PS3 Review: Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty

Ratchet and Clank return for this very brief adventure

The mysterious Zoni have taken Clank! Now Ratchet must use his space-age weapons and new Omniwrench to battle Captain Darkwater’s band of cut-throat ghost pirates to find the Fulcrum Star – a lost treasure that could be the link to finding his best friend.

If you’re up for a swashbuckling adventure through outer space, then download Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty and help Ratchet track down Clank and find out just who is pulling the strings along the way…

New challenges, new wrench gameplay and new locations as Ratchet & Clank head off on an exciting treasure hunt

Test your pirate wits: Mix brew, manipulate shadows and play tunes to find vital clues to Captain Angstrom Darkwater’s treasure

Travel to four exotic new locations and fight new pirate enemies including an epic final battle with Captain Darkwater

My history with the Ratchet and Clank series is minimal at best, having only played Secret Agent Clank. Quest for Booty is available on the PSN, but you can also pick it up on a Blu-Ray disc. It seems odd that they’ve chosen two different distribution paths for a game that lasts roughly 4-5 hours. Having tried searching around various online shops, the only places I found the game were on eBay and some import sites. Its missing from Amazon, GAME and even Play.com, it seems that if you want the disc version of the game, you’ll have to go to the earlier suggestions.

You play as Ratchet as he blasts his way through pirates and the like to find Clank, the story is redundant thanks to bad voice-acting at each cutscene before a level, its annoyingly bad and sounds like an old person trying to put on a kiddy voice. All the platforming elements that you would expect are here and it also has the new Omniwrench which is a melee weapon, but it also screws in nuts, extends bridges and activates other things, it’s basic but it works.

That’s the main problem with Quest for Booty. It meets the necessary standards of a platformer, but it doesn’t do anything to overcome them and be innovative, you’ll repeat the same cycles as in many games. Go high, activate a switch, go back down and go through it, defeat the enemies in the next area and then move on. It becomes more predictable by the second, which is disappointing. It’s almost as if it’s played it a little too safe.

The other issue is the incredibly brief game and although it’s not as expensive as a main PS3 title, it will disappoint fans. Especially those who wait to download it, as it’s a hefty download and will take a while to finish. There’s also no trophy support at present, so there’s no real reason to replay it either.

Visually, the game looks pretty good…although it’s not without its issues. Animation is fluid, but character models are a bit average, they don’t stand out like they should. Audio is good in places, but voice-acting is pretty bad…having said that, I know fans will like it.

The Verdict

Quest for Booty has some good moments, but it’s over far too quickly to fully enjoy. Either stick to the previous game or wait for the next real one, I would only recommend this to those fans of the series who simply can’t get enough of Ratchet and Clank.

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