Ratchetrospective: Ratchet and Clank (Future): A Crack in Time

It’s here, the final chapter (kinda) in the Future Trilogy, a full-length game and the last full priced game using classic Ratchet and Clank combat. What thrills lie in store? Well here’s how it is

We open at Clank’s location, Clank is suspended in a pneumonic station with Nefarious trying to access his memories, the Zoni want Clank to remember... something but Nefarious wants access to the ‘Orvus Chamber’ the Zoni say that’s for Clank only but Nefarious came prepared, with a hypersonic brainwave scrambler, the equipment is sensitive to sonic weaponry so the power drops, freeing Clank.

With the help a meddlesome caretaker, Clank manages to stay free of the guards but eventually he reaches a dead end and is confronted by Nefarious. Nefarious explains that they are at the Great Clock, a marvel of science and sorcery, engineered by the brightest Zoni in all of existence and constructed in the exact centre of the universe, give or take 50-feet. He knocks Clank out but decides there’s a better way to access the chamber than trying to hack his memories.

Ratchet and Quark enter the Breegus system, according to Talwyn it’s crawling with mercenaries (so glad she didn’t tag along, we’ve got Qwark instead) Aphelion alerts them to an unknown anomaly approaching, they lose power as it passes over them and they crash down onto the planet Quantos, they’re stopped from making a fatal impact by a similar thing, but their ship is fatally damaged, and yet they're perfectly able to move, weird.

They decide to explore and come across an inhabitant of the Fongoid race. Her children are under attack by mutated viruses known as Zyphoids and Ratchet and Qwark (I guess) head out to save them. They head back into the village where the chief warns that Lord Vorsilon’s warship is approaching. He saw their ship crash and say if they collect enough Zoni, they may be able to repair it. Ratchet enters the Temple of Zahn and collects a casket for lost Zoni, collecting a couple of Zoni as well. As they leave the temple, Nefarious’ forces begin attacking. Their leader, Flint Vorsilon (you may remember being a resident of Zordoom Prison) mistakes Ratchet for a rebel named Azimuth

Qwark and several other villagers are kidnapped but Ratchet has collected enough Zoni to fix the ship, he heads to Vorsilon’s ship. Ratchet is curious about Azimuth, as an enemy of Nefarious he might be an ally. He rescues the prisoners and sends them away, before fighting Vorsilon, Vorsilon’s suit is destroyed but his head remains in tact. Quark finds out from the Fongoids that Azimuth lives on the Planet Torren IV

Back at the Great Clock, the meddlesome caretaker is performing some upgrades on Clank. Clank awakens and recognises him as an ally. He reveals his name to be Sigmund. They proceed through the clock to another pneumonic station, Clank enters the station and meets his father, Orvus, or at least a digital simulation of him, who shows him how to use a weapon called the Chronoscepter. Clank uses this to best the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler.

Unbeknownst to them, Lawrence is watching their every move and reports their progress to Nefarious, he also alerts him to Ratchet and Qwark’s doings. Nefarious is practising a movie script of something. Ratchet heads to Torren IV, a former Fongoid city now used by the Vullards to process trash. Qwark says that according to the Fongoids, Azimuth lives in the ruins of Vulgrum Pass. On his way, Qwark tells Ratchet about a race of warriors called Agorians who hate Nefarious (which would be proven if we ever saw them on a planet together) Ratchet advises Qwark against paying them a visit but the Fongoids are insisting he leaves as soon as possible.

Ratchet needs to pass through a factory to proceed but thanks to revolution from the Battery Bots all their systems are offline, Ratchet helps restore power to the factory and proceeds to find Azimuth in Vulgrum Pass. Initially Azimuth attacks, suspecting him to be an assassin sent by Nefarious or Vorsilon but upon a closer inspection he realises that he’s the son of Kaden, a great friend of his. He gives some exposition to Ratchet regarding the Great Clock and says if they’re going to stop Nefarious they need to learn to out-manoeuvre him (erm, who defeated him the first time again?) to that end, he gives Ratchet his father’s hoverboots.

