My first foray in to the Ratchet & Clank universe has left me hankering for more! What have I done . . . ?

User Rating: 10 | Ratchet & Clank 2: Locked and Loaded PS2
What a great idea for a game this series is! This is actually the first Ratchet & Clank game I've played and I must say that I was impressed. The story for this installment is that Ratchet (a talking, bi-pedal fox-looking type of creature) & Clank (his small robot companion) are fresh off of saving the universe. Life has become boring in the after wake of all the excitement until they are hired by Professor Fizzwidget of Megacorp to track down his missing biological experiment. The experiment, otherwise known as the Protopet, has been stolen by a mysterious thief and his hired goons from Thugs-4-Less. However, it turns out that there is more than meets the eye to said mysterious thief, and there is also more than meets the eye as to what's going on in the grand scheme of things with this Protopet business. To figure out the whole story you play through about 22 total missions. Most of the missions are land based, with Ratchet & Clank meandering across various planets, but there are also three space themed missions where you actually control Ratchet's ship and do battle with your enemies amongst the stars. Also, there is one mission that really isn't a mission. At a certain point in the game you will obtain co-ordinates to Slim Cognito's Ship Shack. His store makes up one of the mission slots but it's not really a playable mission, you just go there to purchase upgrades to your ship.

Now let's start from the main menu of this game, as per my usual. Once you press Start at the menu screen you have three options. The first option is "New Game". This is where you go the first time you start this sucker up. The second option is "Load Game". If you already have a game in progress, go here to load said game. The third option is . . . "Options"! Here you can adjust settings with things to do with widescreen, progressive scan, vibration settings, and subtitles.

Once you start up a new game, after some initial animatics you start out on your first mission. The controls are pretty easy to get used to. The left analog stick you use to move Ratchet (and the odd time Clank) around the environment. The right analog stick is used to pan the camera around, and you can do this both when you are standing still and when you are moving around. The X button is used to jump, and you can double jump by pressing X again while in the air. The square button is used to swing your battle axe. Press it while in mid jump to perform and aerial attack. The triangle button is used to bring up the "Quick Select" screen. This is where you change which weapon you want equipped at any given time. The circle button is used to fire said weapon. L1 is used to look around the environment, and R1 is used to crouch. There are different things you can do out of a crouch, usually in conjunction with the X button to jump higher or farther. As for L2 and R2, they are both used to make Ratchet strafe. By pressing Start you bring up the pause menu, and by pressing Select you bring up the map of the mission you are currently playing. Make sure to consult your map often, it is essential if you are to make your way through this game properly! As for space battles, the controls are pretty simple there as well. The X button fires your laser cannons, the square button engages the turbo function on your spacecraft, and the circle button fires your secondary weapon. L1 and R1 are used to perform a barrel roll, and L2 and R2 are used to level your ship off when you get all discombobulated.

Once you are in the game and playing the pause menu (accessed by pressing Start of course!) will tell you everything you need to know about what is going on with your game. When you bring up the pause menu here is what you get. First on the list is "Weapons". This option gives you a listing of all the weapons you have acquired in the game, and of those weapons which ones you have managed to upgrade and/or modify. I believe there are 24 total weapons in the game, all of which you'll see on this list. As for the upgrading I mentioned, these weapons upgrade themselves eventually. After pro-longed use any given weapon will upgrade itself to a more powerful version. Very handy in the later levels of the game! The second option on the pause menu is "Gadgets". The gadgets represented in this menu are divided in to three categories. The first is Hand Items, of which there are five. These gadgets Ratchet carries in his hand and usually help him navigate the level by accessing locked doors, etc. The second category is Back Packs, in which there are two gadgets. Ratchet carries Clank on his back throughout the game and Clank has two forms of aerial assistance he can provide. This menu is where you choose which form you want equipped. The third category is Foot Items, and there are three gadgets under this heading. Basically they are three different types of shoes that let Ratchet do various things like magnetize to metal surfaces, grind rails, etc. The next option on the pause menu is "Quick Select". If you remember, by holding the triangle button during gameplay you bring up the Quick Select menu. This is where you select which weapon you want Ratchet to use at any point during the game. By accessing the Quick Select option in the pause menu you can actually select which weapons you want included in that Quick Select menu. There are only 8 weapon slots I believe, so you have to choose your weapons wisely to suit your environment/situation. The next option under the pause menu is "Items". This is where you will find a listing of all the more random objects Ratchet will uncover throughout his travels. Gadgets like the Mapper, your armour upgrades, all the stuff like that can be found here. You will also see a list of 4 collectible objects under this option. Platinum Bolts, Moonstones, Crystals, and Raritanium are the objects in question. Platinum Bolts can be found in every mission of the game and although there are quite a few of them that are fairly easy to find, for the majority of them there is a bit of a trick to finding them. Each mission contains usually between 1-3 of these bolts. The Platinum Bolts are used to purchase modifications for your weapons. As for Moonstones, they can only be found on one level of the game, in an ice field, and can be bartered for regular bolts (more on them later), gadgets, and services. Crystals are similar to Moonstones in that they are only found on one world, in the desert, and can be bartered for the same things. As for Raritanium, it is usually obtained during space battles when you destroy enemy ships and asteroids, but it can also be mined in both the ice field and desert missions I just mentioned. Raritanium is used to purchase ship upgrades at Slim Cognito's Ship Shack. The next option in the pause menu is the "Help" option. Here you can read through the Monsterpedia (gives you info on your enemies), view the Help Log, view the game controls, view Ratchet's moves with his battle axe, and also view all the info available on your weapons, gadgets and ship. The next option is, once again, "Options"! Here you can toggle on/off the help desk messages, save and load your game, tailor the game controls, adjust sound, camera, and subtitle settings, or quit your current game. The last option under the pause menu is "Special". Here you can enter any cheat codes you may have come across, view which skill points you have obtained, and watch any movies you have unlocked.

