#25 Secret Agent Clank

Why do I always seem to be 5 out? Anyway this our 205th review

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Those of you who have followed me since my first review know that I love Ratchet and Clank, I love their colourful environments, inventive weaponry, creative storytelling and the overall fun you get out of playing them.

But like with every good franchise, there’s a black sheep in the family and that comes in the form of a title called Secret Agent Clank.

So, what’s history behind this infamous title? Sony, the owner of the rights to Ratchet and Clank wanted a Ratchet title for their fledgling console, the PSVita, however Insomniac Games, the usual Ratchet and Clank developers were busy working on the Ratchet and Resistance titles for the PS3. So the job was given to a company called High Impact Games. The company was made up of former employees of Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog so it would seem like the ideal company to make such a game, and they did with Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters. It was a fun game in single player and also had a decent multiplayer mode but they had a second Ratchet and Clank title in the works.

Secret Agent Clank was released in 2008 to a decent, if slightly more mixed  reaction. So why do I hate it? Let’s take a closer look.

We open with Clank breaking into the Boltaire museum and... wait a minute, wait a minute. I should explain something. Secret Agent Clank is the name of a holo-film series from Ratchet and Clank 3. In his own words

“Secret Agent Clank is merely a fictional character that I play on the holo-vid” now you’re expecting me to believe he’s a secret agent for realsies, or are they just filming another episode of the show, given context, it doesn’t seem like it. Well, that certainly hits continuity with a jack-hammer.

Anyway, Clank is hovering on a wire to protect the gem known known as the ‘Eye of Infinity’ however he discovers that it’s already gone and he sees a cloaked figure trip the alarm, he uses a magnifying lens to confirm that it’s Ratchet. He’s immediately caught by the guards. Clank abandons his mission and reports in, they patch to him a news feed (already, that was quick) saying that Ratchet has been arrested, spouting out a bunch of clichés as he’s driven off (“there hasn’t been a prison built that can hold me?” Really?)

Despite this quite overwhelming evidence Clank is sceptical that Ratchet is in any way responsible but doesn’t notice the very obvious circuitry he’s got on his head that he would not normally have. Clank, you’re an idiot. Anyway, he decides to break into the vault and search it for clues but rather than use the hole he’d already cut for just such a purpose, he decides to go on foot. Yeah…

Puppies!

So Clank passes through the most useless guards ever as they: Can’t see Clank unless he’s in their spotlight even if he’s right in front of them, are not alerted by another guard being taken out right next to them and manage to pass right by Clank because he has some leaves in front of his face. On the way, the agency drops off a few gadgets from him (which again makes me wonder why they didn’t just drop him into the museum in the first place) these include: the tie-a-rang (a razor ship line cutting tool/weapon), the blackout pen (to take out cameras and lasers) and the jet boots. These are all actually quite useful tools in the game.

After a button-prompt section where you pass by the remaining security Clank reaches the area from which the eye was stolen. He finds there a broken fortune cookie (because of course someone left that there) which leads Clank to Asyanica. A planet with a thriving black market.

Meanwhile Ratchet wakes up in Prison, completely oblivious as to what’s going on. He meets the Warden, who warns Ratchet that a lot of the prisoners were imprisoned here by him (you know, Ratchet normally kills his enemies) and that he has been given money so that he does not provide Ratchet with any protection (I’ll come back to this)

Ratchet gets equipped thanks to Clank sending him weapons in cakes (which clearly went through no screening whatsoever) Ratchet is thrown into the galaxy’s largest elevator (god knows what kind of creatures come down this) and faces 9 waves of one-eyed tyhrranoids (from Ratchet and Clank 3), thugs4less thugs (from Ratchet and Clank 2) and those shard emitting porcupine things (from Ratchet: Gladiator) in theory this is a good idea, but then the old bite of continuity crops up, which I’ll explain in more detail later.

After getting out the museum somehow, Clank flies to Asyanica, a lawless planet run by sinister Number Woo and his army of Robot ninjas. Clank’s task is to interrogate Woo, but he’s quickly captured upon arrival. With a laser about to destroy him Clank calls in 3 gadgebots for assistance. They manage to free Clank after fighting off a few not-ninjas. Leaving clank to fight off the real things following Number Woo’s conspicuously left footprints

I know Kung Fu now, which I've never used before and never will again

On his way, passing through many of the worst ninjas ever he gets 2 deliveries from the agency, the first is an omni-key, a lock picking device with a boring hacking puzzle, it’s par-course in a ratchet game. And the cufflink bomb, which is pretty much exactly what it says it is. Clank confronts Number Woo and pins him to the wall. He reveals he gave the eye to Countess Ivanna Lottabolts (har har) on the planet Glaciara. With that information in hand, Clank leaves, Number Woo tries to use his laser but thanks to some sabotage he instead blows up the entire city. (Our hero folks)

