Well, not “shit” exactly, but there’s definitely something rotten going on, and I liked the title too much not to use. Anyway…

I am a big fan of Ratchet & Clank. Long term readers may remember this (as I have mentioned it before, even to the point of listing all of the previous games, and rating them).

So why can’t I get on with Crack in Time? I’ve picked it up a few times, and even played through a fair amount of it so far (GameFaqs suggests I’m about half way through the story), but I’m just not loving it. I have to force myself to go back and play more. This is a sad state of affairs for me – R&C used to be something I would rely on for hours of fun.

As I’ve been playing it and mulling the question over in my head, I have come up with some possible explanations.

• The story line has gone from being comical and absurd, to taking itself far too seriously. It used to be about saving the galaxy from some hammy space dictator, while bumping in to other ridiculous characters. Now Clank has a father, and has been specially created to be a caretaker of time. Ratchet has met another Lombax (he was meant to be the only one left), who is a generic troubled outcast who knew Ratchet’s dad. Quark is still bumbling around the place, but even the joke of constantly saving him is wearing thin. Ludicrously named MacGuffins are introduced with po-faced seriousness, rather than with a knowing looking from the cast that they accept this is stupid.
• The graphics are great, but the extra detail over-complicates things. One the PS2 the relatively low poly counts of individual geometry and enemies, combined with clean texturing, gave a nice cartoony look that helped you identify important features (such as things that were coming to kill you). With the extra horsepower of the PS3 there is detail everywhere, and a lot gets lost in the visual clutter. I would have been interested to see them go for a much cleaner cel shaded look, to be honest.
• Actually, everything is over-complicated now. The range of gadgets that are in the game as legacy items is too big, and has been added to with new things. There are too many types of interaction available now, as a result you have to remember a lot of special cases.
• There just isn’t the care an attention to detail there used to be. A prime example is in the save system. Though the game checkpoints regularly, and you can do a proper save at any point from the menu, on reloading you are likely to be returned to a much earlier spawn point. Just this morning I had to repeat a 20 minute section of gameplay, for no particular reason that I could tell other than what appeared to be a perfect place for a hard save apparently wasn’t. There doesn’t seem to be the number of unlockable comedy cheats, or bonus hidden away paths through levels, either.

So yeah, it could be any of those things. I just find it a shame when something that I used to love has become a hollow shell, going through the motions of what used to make it good, but without ever hitting the same quality.

With the next Ratchet & Clank game being a multiplayer title based on crossing over with Jak & Daxter and Sly Cooper, I don’t hold out much hope for a return to form. Sounds a bit too “Destroy all monsters” to be any good.