of blows with the first game and I found its planets less memorable but its arsenal of weapons much more interesting, I didnt like space combat, but I really liked the hoverbike sections this time around and so on. I can understand why this is a lot of peoples favourite ratchet & clank game and absolutely do not hate it despite the issues I had with it.

The first Ratchet and Clank was a very fun outing for the titular duo but then a year later comes the sequel Going Commando which improves on just about everything it possibly can.

The weapons are some of the most fun to mess around with and it's made even better thanks to the ability to upgrade them as the game goes on transforming them into weapons of mass destruction that could make even the fiercest of enemies cower like a whimpering dog. Your health system is much improved as well with a levelling up mechanic meaning that Ratchet's rocking more health than last time.

The arenas and space battles are a great addition to the series as well giving you the chance to face more battles and earn a lot more bolts. Even the controls are better with Ratchet being much more responsive and he can finally strafe as well for those little shoutout moments.

And once it's all done, you can do it all over again with Challenge Mode where the enemies get more tougher but the rewards even greater with more bolts and fiercer weapons.

With the fun levels and set-pieces combined, Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando makes for a superb sequel to the original game and one of the most essential games to have on the PS2. You really do owe it to yourself to check out this gem.

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.