In a subplot that’s really sprung out of nowhere, Captain Qwark lands on Asyanica. He’s accompanied by a journalist who is writing his biography. (Leaving out all those minor details like how he teamed up with Chairman Drek and nearly unleashed a proto-pet apocalypse) anyway, he says that the site was the location of a massive battle between him, artificially grown thanks to bullsh*t and a 50ft tall robo-dragon because… I think there’s supposed to be some Japanese influence.

So we get a gameplay segment of how Qwark said things went down, apparently the fight with the robo-dragon destroyed most of the city, not exactly a great PR bit to put inside his biography, is it? Clank flies to Glaciara and meets the countess. They flirt and she invites him to partake in a dance of death. And unlike the one mentioned in Batman Incorporated it means that quite literally as the dance is loaded with death-traps.

After nearly killing the Countess after exposing her to every single one of her own death traps, she reveals that her associate took it to the Kingpin

No not that Kingpin, on the planet of Rionosis. With this information in hand Clank begins to reject her advances and she calls her guards on him, he escapes by diving out of the window and using his jet-board (because he has one of those now) Clank returns to his ship where he gets an alert that Ratchet might be in serious trouble, he sees footage from an inside agent of Ratchet being introduced to one of the larger thugs. Ratchet shot down his helicopter (how he isn’t dead, no idea) (I hope this isn’t the thug leader as well, since Ratchet shot him down twice after the helicopter incident.)

Guess these robots are just as stupid as the museum guards

This brings me nicely onto a continuity problem with some of these prisoners. The thugs that Ratchet would’ve put in jail were from the Bogon galaxy, and please don’t tell me it’s likely that criminals from another galaxy would be sent here. Also, those porcupine DreadZone beasts, when they were doing DreadZone they were in the Shadow Sector a ‘lawless region of space’ why are they in prison? And now in this level we’ve got mega-corp security bots, no, just no on that one.

So Ratchet fends off another ambush in the mess hall of the prison which has chicken legs the size of baseball bats, go figure. Meanwhile Clank heads to Rionosis and gets a briefing on the Kingpin. He’s a crime lord that rose to power really quickly with dozens of robots under his control and the protection of a bot called the Jack of all trades.

Clank takes out his robot guard but the Jack of all Trades stops him from making a direct attack on the Kingpin, however, because he’s clumsy or something Jack leaves behind a flower, a Tanglevine carnation weapon that summons giant fly traps to eat enemies. The Kingpin gets away with Clank lead onto a gondola for an ambush.

Clank defeats the ambush and heads into a secret base in the mountains, rather too easily if you ask me he defeats the Jack of all trades but the Kingpin gets away. Clank finds a playing card in Jack’s pocket that’s the property of Le Paradis Des Tricheurs Casino. He takes this to mean that that’s where the eye is being taken. (I’m not sure about that one but…)

Time for more uninteresting side-stories with Qwark. He lands at the base and sees the unconscious Jack, telling the biographer that he was the one who took him down. He explains his situation and the gameplay changes depending on what he says, which is quite clever, here we also get the first hint that the biographer might well be evil.

I have a razor disk for a hat because it works at parties

Clank arrives at the Casino and is tasked with following a man carrying a crate that may contain the eye. To do this he receives the holo-monocle, a holographic disguise kit that… Good lord, how does anyone fall for that? Anyway, after passing through a bunch of stealth sections the case goes through a door that needs a password, to retrieve this he contacts Ratchet through Slim, Slim has the code but will give it to Ratchet only if he can protect him from some of the other inmates.

They’re in the gym this time, complete with turrets that shoot at you (for some reason) and killer dodge-balls, again, for some reason. He enters the high stakes room in a cowboy disguise and plays the game, putting up the deeds to a ‘ranching planet’ (which he has?) against the contents of the crate. The game is a card game with trivia quiz segments, death traps are activated if you lose the round. At about the half-way point some of the traps are being set off without warning. Gadgebots are lowered in to investigate

They find out that some of the minion-bots are sabotaging the game and helping the others to cheat, they manage to defeat them and eventually Clank wins, however it turns out the crate was empty. The gem is being taken to Venantonio to be reunited with its “rightful owner”

Clank arrives on Venantonio, discovering your usual amoeboids and ones that are red and explosive because someone altered their chemical composition (go figure) Clank encounters a scientist who’s being threatened by the Kingpin to create a laser, he’s not pleased that the project is running behind schedule. Clank rescues him but the Kingpin knew he would come, knowing that Clank would expect a chase, he sends some goons after them.

