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.

Era o último que faltava pra completar a trilogia original. Joguei o UYA na época dourada do PS2, enquanto o R&C foi há uns 3 ou 4 anos. É uma franquia que me fascina pela sua capacidade de DIVERTIR e os dois jogos citados guardam um lugar especial no meu coração, então minha expectativa pro GC era relativamente alta. Infelizmente, faltaram algumas coisas. Vou tentar descrever abaixo.

Antes de tudo, é importante destacar a evolução das mecânicas de movimento e de mira - especialmente a adição do strafe e do lock on - possibilitando um melhor controle sobre o Ratchet e permitindo que o jogador CAIA PRA DENTRO em situações caóticas de combate pra RESOLVER NA TROCAÇÃO FRANCA. Mirar no R&C era um parto e diante de grupos de inimigos cascudos, o melhor a se fazer era recuar, respirar, analisar o cenário, olhar todas as armas disponíveis e bolar uma estratégia adequada. E na real? Isso era MARAVILHOSO, pois adicionava camadas de complexidade no combate, tornando-o mais desafiador, além de estimular o uso da maioria das armas. Entretanto, não considero um erro do GC migrar pra uma dinâmica mais simplista, mais shooter, só que faltaram alguns ajustes finos pra coisa funcionar bem (como acontece no UYA):

1. A exageradíssima barra de vida faz com que todo e qualquer inimigo seja completamente inofensivo. E os frequentes upgrades de nanotech te salvam nas poucas situações que PODERIAM representar algum risco. Going Commando é como uma caminhada no parque. Os poucos desafios do jogo residem em segmentos fora do main game, mais especificamente na conquista de skill points e platinum bolts.

2. As armas defasam muito rápido. Sério. No mid game, armas deliciosas como o Blitz Cannon e a Heavy Lancer já se mostram ineficientes. A Minirocket Tube que só aparece na 2ª metade do jogo também não dura muito. No final, o gameplay meio que se resume a Bouncer + Plasma Coil + armas de defesa (killonoids, turrets e shield charger). É legal, porém muito apelativo. Basicamente você é um deus da destruição que sai estraçalhando tudo por onde passa.

Entrando no aspecto visual, achei a estética da Bogon Galaxy muito blasé, pálida e metalizada. Deve ter sido uma escolha artística pra marcar bem a diferença em relação à Solana Galaxy, mas enfim, poucos planetas me saltaram os olhos. Talvez Notak e Boldan.

Quanto à história, é verdade que não é o forte da franquia. A trama geralmente é bobinha, humorística e desempenha um papel acessório, mas po, isso não significa que ela tenha de ser vazia e irrelevante como foi no Going Commando. Eu diria que a ausência de um antagonista forte simplesmente matou o clima e inviabilizou a construção daquele senso de urgência em salvar a galáxia de uma grande ameaça. Esse sentimento serve pra estabelecer uma sinergia entre a jogatina e a história, o que torna tudo melhor. Sem ela, você não liga muito pro que tá rolando no mundo e apenas joga.

Pra fechar minha crítica, falando do que talvez seja A MAIOR VERGONHA da trilogia original - e que passa muito pelos problemas que citei acima - temos o PIOR FINAL BOSS DA HISTÓRIA. Que porcaria foi essa, mermão? Já não bastasse ser o tal do Protopet, um bicho azul sem apelo nenhum, a batalha ainda é ridiculamente fácil. Acho que levei 5 minutos pra acabar com a bolota e não sofri um mísero dano. Zero clímax, zero desafio, péssimo, péssimo e péssimo.

Veredito final: bom jogo, dá pra se divertir, mas fica pequeno ao lado do seus companheiros de franquia. GC rompe com alguns pressupostos clássicos mas não completa a transição. Preciso rejogar o UYA, mas sinto que ele amadureceu as ideias aqui apresentadas e entregou um resultado melhor.

Finalizo com 100% dos platinum bolts e 17/30 skill points. Até engatei uma jogatina completista, mas no terço final dei uma broxada e agora eu só quero jogar alguma coisa diferente. Quem sabe um dia...

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.