Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty (PS3)

I remember saying in my review of Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction that I thought it was the best looking game on the PS3 so far. But QFB seems to be more polished and looks better if that’s possible!

The game follows straight on from where we left our hero, with Clank taken by the Zoni. To where, nobody knows. But in QFB, Ratchet is trying everything he can to find his faithful friend and sidekick.

This is more of a platform game but still keeps the essence of the previous game. When I reached the island there were certain parts of it that reminded me of the first Jak and Daxter, which was cool. On the island, you have to get the power flowing back to the village so that you can access other areas. Then it’s on to other little things to find clues as to Clanks whereabouts and search for the Fulcrum Star so that you can look through the Obsidian Eye to ultimately find Clank.

The guys at Insomniac have throw some new moves for Ratchet and made only a few of the guns available that you could use in the previous game. You can now use Ratchets wrench for picking up rocks of fire so you can get through gates by throwing the rocks at the gate to break it down. There’s also little luminous green things know as ‘Heliogrubs’ that you can pick up to light the way and to scare of bat like creatures, which you can’t hit with your wrench.

You can also use the wrenches tether feature to grab ledges, platforms and bridges to manipulate them so you can jump across gaps and create new paths.

As for the effects, well…words just can’t justify just how nice this game looks. The water looks amazing and more polished than the first and it seems to run smoother. I don’t know if that’s down to how much information is on the screen at once, the size of the game or what, but it is amazing to look at. Going under water is great just to see how they’ve done the ripple effect to make is seem more realistic (look out for Qwark too).

Little things like how the plants move when you run through them show good dynamics just like in ‘Tools of Destruction’. I love the little details like this as I feel they really add to the games overall feel.

The animation is as always top drawer stuff and a pleasure to see. There are only a couple of things that I didn’t like about the game, but there are tiny problems. The villagers on the island look like they’ve been rushed in the design process and look a bit bland. The lip sync animation doesn’t seem to be that great on them either, just an up and down movement for the mouth, which for a game of this calibre is a bit disappointing. But I am a bit of a geek for stuff like this, and this is when my animators head takes over and can be a little over critical.

The second being how short the game is. I completed it the same day that I bought it, so it took about 3 and a half hours to complete, which I wasn’t very impressed with as I wanted more. But saying that, this is a game that can only be bought from the Playstation Network and has a file size of just over 3GB, so from that aspect, it’s understandable.

After completing the game, a little message appears which says “The Quest Continues Fall 2009”. Whether this is to be another PSN game or a full retail game remains to be seen.

I think the main reason I was annoyed for this game being shorter than the last is because I was left wanting more and want to know how the story ends. But now I have to wait 12 months for the next!

Whether you’re a fan of the Ratchet and Clank series or not, this is definitely worth the £9.99 I paid for it!

4 out of 5

Ender