I love my auto-targeting razor disks

Clank commandeers a boat that was there for some reason (I don’t know the details, I just know he’s in a boat in the next scene) and is chased by a few of the Kingpin’s robots, he survives, naturally. The scientist explains (after mentioning that this is his 3^rd kidnapping, I’d lay low for a while, kay?) that the Kingpin wanted him to create a laser to break into the bolt foundry. Which makes no sense since he has the fricking Eye of Infinity, he could sell that on the black market! And then he leaves using a teleporter which he didn’t use earlier because… I have no idea

Time for easily the best Qwark segment in the game. Qwark arrives on Vanantonio telling his biographer (they call him Barney, but his character’s so uninteresting I don’t actually care) about how he was hired by a town to defend it against various threats, and he does so through a theatre performance with very, very questionable logistics. But I don’t care, it’s hilarious and to be honest, this story really lacks in the humour department.

Clank arrives at Fort Sproket, the bolt foundry, it seems as though the guards have been replaced with the Kingpin’s men, somehow and that the head of the job is the guy that was with the scientist in the last level. Wait, if he was able to replace the guards with his own men, why does he need a laser, anyway? Anyway, the henchman locks Clank in one of the vaults where Clank sees footage of himself robbing the foundry. He calls in his gadgebots for a rescue

I'm running away!!!!!!

They manage to override the facility’s awakening artificial intelligence (A-eye and if you’re wondering, yes he makes eye puns really on the same level as Mr Freeze from Batman and Robin) Clank reports his findings and he’s told that the kingpin has been tracked to a spaceship graveyard (because… reasons I guess?)

Now, with no lead in whatsoever we cut to Ratchet in the prison showers. And we get our obligatory Plumber cameo. He’s here to fix the showers which are out of cold water. Ratchet helps the plumber fix the problem, annoying the other inmates and leading to yet another arena battle.

Clank arrives at the spaceship graveyard and is told that a decommissioned satellite has been relocated to a launch pad by the kingpin. With near unlimited funds and a giant laser, there’s no telling what he’s up to. Clank makes his way through this really weird place and comes to an area where he sees what he thinks is himself in the mirror, except for that minor detail of a completely noticeable beard. Why do robots even have beards.

It’s then we get our revelation, the Kingpin is a robot suit, inside in Klunk. Time for some backstory, Klunk is a villain from Ratchet and Clank 3, he was created by Doctor Nefarious, the main villain of the story, as a Clank duplicate to replace Clank by Ratchet’s side and give him inside intel, as well as leading Ratchet and Qwark into a trap. He was defeated almost immediately after this revelation.

I do understand why they chose Klunk as a villain. But Klunk lacks one thing that pretty much defines every other villain in the franchise, humour. Hear me out: With Drek it was the way he surrounded himself with bumbling idiots and a bit of sarcasm thrown in, with Qwark it was simply that he was a bumbling idiot. With Doctor Nefarious you got the musings of his sidekick, Lawrence plus his lance and Janet seizures, with Vox it was his hunger for media money leading to several humorous conversations about ratings with people. With Tachyon is was his Napoleon complex, with the robot space pirates it was the usual pirate quirks, with Zurgo it was his fanboyisms, even with Neftin (not so much with Vendra) they used his considerable bulk as a source of humour. 

Luna from Size Matters also had her funny quirks as for the villain of All4One, they got away with it because the villain isn’t revealed until the very last boss. Klunk has no quirks to make him funny and even if he did they’d be copies of Clank’s. This would be fine if they played up the duality a bit but they just don’t.

So yeah, Klunk flies away in Clank’s ship and Qwark lands for a new segment, this is the only point in which his gameplay really intersects with the main story. He tells a tall tale about how he saved a bunch of space nuns from space pirates and their giant Kudzu. As they leave he tears off a plant with his ship that was guarding a growth pad for Clank. Clank uses this to grow to giant size and head off into space in pursuit.

Clank follows his ship’s signal (how did Klunk get there if he didn’t have a ship before anyway?) and reports his findings to the agency. The agency reveals that Klunk had been working at a factory creating high tech toilet seats (taking a dump will be so much easier with this new toilet seat) (also, criminal records checks apparently don’t exist) anyway, he quit after the events of Size Matters. They’re interrupted by a transmission from Ratchet (who managed to send one out in the prison because…) he says he will destroy every planet in the galaxy if he isn’t given his own planet to rule.

