It's been a long time since Insomniac has come up for air. After the third installment in the Spyro series was released in 2000, the development house shipped the purple dragon down the river to Universal and set out to create another million-selling franchise. The result of more than two years of work behind the scenes is Ratchet & Clank, an action platformer that the studio hopes will be revered for its innovation in the same manner Super Mario 64 is still heralded today.

Like most platform games, there's some jumping to be done.

Ratchet is a yellow-skinned, pointy-eared alien mechanic who likes to build things. His planet has recently come under attack by a resource-seeking force known as the blarg. Hoping to avoid watching his planet be leached to death, Ratchet begins to plan his escape. Enter Clank, a dry-witted half-pint of a robot. After escaping the confines of a robot factory, Clank crash-lands on Ratchet's planet, and an unlikely friendship begins. The two have a symbiotic connection in that they both hope to get off the planet, and Clank has the ignition wire Ratchet needs to fire up his rocket for that very purpose. Soon the vessel is repaired, the pair blasts off, and the adventures of Ratchet and Clank begin.

It's hard to deny that Ratchet & Clank's design owes at least something to a certain bear-and-bird duo that made its home on the Nintendo 64. Walking through Insomniac's offices, you won't have to look hard to find Banjo-Kazooie cartridges strewn about. But while the game certainly takes some of its inspiration from Rare's series of platforming games, its focus on combat and action more than sets it apart from its contemporaries. The first thing that should be mentioned is that there is nothing to collect in Ratchet & Clank. The entire game is driven by currency in the form of nuts and bolts that fall from enemies as they're destroyed. The nuts and bolts can then be used to purchase the game's 35 different gadgets.

And in truth, it's the gadgets that really drive Ratchet & Clank's gameplay. The game's puzzles are set up around figuring out which gadget needs to be used in each situation. Gadgets can come in a number of forms, including weapons, vehicles, code-breaking handhelds, and much more. Some of the gadgets include a blaster, a flamethrower, a bomb glove, a hoverboard, and a hookshot that works like a hybrid of the hookshot in the Zelda games for the N64 and using purple lums in Rayman 2. Gadgets are purchased from NPCs and vendors scattered throughout the game's environments. As long as you have enough bolts, you can buy any gadget you choose. In this way, playing the game will be different for just about everyone. Some may choose to buy the flamethrower first, which can make picking off enemies from afar rather difficult and make some sections of the game more difficult than if you had purchased the blaster first.

Meet Ratchet and Clank.

There's no limit to the number of gadgets Ratchet and Clank can have at any given time, but just eight can be mapped to a quick select menu system for easy access. To do so, you simply hold the triangle button and tap left or right on the analog stick or directional pad. If you're really in a pinch, you can double-tap the triangle button to cycle through them. Using the selected gadget is accomplished with the circle button, and there's a different control scheme for each one. For instance, if you hold in the circle button while using the bomb glove, a moveable bombing target will appear on the ground. Just move the target to the desired location, release the circle button, and watch enemies go boom. When using gadgets in a third-person perspective, there is some aiming assistance as well. If you'd rather aim manually, you can hold the L1 button to go into a first-person view.

Like acquiring new gadgets, progressing through the game is also governed by the number of bolts you've collected from defeated enemies. Infobots are located throughout the game that, when purchased, open up new levels for play. Insomniac has also made sure that players won't become too frustrated. Even if you find yourself constantly dying, your bolt count will continue to rise so that you may purchase new weapons that will make the level much easier. Shortcuts will also open up after specific objectives have been met, which keeps the backtracking to a minimum. For the completists, there are cleverly hidden golden bolts that will provide you with a nice surprise at the end of the game if all of them are found. Pressing select will bring up a map of each world, complete with icons designating where objectives need to be met. This drastically cuts down on the aimless wandering that is sometimes associated with the genre.