After testing them out Azimuth tells Ratchet to meet him in Axiom City on the Planet Terachnos. A company called Pollyx Industries has a database for the universe’s Obsidion Eyes, the one of Merdegraw was dismantled for some reason. They land but with Pollyx industries working for Nefarious, Azimuth was spotted immediately and Nefarious’ troops are mobilised

They fight their way to meet up with each other. Azimuth has a contact inside Pollyx industries. Jarvis, a Terachnoid he saved from the Agorians once. Jarvis helps them break into the building and they discover one in Krell Canyon on the Planet Lumos. Nefarious projects himself in front of them, telling Ratchet that Azimuth is the shame of his entire race, before setting a VX-99 hover-turret weapon upon them both. He and Azimuth defeat the massive machine, stopping it from levelling the city. When Vorsilon reports to Nefarious he’s not happy and decides to bring in specialists, the Valkyries.

Back at the Great Clock, Clank and Sigmund head to the Orientation Room, where a video is played about the origins of the Clock. The Zoni once entrusted the Fongoids with time travel but they began to misuse it, tearing the fabric of time asunder until a rift destroyed 83 planets. The Great Clock was created to restore temporal normality. Under no circumstances should it be used as a time machine

Clank learns how to fix temporal rifts on planets, and fixes 3 of them in the near vicinity. Upon returning to the Orientation Room. he discovers Sigmund playing a holo-message from Orvus, he was travelling to meet a fellow scientist on Zanifar’s Tombli Outpost. and never returned. 

Approaching Lumos, Ratchet is attacked by Valkyries, Cassiopia, Carina and Libra. They spot Azimuth's ship and leave Libra to take care of Ratchet. Ratchet destroys her ship and he and Azimuth land in a cave system on Lumos, they proceed through. Ratchet begins to question Azimuth about what happened.

Azimuth gives in. He’d granted Tachyon access to Lombax technology he used to create the Drophyd armour, thinking his help would protect the Galaxy, which was still a dangerous place even after the defeat of the Cragmites. But when Tachyon attacked it was proven not to be. Kaden refused to leave, not wanting to leave Ratchet’s mother but she was already gone. He was forbidden from joining the Lombaxes and blames himself for Kaden's death. He says however, if they managed to control the Clock they can fix this mistake, and Ratchet can have his family back.

They reach a Vullard Settlement under attack by the Agorians, one of the Vullards offers to show them to the Obsidion Eye if they help. They defeat the Agorian ground forces and then use a turret to down their air support. With the invasion over, the Vullard shows them to the temple, offering them a gadget to help pass through the caves. They make it to the Eye and contact Clank. There’s not much time, so Clank asks them to confront Nefarious on Zanifar 2 years ago. Head to the Tombli Outpost and look for a time portal.

Sigmund says it’s possible to create a traverse-able wormhole to do so. Ratchet and Azimuth head off with Azimuth warning Ratchet that if they succeed, he may never meet Clank. En-route to Zanifar, Ratchet gets communication by Qwark. He’d been entered into their fighting tournament and wants a rescue. Ratchet heads to the Agorian Battleplex and fights through the tournament. In the 5^th round, Qwark is given to him as backup and they’re forced to fight the aggressive War Grok. Ratchet defeats the creature but Qwark prevents him from finishing him off, deciding to keep him as a pet named Snowball.

After a speech, the Agorians have been honoured by Qwark. Ratchet as well as a new weapon receives a Nefarious security card. Qwark says one of the Agorians he’s met at an after-party knows of a secret way into Nefarious’ HQ. Ratchet heads to Zanifar but hears that Azimuth is having trouble with Vorsilon’s scouts. Ratchet finds a bunch of Fongoids locked up in containment cells. Using the security card he accesses a terminal and shuts them down, he finds the time portal and heads through.

The Fongoids were constructing the outpost for Nefarious, somehow hypnotised into working for Nefarious. They want to construct a bridge but unfortunately the crane holding the component has rusted and they’ll need to wait until their oil derrick is finished. Ratchet helps one of them plant some vine seeds then heads back to the present, he grinds on the now fully grown vines to the oil derrick and rescues the remaining Fongoids. He obtains some oil and heads back to the past, lowering the bridge.

He finds Orvus captured by Nefarious. Nefarious wants access to the chamber but Orvus refuses. As Nefarious tries to torture him, he tells them that only one will enter his chamber. He energises and dissipates. However, Pollyx managed to pick up a residual image from his data-banks, an image of Clank. Ratchet is spotted and throws a grenade to escape, cracking Nefarious’ eye.