Like my new headwear, electronics are so in season

May I mention that the obvious headwear he’s wearing is still obvious! Clank is still sceptic and sets out to find Klunk. The warden interrupts Ratchet saying his speech has riled up the inmates and he’d better help stop the prison break (and isn’t even slightly concerned he might try and escape himself) the warden lets him call Clank in a call that serves no purpose. Clank spots Klunk’s henchman and transforms his ship into a hover glider (for some reason) to pursue. Couldn’t you just fly after him?

He interrogates the henchman who reveals that Klunk has an underwater headquarters on this planet and he will need a submarine to access it, fortunately Clank’s ship is also a submarine (I also think it might be the boat from the sewer chase level as well so…)

Qwark also arrives on the planet (You know it’s been a while since we’ve played traditional clank now) he claims that the ‘fish men’ of the planet had tasked him from protecting their dam from giant cacti, in what is one of the most frustrating levels in Ratchet and Clank history. After telling his tale he dives into the water heading for the underwater base.

Clank arrives and finds an impenetrable door barring his way, the agency give him a case file of the base (which they clearly pulled from their own rectums because how else would they know) and teleport in some gadgebots to unlock the door. They succeed and finally you can play as Clank again. He makes it through the base to an area you do not see if you actually complete the level. Klunk is now wearing a gold suit for some reason. And then we hear this line of dialogue

“Have you learned nothing at all?”
“I have learned that there is a difference between right and wrong”

Someone should’ve edited out that line, it’s as painful to listen to as that one from PlayStation move heroes. So we get the shocking revelation that it’s tech planted by Klunk that’s causing Ratchet to behave a criminal. I would never have guessed except at the beginning at the game when I guessed that and thought it was stupid how nobody else noticed.

So, Klunk wants to prove the robots’ superiority over organics by framing Ratchet and saving the universe from the laser disguised as clank and therefore become a hero and have everyone bow to him. I remember someone trying a similar scheme once, it was Captain Qwark in Ratchet and Clank 2. And when your scheme is a rip-off from Captain Qwark, you’ve gone wrong somewhere. What do you think Batman?

  

Yeah. Exactly. He has the mandatory bit where he explains his plan. So it’s time for the final battle Clank vs Klunk. The majority of the game has championed stealth, they’ve only given you 7 weapons, 3 of which are strictly short range and not particularly useful in combat. So you have the tie-a-rangs, cufflink bombs, the thunderstorm umbrella and the tanglevine carnation. This battle is a mixture of button timing, and dozens of mini-bosses (and believe me, I mean dozens of the bloody things) your ammo will drain quickly and you’ll be reliant on your PDA to gain some ammo. But the ammo costs a considerable amount of bolts

I hear in the PS2 port they fixed this issue by increasing the amount of bolts you earn playing the game. About a third of the way through the boss, Klunk activates the laser which will destroy the planets if he doesn’t disarm it. That’ll way he’ll be victorious win or lose. There are 3 mini-bosses in this battle. The first is the Kingpin suit with flame and tornado abilities (why did need Jack of all trades again?) another is Doctor Nefarious (I don’t have anything to say about that one) and the final one is a robot Ratchet complete with acid bomb firing agents of dread and a particularly powerful sniper mine.

Clank defeats Klunk and types in a password relatively unfitting to Klunk’s character (he doesn’t seem to have a hatred of Clank, that might’ve actually been interesting, he just sees Clank as a naïve pawn) anyway, Qwark suddenly arrives and removes the eye from the satellite before the laser can activate. So Galaxy saved.

So, to wrap things up we have our agency lady giving a report. The agency recommend that Ratchet receive a full pardon for his part (and hopefully public broadcast of the fact that has was under mind control so people don’t hate him for it) Qwark had been given a large sum to write his autobiography, so Qwark planted a tracer on Clank’s ship so he could steal Clank’s glory. All part of Klunk’s plan to keep tabs on Clank (that didn’t work out that well, seeing as Clank had already left on most occasions after Qwark arrived) Qwark was angry upon hearing this (I’ve got a massive cheque and now I don’t even have to do anything for it, I’m so angry) but his biographer was bigger than he seemed. Thankfully Clank destroyed him with a single bow-tie

We cut to the duo’s Megapolis condo, in the BOGON GALAXY, the president has released Klunk into their custody, and Ratchet has modified him into a vacuum cleaner.

