28. Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PS2 - Platformer)
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What a dope I was to let this one sit on the shelf collecting dust for nine months. The problem was that I got this on Christmas(or day before that) along with another PS2 platformer in Jak II. For whatever reason, previews had me more hyped up on Jak than Ratchet - i decided to play Ratchet first though, and man oh man did the first half hour or so of play frustrate me - i never felt like i understood what I was supposed to do, and once i died right before the end of the first section - i had had enough. First impressions are a harsh mistress, so the game didn’t get picked back up even after i had completely played through Jak.
My video game budget has been slim this year however. September rolled around, and I hadn’t bought a new game since May - i’d played through all the rest of my games once at a minimum - and many of them twice - i noticed good old Ratchet down there - and decided that it just couldn’t have been as annoying as it was on that initial playthough - i still didn’t really like the first bit, but i forced myself to get past it and keep playing. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before i stopped forcing myself to keep playing and started forcing myself to stop playing.
i had never been so engrossed by a platformer before. Storyline wasn’t that amazing in general but it killed most other platformers – areas were challenging but not so much so that you ever felt overmatched – and the weapon system was unmatched. Usually games that feature a wide variety of weapons see one or two of them get 90% of the action, but i found good use for at least half of my equipment in this game. You even got two distinct types of gameplay, one where you control Ratchet and the all-too-rare one where you control Clank, who somehow has control over all these other little robots each with individual jobs. It’s almost like a Lemmings spinoff - i just wish there were more than like three of the thoughout the game.
On a side note, if i ever update this list in the future, i’d put good money on the just-released sequel to this game being on there – i haven’t played it yet, but the thing currently has a whopping 98% at GameRankings.com spanning ten reviews at the moment - i m sure it’ll have to survive another 100 reviews or so to keep its spot on their list, but as of this moment, it is the second highest overally rated game of all time. Ratchet & Clank rule!