Ratchet and Clank(2002) Review

Beat this game for the first time in almost 10 years and it's not a bad game, it's pretty much the typical first entry to a long running series. This game pretty much confirms that Going Commando is the greatest game sequel ever made. The story in the latter is worse but GC's makes MASSIVE improvements in terms of gameplay. The story in 2002 is pretty decent and entertaining, the jokes are funny and Ratchet and Clank's dynamic is pretty good. Chairman Drek is one of the more memorable villains in the series, thanks to the writing and Kevin Micheal Richardson. It sucks what the 2016 game did to Drek even though the 2016 plays way better. 

But yeah, overall everything about Ratchet 2002 is like an unrefined version of what comes later. The music is great too. I often see people say this game is more platforming heavy compared to the sequels and I am not so sure about that. GC had way more interesting gadget based platforming. 2002 is still basically shooting section than platform section like the rest of the series just without a lack of stafe. 

And this is where I start being negative, the lack of strafing isn't too bad in the early sections but when Qwark betrays you, the difficulty gets out of hand, a lot of the combat in this game is either running around using Bomb Glove or Agents of Doom, sniping enemies with the rocket launcher or running around circle strafing with the Flamethrower and Blaster hoping that the auto aim tracks and hits everything because the lack of strafe also means you can't reliably avoid damage while shooting either. That and I can feel how boring the sequels would be if you didn't have weapon upgrades or just have a boring selection of weapons in general. Once I got the rocket launcher, I stopped buying weapons until the Tesla Claw, and the latter is objectively the best weapon in the game and shows how flawed the combat actually is. That weapon hits everything around you when moving in circles AND it does a lot of damage. The game kind of just started to get boring after a point because the action was sub par and the weapons selection was dull because Bomb Glove did everything for close range while rocket launcher was good for long range, and Tesla Claw was an inbetween. The Glove of Doom for large enemies waves, it was basically this for hours. 

And it's stupid how enemies can strafe BUT YOU can't. It's funny how Insomniac didn't have a shotgun in this game either, a game with shooting with no shotgun? Boring. Overall decent game, but it's the dullest out of the mainline series.