OK, so that’s the game’s story, is it any good, well, it’s not bad, it’s got a few dialogue issues but it’s not a bad story. But the fact that it’s so blatantly disrespectful of its continuity is the problem. In the ads for the game the creators said that Clank would have to dawn his secret agent persona. Except he doesn’t dawn that persona, in fact he already is a secret agent in the opening scenes. That leaves me with a ton of questions, starting with what the f*ck were they thinking? Keeping continuity in a comic series is difficult. You have years of history and multiple titles with the same hero going on at once. I can understand a few continuity errors getting past an editor, but with a game, does not have quite the pedigree of comics and the only games going on at this point take place after this one, there’s no excuse.

The story of Ratchet and Clank 3 should’ve been thoroughly examined for this. Secret Agent Clank, Doctor Nefarious and Klunk all originate from it. I’ve already given my thoughts on Klunk as a villain but I’ll briefly mention the Captain Qwark Segments. I think these feel a little too disconnected from the main story. It’s only in the last 2 segments we get any connection at all and that really isn’t good enough.  Humour is rather sparser than in other games too, which is rather unfortunate since humour is a staple of the franchise.

I also have to wonder about the convoluted route the eye took to get to Klunk, it was stolen by someone who gave it to number woo, who gave it to the Countess, who gave it to Kingpin, who gave it to his assistant to take it to a casino (for some reason) for it to be taken from the casino back to the Kingpin... That's complicated 

But the story doesn’t make the game, so how about the gameplay? Well all jokes aside I think stealth additions to the gameplay are actually pretty good and I like how many of Clank’s weapons double up as gadgets but the weapon variety is extremely limited and that really costs a lot when it comes to very physical final boss.

The other issue is how many different varieties they try and cram in. We have Clank’s spy/combat gameplay, Ratchet’s arena matches, the gadgebots gadget puzzles, Qwark’s imagined misadventures, Giant Clank in space, button pressing challenges and vehicle pursuits. Having variety in gameplay is crucial but they need to be better integrated than this. Some of the transitions between segments are exceptionally clunky (pun not intended).

He's behind you!

Most of the segments are fun on their own part. Ratchet’s arenas allows you to access some more classic weaponry (most of which is from past games) and the combat is usually OK, however it’s the only thing you do as Ratchet and defeating wave after wave of enemies, even with side-challenge variety does get dull. The gadge-bot challenges are fun intellectual trials, replacing what would normally be clank segment but god sometimes they drag on. Particularly the one in the bolt foundry.

Qwark’s missions are fun initially and the theatre one provides a lot of laughs, however the lack of weapon variety when the majority of the missions are gun-fights forces your hand on tactics, limiting most of the appeal of a ratchet game. The final mission is long and frustrating. The vehicle segments I never really understood the appeal of, it’s the same technique repeated over and over again. The button pressing segments are a real challenge given how fast they come, they’re incorporated sparsely but often drag on too long and it starts to become boring.

In addition to the main play and side missions you have the traditional Ratchet and Clank extras, titanium bolts scattered throughout levels (or awarded as prizes) which can be used to unlock skins, skill points for completing various particularly difficult tasks which unlock cheats which aren’t really cheats since they don’t affect the gameplay. There are also alien codes which you can during challenge mode when they provide the gadget to do so, scanning all of them results in you getting access to the Treehouse. It’s a fun little extra with a few mini-games, a few signs of deleted extras and concept art. There’s also a bonus area you can unlock by collecting 3 keys hidden in the game for a bonus gadget.  These are all fun (if sometimes frustrating) little extras that are mostly par-course for a Ratchet title.

With Secret Agent Clank I see a lot of wasted potential. I game in-continuity where the side-kick is the prominent star has worked, Daxter is a good example of this, but this game does not work because it fails to be faithful in its own continuity and tries to provide us with variety for the sake of it rather than ensuring each segment is enjoyable and woven into the narrative.

I’m also told the PS2 port has some serious graphical and frame-rate issues. Speaking of which, for the most part the design and music of the game are fantastic (and by fantastic I mean, generic stock music that fits with the spy theme - edit 2019)

This game gives me rage issues!

But don’t get me wrong, this is definitely one of the better products I’ve reviewed. It’s not as bad as the majority of things I review for this segment. But it’s yet another example of a game that could’ve and should’ve been better and has been blasted down by poor choices. (This time you can’t blame the money for this)

High Impact Games’ record on the PSP isn’t great, they have Size Matters, their best game, they have this and they have Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, a game that was reasonably well received by critics but less so by fans. (I may get around to it at one point)

Rage Rating 25%

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Images/clips used in this review are from Secret Agent Clank, Marvel's Daredevil and Justice League Unlimited and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use