[Talkin' Baseball by Willie, Mickey, and the
Duke plays] [James Stephanie Sterling] Ratchet and Clank:
Rift Apart came out, oooh, bloody ages ago but this video technically isn't late for
most of you because you don't have a PS5 yet, you can't get one of the bastards. So, this is a video that will be relevant
for years to come. Only joking, nothing I've ever made is relevant. Anyway, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. It's Ratchet and Clank. Pretty good though. Rift Apart has been heralded as the fi
rst
proper real true proper authentic actually true real justification for owning a PS5,
and it's good to have an video game that does that. And the game does hold up its end of the bargain
in terms of validating the PS5's power. No one can can justify owning a big expensive
console, but if you already have that big expensive console, here's a game that actually
makes it feel like you have a big expensive new console. Obviously the visuals are a big selling point
of this game, and it looks very
very pretty indeed. Personally I just like bright colours which
Ratchet and Clank has, so I'm pretty happy with that. So long as I get lots of bright things flashing
in front of me, I like bright colours, I like shapes, I like noises, and this game has all
of those. But if you're a little more discerning with
your palette, then you might like to know that there's also lots of effects going on
on screen. Every time Ratchet hits crates the wood goes
flying and the bolts that serve as currency spre
ad out everywhere. An early section has you going down a grind
rail in a city with lots of traffic, with lots of lights flashing around, with rain
effects, it's clearly there to swing the PS5's big dick around, but unlike a game that exists
purely to be a tech demo, Ratchet and Clank: Rift apart is also "a very good game". Which I like to see. So visually it's really impressive, and as
someone who cares more about artistic direction I enjoy that it's animated really nicely,
and the colour scheme
is so vibrant and bright. The game feels very alive as a result. Special attention must of course be given
to the game's loading times, or relative lack thereof. This game is focused on interdimensional travel,
and it uses that premise not necessarilly to give us lots of new enemy designs and bizarre
scenarios; It's there to show off the fact that the PS5 can load things real real fast. And as someone who's been sceptical of the
PS5's power, and still as the years sort of show us exactly what t
he console can do
still somewhat skeptical about all of the heavy promises, I will say that the relative
lack of loading in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is impressive. There are multiple sequences where you're
going through portals and entering completely different environments, and you're doing this
at a rapid pace. There are bonus areas that take the form of
dimensional pockets which appear as essentially holes in reality, and you walk through the
hole and you're immidiately in this floaty di
mensional space. And I gotta say it's never not cool to walk
through a hole in reality and be in a completely new environment, and have the transition between
the two be completely seamless. But all of this would mean exactly bollocks
if the game itself wasn't good. And I'm pleased to report that Rift Apart
is actually indeed very good. As I intimated subtely earlier, Ratchet and
Clank: Rift Apart is Ratchet and Clank, it's got the exact same DNA, the same structure,
as previous ratchet and clan
k games. But having been a while since the last Ratchet
and Clank, and the formula itself being simple and incredible fun, because you really, you
can't go wrong by playing a giant rat with loads of wacky and weird guns, running around
just shooting the shit out of everything that's shooting the shit out of you. I'd say Rift Apart is well worth getting into
if you've enjoyed the previous games, but what this one has over the others is an increased
sense of movement, and real fluid movement at th
at. As you progress through the game you will
unlock various features such as wall running, and a dash that you can do both on the ground
and in the air. A little bit after that you get what are essentially
rocket powered roller skates, and they will prove to be the best thing in the world for
the duration of the game. They're really fun, you press the rocket powered
roller skate button, and you start rocket powered roller skating, and then you press
it again, and then you get faster, and you cl
ick it again you get faster, and then faster,
and then you hold it, and then you're going, like, so fast it's stupid. And the really enjoyable kind of stupid. The range of weapons of course is always a
big drawing point to the Ratchet and Clank series, and they're all real fun to use here. You've got your more straight forward weapons,
simple blaster, simple shotgun style weapon, simple bomb throwing glove, and they're backed
up by more exotic offerings such as Mr Fungi where you throw out a mus
hroom that floats
around shooting at people for you, and there's the topiary sprinkler which I LOVE. You throw down a, well, a sprinkler and it
hits enemies with water and covers them in grass and flowers, and then they stay there
stuck for a while. Whether you want ice shooters or nuke launchers
or sniper rifles even, Rift Apart's probably got a handful of weapons that will appeal