Ratchet is about to head off when he is contacted by Vorsilon, who has captured Azimuth. Azimuth tells him to find the Clock but Vorsilon says that only one Lombax need die. Ratchet heads out to rescue him, docking with Vorsilon’s ship once again. After defeating Vorsilon again, who survives again, he rescues Azimuth and they race to the exit. The hangar bay doors are locked shut. So as Ratchet provides cover, Azimuth hacks a nearby computer terminal. He discovers that Vorsilon’s flight log is on there and downloads it.

They leave and find that whilst Azimuth is unable to crack the encryption, there is one unprotected file, co-ordinates to the Bernillius Sector. Meanwhile, back at the Great Clock, Sigmund and Clank head to test Pneumonic Station Iota. Clank discovers the Plumber inside his memory banks (???) he finds Ratchet’s Omni-wrench cluttering Clank’s brain, Clank has new responsibilities and may have to leave Ratchet. The Plumber promises that if Ratchet’s his friend, he’ll understand. He also gives a message ‘I wouldn’t risk any more than 6 minutes.’ 

With the Station operational, Clank and Sigmund head to the Orvus chamber. Orvus activates a personal orientation message for Clank but before it completes it’s unplugged by Lawrence, who uses an immobilisation orb to knock them out.

He reports to Nefarious, who calls for Unnecessarily Evil Initiative Omega-91 to be put forward by the Valkyries. Nefarious is contacted by Qwark in a Nurse’s outfit for a massage (Does Nefarious realise who it is, he has before) Ratchet heads into the Benillius Sector, Azimuth has picked up a distress call with Clank’s signature. Ratchet is confronted by another Valkyrie warship belonging to Carina, he destroys it and finds the signal has weakened considerably. Clank is in trouble. They land on the Planet and begin fighting their way through. Eventually rescuing Clank and defeating Cassiopia.

Ratchet apologises to Clank, but Clank says the only thing that matters is that the Clock is kept safe. Azimuth says that once the past has been corrected, they’ll have the full support of the Lombaxes, but Clank says that time cannot be changed and that using the Clock improperly could destroy the universe. Ratchet agrees that that is not a risk worth taking but Azimuth is less happy and heads off.

Ratchet and Clank are contacted by Qwark, who is now on Nefarious’ Space Station and has a plan for the 3 of them to infiltrate it. They meet up and Qwark explains his plan. He’s convinced the guards to open the south wing trash chute, they’ll use that as their point of entry, after using his nurse outfit to outwit the guards they’ll reach a ventilation shaft where Clank can use a giga-morphic holo-ray to create a disguise for Ratchet, they’ll then use the station’s own hypernova defence laser to atomise Nefarious’ fleet. Nefarious will be trapped until Galactic Authorities arrive.

The plan takes hold initially with only a few minor bumps, however as the fleet is destroyed Nefarious’ troops realise he’s not the real Nefarious and attack. They fight their way through but Nefarious eventually captures them. He attaches Ratchet and Clank to an asteroid flinger whilst Qwark is just left bound for some reason. 

Nefarious explains that the Fongoids eventually rescued him from the asteroid but he’d been broken wondering why Ratchet managed to win but eventually he discovered the Great Clock. With the Clock under his control, he could wrong all the rights in the universe, giving every villain a do-over and reversing any protagonist’s triumph. The new present would have the heroes always losing (don’t worry, he plans to double-cross everyone and resume his vendetta after everything’s complete)

Ratchet and Clank are sent flying off, they land, several hours later in Gimlick Valley and Planet Morklon. The Zoni protected them during the crash and warn that Nefarious must not reach the Clock. There are no ships around just a lone Fongoid who explains what had happened here. Commander Argos and the Agorians attacked the settlement, capturing and eventually killing their chief Zahn Gribnak. The destroyed the floodgate, flooding the village. Clank has an idea to get them a ship and contacts Sigmund. 

Wait, Sigmund is conscious? Lawrence has left to pick up Nefarious. LOCK DOWN THE ORVUS CHAMBER. There’s no evidence that suggests he’s being held anywhere either. He establishes a time portal into the battle of Gimlick Valley and they rescue Zahn from the Agorians. Argos now tries to flood the Valley. Ratchet plants some more vines which conveniently send one through the time portal onto the top of the floodgate. He grinds the vines and eventually defeats Commander Argos.

