@chris120379: What if Zelda forces you to use the gamepad to aim Link's ranged weapons? :-P

@amaneuvering: My scenario was partly anecdotal. I've BEEN the naive software-engineering contract-worker who was desperate enough to take modest, once-off pay in exchange for a product that's now earning handsome royalties for somebody else, year after year. And, yeah, your Mafia analogy is very fitting. In my case, the "somebody else" is an obscenely wealthy, sweet-talking crook whom I'd readily equate with a Mafia boss!

I'm glad you were able to get something out of Rockstar through the courts. Thanks for your contributions to the games! :-)

What about the people who did the REAL work? What about the people who did the work without which the games wouldn't exist? I'll bet that many of them were contractors who received only modest pay before being let go without even stock options, let alone lucrative royalty deals. The rich love to give only once-off payments to the people who create the product, and then keep for themselves all the revenue that the product generates.

I hope they've fixed the save / checkpoint system from the original game.

Ratchet and Clank for the PS2 was one of the best console action games of the PS2's generation. The platforming, melee combat, spanner toss, strafing / dodging and shooting were all top notch.

The only flaw, IMHO, was the way checkpoints worked: If you "died" during a level, you'd resume from the last checkpoint in the level. But you'd resume with full health and ammo, regardless of how much health and ammo you actually had when you reached the checkpoint. Also, all the health and ammo pick-ups in the level would "respawn" along with you. So resuming play from a checkpoint always felt like cheating! On the other hand, restarting the level from the beginning could feel terribly punishing, especially if you "died" towards the end of a large level.

"Please use a flash video capable browser to watch videos."

That's unfortunate. I've just disabled my Flash plugin, in view of the latest zero-day exploit that renders Flash-blighted Windows machines vulnerable to hard-disk-encrypting ransomware. And I have no intention of enabling Flash any time soon.

I'm not really fond of the orthographic projection style. (I felt that my enjoyment of Bastion was occasionally diminished by missing or ambiguous depth cues.) However, the positive reception that this game has received may tempt me to give it a go.

@PhilipO45: Thank you for writing up that very useful comparative review. It's much appreciated!

One attribute that wasn't addressed in the review is robustness: If a Vive user trips over the cords and falls flat on his face, will his $800 headset still function? Or will he need to spend another $800 on a replacement (along with several thousand dollars on surgery to remove glass splinters from his eyes)?

@toast_burnerand @mrbojangles25 : It looks as though he's made the leap from game critic to game designer, just as Greg Kasavin did.

@ketsuhige: OK. It sounds as though you're on top of it. A good vacation (with no 'phone or Internet-connected device anywhere in sight) is probably all you need! :-)