to you. And the game wastes very little time getting
between you and the action, there is a story, there are cutsce
nes. They're Okay. The story's fine. Ratchet and Clank's sense of humour has never
quite made me laugh, but I don't find it offensive. It doesn't annoy me or anything, it's not
obnoxious. It's just there, and it's cute. It's a cute game. The kids probably find it amusing. I like Doctor Nefarious. He's very camp, and I've always liked the
way they animate his movements, they're very swishy for a robot, it's very entertaining. In any case there is a real quickfire pace
to the game, the cutscenes a
re energetic and will throw you right back into the action,
even when there's no combat on screen simply navigating the environment feels fast. Wether you are running on wallrun panels or
grapelling hooking your way through the air, or riding the slug, you can ride slugs and
they go real real fast. And then the combat itself outside of the
wackiness of the weapons is that old Ratchet and Clank standby of "Run around and keep
firing until things stop firing at you". And even with switching up the
weapons some
could say it's fairly repetetive, fairly one note in it's combat system, but I like it a
lot. I mean then again I play Dynasty Warriors,
so repetetive combat is something I don't truly mind if it's enjoyable enough. And it is here. Your weapons absolutely chew through enemies,
there's so much going on. You've got your various gun effects, you've
got enemies all over the screen, you've got currency flying all over the shop. As well as the guns you're directly firing,
by the beginnin
g of a combat sequence you could have flung out multiple mushroom people,
multiple killer robots, multiple topiary sprinklers, and multiple drones that are throwing bombs
down from on high. And by the end of the game that's pretty much
what I was doing, I had a small friggin' army at my back while I was taking on a small friggin'
army, all while crates are exploding and bolts are flying, and in my personal experience
no slow down, no frame rate dips to speak of. I will say that sometimes it's a
little too
much. The visual effects and the just sheer density
of the activity on screen can be overwhelming, especially for someone like me who can find
their eyes very easily distracted, there have been moments where I'm just not sure what's
going on on the screen. Or I'm firing at something I don't know is
dead yet because I simply haven't seen it die. There's just so much going on that my eyes
are drawn all over the place. [Rick McCallum] It's so dense, every single
image has so many things
going on. [James Stephanie Sterling] But because of
the general chaos that is Ratchet and Clank combat, it doesn't matter too much. You are, after all, just running around in
circles firing firing firing until shit's all dead. While I say that the game wastes very little
time getting to the action, there are moments that are a little too slow, and those are
the bits where you play as Clank solving these Lemmings style puzzles, where you've got to
manipulate the environment to get a line of dimen
sional Clanks from one place to another. There's a skip button. It's the best button in the game. You can go in the menu and skip the puzzle. Which I did. Because they're shit and dull. I don't mind the other style of sub game,
where you play as a little robot called Glitch and you go into a computer world and you just
run around shooting shooting shooting all of these computer viruses and stuff. And that's just a lot of shooting. So I don't mind that one so much. I don't like to do thinking, yo
u see. 'Cause I'm a real true hardcore gamer, right
gamers? Um, I just like to do shooting. No, genuinely, I don't like to think. I do wish that the whole idea of dimensional
travel was played with more. Most of the time you're going fromn environment
that's lively to other version of that enviornment that's dead. You know, it could easily be confused for
going back and forth in time rather than going to different dimensions. It's not until real late in the game that
it even starts tinkering wit
h the idea of dimensional varients of what you've been fighting. And even then it doesn't do it much. So the idea of going through different dimensions
really feels a lot more like it exists for a tech demo rather than to play around with
anything, you know, conceptual sense. But the alternate dimension heroes Rivet and
Kl... Kink? I was gonna say Rivet and Kink, the, hmmm,
but the other dimension, Rivet and Kit, the other protagonists, they're pretty cool. When you do get to see other dimension
al varients
of the main characters they don't often do something all that interesting with them,
but they're nice to see. As I said this game in terms of story and
characterisation is cute, rather than particularly compelling, and ultimately this is a fast,
chaotic, incredibly enjoyable game. I played it through from start to finish,
and enjoyed it pretty much consistently. I don't think there was any moment where I
was truly blown away by how amazing the game was, but I thought it was very ente
rtaining
throughout. And that level of sheer consistency can't
really be underrated. So there's your Ratchers and your Clunks anyway. Very enjoyable, worth picking up, Ratchet
and Clank. You know?
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