Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty (View comments)
Written by: Nikolas Mason
Downloadable games have a knack for being small and relatively simple. They tend to not match the scale of disc-based games. Most titles available on the Playstation Store are like this. Simple puzzle or shooter games. This isn’t the case, however, with Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest For Booty, the fully downloadable game from Insomniac.
The game is a direct sequel to the disc-based game released with the launch of the Playstation 3, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. While not near as long, Quest For Booty is by no means just a side game. The game takes place after the events of Tools of Destruction, following Ratchet on his search for Clank. His search takes him to a fleet of pirates, the fight against which is what most of this game is based around.
Graphics wise, Quest For Booty is beautiful. All of the environments are rendered in full high-definition and look just as good, if not better, than that of Tools of Destruction. The animation is really smooth, the loading times are relatively short, and the colors are very vivid, and the locations all have a unique tropical feel to them to match the pirate theme.
The story of the game isn’t too deep by any means, but it is quite enjoyable. The acting and comical script are superb, even making me laugh a few times. The game features a decent sized cast of intriguing characters whom you interact with through dialogue trees. These give you several options of what to say to the characters you talk to, but ultimately only one of the options is ever important while the rest tend to only add more details or just funny one-liners for entertainment.
The main enemies of the game are pirates, but not your ordinary pirates, but robot space ghost pirates. Yes, a very odd combination, but the game pulls it off quite well. Although the combat with these pirates is my biggest gripe with this game. At times you’ll face one enemy and have a lot of health near by that you can easily avoid needing, while at other times the game will throw a ton of enemies at you and give you very little health pick ups. There were many times where I’d die because of this overwhelming amount of enemies and have to go way back and start over. While it’s fun the first time, it can get quite tiresome, especially with how far the game will sometimes make you backtrack.
The controls are relatively simple to learn, just like most third person shooters. You have a decent sized arsenal, most of which are the basic weapons from the disc-based game. There is, however, no stores or upgrades that I saw, a major feature in the first game. This isn’t too surprising given that this game is basically just episodic content. Available for $14.99 on the Playstation Store, this game is worth a purchase if you were a fan of the series, but if you didn’t like Tools of Destruction, I wouldn’t recommend this game for you.
Sound: 4
Graphics: 5
Story: 3
Replayability: 1
Gameplay Mechanics: 3
