The latest and (almost) greatest in the R&C series.
For those who have never played the the first Ratchet and Clank Future games, the game starts out with Quark giving a recap of the events leading up to the game's beginning. Ratchet and Clank 3 villian Dr. Nefarious has returned and has kidnapped Clank in order to open up the Orvus Chamber, the control room of the Great Clock, a station created to keep the flow of time going. Luckily though, Clank escapes his grasp and finds out what his true purpose is.
Meanwhile, Ratchet, with the help of the ever hilarious Captain Quark, searches the galaxy for his metalic buddy. Along the way, he meets with Alister Azimuth, a fellow lombax who was a friend of his Ratchet's father. Together, the two lombaxes find out where the location of the Great Clock is in order to rescue Clank.
The gameply itself is the same tried and true gameplay the Ratchet and Clank series is known for. With all of today's shooter games requiring "tactics", "cover-based systems", and such, it's refreshing getting back to the basics of simply blowing things up with a massive aresenal of weapons. This is not to say the game is easy of course, it's quite easy to die if your not proficient at dodging and using cover. Luckily though, for the younger/casual audience the game has a difficulty setting you can set at any time during the game.
The Clank gameplay though has been reinvented for this game. This time, Clank has to use the power of time to make his way through puzzles. For example, he records himself getting onto a switch that opens a door, the recording than automatically mirrors the player's movements step by step. You then do a different recording to go through the now opened door the recorded version had just opened. It sounds confusing at first, and many players will be stumped the first few times. However, you eventually get used to it and it is quite entertaining and inovative.
The game's story does a good job at wrapping up loose ends from the previous game, and if you played the series long enough as I did, you will find yourself quite determined to helping Ratchet and Clank reunite, and will not rest untill you do so. That's not to say the game has lost it's the sense of humor the series is famous for, far from it. The cast of characters is quite colorful. I can tell you, there are few moments involving characters like Nefarious and Quark that I didn't laugh at.
As for the problems with the game, the main story is rather short, and it is starting to show it's age. Also, I kinda wished some characters from previous Ratchet and Clank games would make thier return, such as Big Al or Scrunch the alien monkey.
Overall, this game was definetly worth the two year long wait after Tools of Destruction. And if this really is the game's final entry, it certainly ended on a high note. UPDATE: This is NOT the final game in the series. So ignore what I just said.