They return to the present and discover Argos’ ship has been recovered, they provide it some power and head off with it back to the Nefarious Station. Lawrence has returned to pick Nefarious up, Qwark has escaped thanks to the intervention of Snowball but it’s up to Ratchet and Clank to defeat Nefarious. They fight eventually moving onto Lawrence’s ship. Lawrence activates auto-pilot so he can help but the auto-pilot locks up and the ship is about to crash into the space station. They defeat Nefarious but Lawrence takes the escape pod. Hope arrives as Azimuth appears to give them a lift.

They head to the Great Clock where Ratchet and Clank prepare to part ways. Azimuth still wants to use the clock to help the Lombaxes and eventually attacks Ratchet with a wrench blast (yeah, his wrench can do that) Ratchet is stunned and eventually falls to his death. Sigmund tries to hold off Azimuth as Clank locks the door to the Orvus chamber. He looks at the lever and remembers the Plumber’s words, he shifts time back 6 minutes and rescues Ratchet from Azimuth’s blast.

However, this time Azimuth makes it into the Orvus chamber and begins a time shift. Ratchet fights Azimuth as the Clock begins to break apart in front of them. Ratchet wins the fight but can’t switch the Clock back, he breaks the lever in doing so.

Azimuth finally realises what his actions have wrought and uses his wrench to fix things, the resulting energy kills him in the process. (And yes, he is dead, not scattered in the time-stream or anything, there’s a body) Clank assures him that Azimuth did a brave thing.

Ratchet releases the Zoni who repair the damage done to the Clock. The only thing left is reactivating the orientation message. Ratchet leaves but Clank stops the message. He can’t leave Ratchet, not until he finds his own. He promotes Sigmund to Senior Caretaker and hurries to join Ratchet. The message continues and yeah, I’m going to quote this one

“The clock, much like time itself is a gift, and not to be tampered with. But like any father, my only wish is that my son does that which makes him feel whole. You are an intelligent and logical being, Clank, but intelligence and logic would’ve been wasted gifts without honour and loyalty. I am proud to see you came to those on your own. So, should the Clock prove too small for your plans, I pray the Cosmos light the way toward a future you yourself design. And remember, the Universe has a wonderful sense of humour, the trick is, learning to take a joke”

Oh and Qwark is left to fight Snowball, who's now hungry for Blood, no biggie, he’s back in the next game.

This is probably the biggest Ratchet and Clank story; the stakes start low but eventually become gargantuan as the fate of the Universe is in their hands. My synopsis is longest by word count trumping most of the others considerably but it’s not difficult to follow for the most part

The character arc for Ratchet in Tools of destruction continues as he finally meets another Lombax and begins to bond with him. Eventually there also comes the realisation that if he goes along with Azimuth’s plans he may never have met Clank in the first place. But he’s not stupid, he has learned from Tools of Destruction that the risk sometimes does trump the reward. It’s a hefty sacrifice that he has to make there, again.

It’s nice that Azimuth is absolutely not perfect and is a fundamentally flawed character. With Qwark, more often than not than not it’s played for laughs but Azimuth’s arc is front and centre and the key to this journey. He sees Ratchet’s arrival as an opportunity not only to establish a friendship of sorts with the son of one of his best friends but also a chance to settle his guilt over Kaden’s death. Not to mention a partner for looking for the Great Clock.

But his flaw is that he did not learn from his mistakes. His motto throughout is ‘reward over consequence’ and then we hear that the mind-set was what lead him to giving Tachyon access to Lombax tech. The fact is the consequences came and they came big but even with that he did not manage to shake off the mindset. It’s only when he realises the magnitude of what the consequences are, when his plan ultimately fails again that he realises that he’s made a massive error and makes the right steps to correct. A character that is willing to risk everything for his own redemption is a fascinating character and his ultimate death at the end is both the right end for his character and ultimately tragic, especially for Ratchet.

Clank gets a massive focus in this game, there is more time devoted to Clank’s own developments in this game than there has ever been before. Clank discovers his heritage, why he is the way he is, the robot factory may have created him physically, but spiritually it was Orvus that created him. Discovering the tragedy of Orvus’ demise and eventually coming to realise that his responsibilities at the Clock may well mean that he can’t rejoin with Ratchet again.