During the game there are certain things to watch out for. First, destroy everything that is destroyable. When you destroy things, enemies and inanimate objects both, those things will give you bolts. Regular bolts, not to be confused with Platinum Bolts, are what you use to purchase the various weapons and gadgets you come across throughout this game. You can never have too many bolts so make sure to be greedy! Also keep an eye out for Skill Points, although that is a hard thing to do. You gain skill points by performing odd little tasks from time to time, such as destroy the hidden snowman in this level, or destroy a certain amount of these enemies in a certain part of this level, etc.. Unless you look for cheats on skill points you really have no idea how to earn them, and anyways it's not a big deal. Skill points are not an important part of the game, more of a bonus. As you earn skill points you unlock silly little cheats, like alternate costumes for Ratchet, giving your enemies oversized heads, etc. Moving on, located throughout all land-based missions will be weapons vending stations. There are usually at least a couple of these on each world and they are important because as you earn bolts you will want to visit these as often as possible and purchase all the weapons you can afford. The same goes for armour vending stations, but they are a lot less prevalent. I believe there are only three worlds (approximately) where armour vendors appear. A couple of very important things to revisit in this game as much as you can are the Battle Arena challenges and the Hoverbike Races. There are two different Battle Arenas and two different Hoverbike racing circuits spread amongst a few different worlds in this game. In the Battle Arena challenges you are able to compete in challenges against hordes of enemies that get more and more difficult the further along you get. However, the further along you get the bigger the prize gets! You always get paid in bolts when you win one of these challenges, and some of them even give you weapons and gadgets as prizes on top, so make sure to participate. The exact same goes for the Hoverbike races. The further along you get the harder the races become, but they are well worth the effort in terms of your bottom line with the bolts. Another thing to look for is that on a couple of worlds you will gain access to a secret ModShop for your weapons. This is where you spend your Platinum Bolts as I mentioned earlier. Each weapon (including your axe!) has modifications you can add to it that will make it deadlier and these shops are where you do that. Lastly, in a couple of missions you get to take control of Clank. He operates much in the same way Ratchet does, although he's not nearly as powerful. By pressing triangle, instead of bringing up the weapons quick select screen, you bring up a robot quick select screen. As you progress with Clank you will unlock various types of other robots that help him make headway, like a bridge bot, a hammer bot, etc. Bringing up this quick select menu is how you choose one of these alternate robots for use. On a couple of worlds you will also be warped up to the planet's orbiting moon where Clank will turn in to a giant version of himself and you get to do battle with some similarly giant fiend.

And that's about all I can give you! There is so much going on in this game that I can't even begin to fully explain it! All I know is that the fun factor on it was through the roof! And to boot it had almost perfect gameplay controls, and the graphics aren't bad either. The length of the game is phenomenal. It's not going to take you a year or anything, but it's a good couple months of solid play if you want to beat it properly. As for tips and tricks, I offer you just two nuggets of advice. First, explore every nook and cranny of each and every level. There is so much stuff to find and purchase in this game it's mind boggling. Make sure you get as much of it as you can, because you'll need it. Also, when using your weapons, once a certain weapon has been upgraded, switch to one that hasn't and try to get it upgraded as fast as possible as well. You will want to upgrade as many of your weapons as possible as the upgrades really do pack an additional punch most times. As for negative comments on this game . . . I don't have any! Enjoy this game at your own risk . . .