In both the promotional work and within the game itself they hint towards the idea that this is the game where the duo will split up for good and this will likely be the last game in the series. The ending has made me shed tears and that is no small feat for a game series that focuses on more light-hearted drama.

Clank’s eventual realisation that he can’t leave Ratchet, at least not until he finds the Lombaxes is a great step. Especially since he did not need Orvus’ speech to do so. I’ve not really talked about Clank as a character. In early games, Clank was not the most likeable of character, particularly in Ratchet and Clank 3, but one thing that is clear is that despite some bumps in the road, they duo really do have loyalty to one another. Ratchet was prepared to risk everything to find his friend. Clank was willing to leave his home to be with Ratchet.

Sigmund’s arc is also about confidence and guilt. He feels guilty about letting Orvus head to Zanifar but Clank helps him regain his confidence, whilst he’s still not exactly a fighter he does try to fight off Azimuth in both timelines, with variable degrees of success. His promotion to Senior Caretaker at the end felt like the natural way for his character to progress. He’d regained his confidence and with the Clock relatively safe, he doesn’t really need Clank anymore. So don’t think for a moment that Clank is shelling responsibility.

Whilst there are technically 3 different enemy factions in this game, 2 of them fall under Nefarious’ command so it helps streamline things a bit. We really don’t see any evidence of the Agorians hating Nefarious, their plot-lines don’t really intersect in this, which is a bit of a shame. Vorsilon and his forces are the primary threat of the game, they manage to keep the schemes moving on, providing a hell of a lot of power and a massive robot armada to the table. The robots by the way have some funny lines to them. Vorsilon himself is very dramatic, he’s not the head honcho but even he gains a victory of sorts by holding Azimuth prisoner, albeit briefly

The Valkyries are less interesting, none of them have any established personality because we don’t see them for much. But you needed a race for this and they did just fine. The Agorians are the equivalent of your high school bullies. They’re big, bad, hurt any race weaker than them but in some cases are cowards themselves. Like I said, it’s a shame they don’t really interact with Nefarious.

Nefarious and Lawrence are still hilarious. Although they spend much of the game apart their communications are still great and Nefarious can really hold his own in comedic situations. I honestly kinda wish this was their end, nothing good came from his survival, but we’ll get to that next time. 

Qwark’s arc is the briefest and about regaining his confidence after it took a massive knock in Tools of Destruction, after which he'd been more of an actor than active as hero. He’s more active in this game than he has been in any other and for a change actually provides meaningful assistance against Nefarious. His fate with the War Grok is down to his own ego in thinking it wouldn’t be any trouble. He does survive it however.  

Comedy duos are still a thing in this game, but aside Lawrence and Nefarious, they’re relegated to side-stuff. Kip Darling and Pepper Fairbanks are our resident news anchors giving a few comedic observations on Ratchet’s exploits whilst he's exploring through. Slag and Rusty Pete now host a Pirate Radio show and also star in a couple of movies. Also, Cronk and Zephyr’s voices are heard during the end credits. The Smuggler is in the game but for some reason without his parrot, go figure

Unfortunately, there are plot holes, as there often are in stories that cover time travel. The Clock is never to be used as a time machine, except of course when you establish time portals, then you can travel just fine, and why didn’t they do this on Fastoon again? Sure, you need an existing time rift but if you’re looking for those gold bolts you realise that there are. Is there a limit to how far these things can go back? A little bit of explanation would've helped

Then of course there Lawrence leaving the Great Clock seemingly unguarded with Sigmund alive and in-tact, why didn’t he just lock the door to the chamber? Also Talwyn’s non-appearance was kinda jarring given how she was helping in Quest for Booty, she was not injured during that game to my knowledge

But these minor gripes are minor to me and they don’t hamper what is, in my opinion, the best story of the Ratchet and Clank series.

Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time sticks to the formula, you run, jump, shoot and shoot some more. The wall jump moves and hacking puzzles are the only things absent from the game from Ratchet’s end, but here are some notable extras

Constructo-weapons

I’d usually dismiss certain weapons as generic, it’s not that they’re not useful they’re just standard and I prefer to focus on Insomniac’s more creative weapons. So, we have 3 basic weapons that can be modified with certain ‘constro-mods’ that can change exactly how the weapon is used. You start out with a basic ammo type and trigger, but each weapon has 7 constructo-mods scattered throughout the universe. 2 of these are separate triggers, 2 separate ammo types and 3 are after-effects of a weapon. As a heads up, I’d recommend finding the skyburst mod for the constructo bomb glove because it’s pretty useful against dropships at a point where you don’t have many powerful surface-to-air weapons.

Space exploration

Space exploration is one of the 2 main additions to the gameplay from Ratchet’s end. Instead of the ship flying being a loading screen we get more traditional ones for this game. But each system has a bunch of mini-planets and moons (I hesitate to call them all moons because they don’t appear to be in any orbit. And you can land your ship onto these to collect collectables. These sections have your classic mix of combat and platforming and are where the majority of collectables are earned.

Space Combat

Piloting your ship is different in this game from the last, you have direct control of the course, within certain boundaries but you’re restricted to a 2-dimensional plane and have to move the ship to aim weapons. The things that make this better than Ratchet and Clank 2’s space combat is that the enemies don’t tend to attack from behind and their fire can be blocked if you shoot it. You have primary and secondary weapons and you can barrel roll if you want to

Zoni

There are 3 types of collectables in this game, Gold Bolts which you can use to purchase skins, constructo-mods and Zoni. Collecting Zoni is not optional, to complete the game you need to collect 21 of the 40 available Zoni. Collecting Zoni unlocks ship upgrades which you will need to pass certain level barriers. I recommend getting as many of these as possible as the weapon and health upgrades are very useful, especially when it comes the Valkyrie ship battles. Collecting all 40 zoni unlocks a secondary ending where you go to Vorsilon’s ship, finish him off for good, destroy his ship and if you haven’t unlocked it through an alternate means, get the chance to explore the Insomniac Museum. There are some great features in the Museum however I wish it were a bit busier as there are a lot of empty rooms and blank areas.

Install game file

This is the first of the games (I actually don’t know if Quest for Booty did this since I downloaded it) to install itself directly onto your hard drive. The purpose of this is to install software patches if any glitches appeared and to allow for downloadable content. To my knowledge the only downloadable content in the game is the early access to the Insomniac museum. There were 2 patches released but from what I’ve heard the bugs were very specific. When installing the game, a cut-scene plays. It’s Captain Quark doing an interview which runs through what had happened in the last 2 games in the ‘Future’ series.

Hoverboots

Hoverboots are the other main new gameplay mechanic and they are used a lot. They’re a considerable improvement over the charge boots, easier to control but equally as fast, they also allow you the gliding capability that Clank would've given you and are the key to solving various platforming puzzles across multiple worlds. Krell Canyon was designed for the hoverboots, it’s a lot of fun there

New crates

There are 2 new crates in this game, first is the mega-crates, which contain bolts ammo and health, there are also the chamo-crates which are kinda hard to spot but contain more bolts. I really don’t have much else to say about these so…

Clank Gameplay

Clank has had some major gameplay changes and he gets a heavy focus in this game with 5 gameplay segments, 3 of which are as long as most Ratchet missions. Rather than controlling robots he’s handling himself in this game, using a Chronosceptre to bash and return fire at enemies as well as heli-pack now being able to provide boost jumps for more interesting platforming. In addition, the time pad mechanic is an inventive puzzle that plays well with the theme of time and is genuinely hard in some cases. Segments can also be replayed with gold bolts available within (I believe there are 8 available in Clank levels) be warned that outside of sector 3, even if you have the gold bolts you have to replay the entire level before you can exit. Once he and Ratchet are reunited, Ratchet can use Clank’s time bombs that slow down time but this is not utilised since the main puzzle here was dropped in test phases (I don’t know why putting up a hint wasn’t an option but…)

Space Missions

Rather than collectathon missions, there are various people who need Ratchet’s help across the sectors and you can earn bolts for doing chores for them. It’s kinda funny seeing Ratchet play corporate saboteur then turning around and helping the guy who he just sabotaged.

PSN comparison

You can compare your stats with friends online from the game’s main menu, that’s really it

My Blaster Runs Hot! The Game

A mini-game inside the Agorian Battleplex which I wouldn’t have mentioned otherwise that it is the only thing in the game where 2 players are able to play. You shoot enemies and your blasters eventually overheat, releasing a massive blast but rendering you unable to fire for a few moments.

PSN Trophies

In addition to skill points, you are able to earn PSN trophies for accomplishing certain tasks, often story related.

Weapon Infomercials

Each time you acquire a weapon you will get an infomercial showing how the weapon is used effectively. These are short so they’re not boring and also pretty funny

I’ve covered the constructo-weapons, the bomb, the pistol and the shotgun, you also have a rocket launcher and a sniper rifle (which does triple damage if you hit a weak spot) but there are 17 weapons in the game overall. Buzz blades (which hold less ammo but do more damage) and the mag-net launcher are back and the same as ever, Mr Zurkon and the Groovitron also make their return but since they now upgrade I will cover them again

Sonic Eruptor/Super-sonic Eruptor

A genetically mutated creature called a Zenogoat which unleashes a mating call (which sounds like a massive belch) time it correctly for a more powerful blast. It’s a great weapon for crowd control and one of the more creative.

Mr Zurkon/Zurkon the destroyer

Our smack talking, gun blasting robot buddy is back and this time he upgrades, the final upgrade has a more powerful gun and rapid fire capabilities. Mr Zurkon is awesome

Dynamo of Doom/Dynamo of Devastation

A giant electric orb that you can move around using the 6-axis controller, upgrades so enemies are attracted into it. It’s a neat idea but it feels less refined than the tornado launcher in my opinion, but’s got a wider area of effect and does quite a bit of damage

Tesla Spikes/Storm Spikes

The electric do-dads shock anything near them, but place another one nearby and a current runs between them. These are really good weapons if you find ways of keeping your enemies rooted to the spot, thankfully, there are a few ways of doing that

Groovitron Glove/Groovibomb Glove

It’s the groovitron once again, however this time it upgrades and will explode once the dancing has finished. It’s still funny to watch your enemies dance to the tune, even bosses will, although it’s worth noting they don’t last as long against bosses.

Spiral of Death/Spiral of Carnage

This was a user-designed weapon from a competition that was run at the time and you can see why this was a winner, the blue disks slice through your enemies then if they’re in the right place, they come back and slice them again.

Cryo-mine glove/Blizzard Mine Glove

These gloves freeze enemies in place. This is a very useful weapon to combine with the plasma striker, the game’s sniper rifle. You can easily hit weak-spots whilst their frozen, the weapon upgrades so it can affect multiple enemies, making it more useful in crowds

Rift Inducer 5000/Rift Ripper 5000

Based on the Ratchet and Clank 3 weapon of a similar name, this opens a portal to another dimension, but now a being named Fred attacks enemies, and drags them into the portal with enough damage. Use this in the Battle of Gimlick Valley, it’ll upgrade very quickly. In its upgraded form the portal will close with, you guessed it, an explosion.

Chimp-o-matic/Chimpositron

This weapon turns enemies into monkeys. It has a better lock on system than most weapons making it more useful with larger enemies. When it upgrades you can do it with 2 enemies at once. For some reason the upgrade screen keeps telling you the ammo’s increasing when the weapon uses no ammo.

RYNO V/Mega RYNO V

The latest iteration plays 1812 overture whilst you fire massive swarms of missiles at enemies. This weapons starts by holding 1500 ammo, but it chews through them at a substantial rate making it more useful up close or with larger enemies. It’ll destroy the VX99 in an instant, it’s not quite as affective against Nefarious.

Despite a couple of hiccups, A Crack in Time remains one of my favourite Ratchet and Clank titles, if this were the end for the duo, it’s be a great way to go out, but there’s more life in this duo yet as we look at Insomniac Game’s biggest departure with All4One

Rating 90/100

Memorable Quotes

"You realise this ship has an ejector seat, right?"

"You win again, technology"

"Doctor Nefarious has no authority here, villain, in fact, I'm not so certain he's a real Doctor"
"We realise that every time you wish death upon us, it is because you care. It shall be so, Commander"

"It's Captain Qwark, I didn't take a 3-week hero correspondence course to be called 'Mister'"

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Images/clips used in this review are from Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use