Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One – 1 Hour Demo Review

Since i am a Playstation Network + member i was fortunate enough to play Ratchet % Clank: All 4 One for one hour today. Being a fan of the series for a while now i was skeptical about the whole co-op presentation until today. I have played the beta for Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One and even the single player demo on PSN. None of it compares to the full game. Or should i say one hour’s worth of the full game. Insomniac Games are the developers and SCEA the publishers to this co-op action platformer. Release date October 18, 2011.

Lets start at the very beginning for the fact this game was 14GB worth of pain to download on my Playstation 3′s hardrive. During the install process your shown a comedic cinematic cutscene of Ratchet sitting next to Clank for an interview. Apparently the scene takes place recently after the events of A Crack in Time and Dr. Nefarious escaped but is now captured. Quirk is now President and takes part in finding Nefarious which was (i believe) the first level you suppose to play in Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One. Since i only had an hour i joined and completed as many levels/sections of the game as possible (sporadically). One section i played with the help of Susie we had to escape a robot base where they contruct minions. I believe that was actually the tutorial level.

When choosing a match to play you can dictate the search criteria such as Friend’s Only, Location, Allow Games in Progress, Play as Ratchet, Clank, Quirk, Nefarious, Difficulty and if you want Cheats or not. When i entered the lobby i saw about 20 different open in-game lobbies at a given time. Some of the levels were called Phonica Moon (i played), The Dead Groove, Uzo City (i played), TeraWatt Forest (i played), Alduaros Plains (i played) and N.E.S.T. (i played), Polar Sea (i played). Every level i played on was very unique in design and featured genious ways of involving co-op amongst the players with occasional boss fights.

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One ran butter smooth and looked really good for most of my matches. There are checkpoints on levels as well Venders where you and your buddies can buy wild weapons and guns. You can also keep your weapons on the same level when you leave that map before completing it. Otherwise you only start with a pistol on maps you never played. There is also a ranking system for each player. For the most part, all of the games i played were free of stupitity as every gamer helped each other and competed with one another to net the most rewards at the end of the level. Boss fights were fun and took alote of teamwork most of the time.

The comedic atmosphere and presentation that i always enjoyed is all in Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One. The visuals are pretty good and the art style even better. The cities, desert canyons, snowy mountain levels and ruined city levels looked really good. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One doesn’t look nearly as good as its PlayStation 3 predecessors but its good enough. The great voice acting between the comedy team of Quirk, Nefarious, Clank and Ratchet always kept me giggling.

Cutscenes do play a part in the story (there is one). Depending on which level or section of the game your in you can see them. Since my hour didn’t give me the freedom of playing the game from beginning to end i caught a few cutscenes while playing in some levels. I got a real feeling of competitiveness while playing Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One. At the end of each level everybody is scored and awarded accordingly. Wether you collected the most bolts or found the most collectibles everybody can see it. Everybody can also see NOOB status on screen when you died the most out of everybody.

Let me make it clear, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is a fun fun game. I was skeptical about Insomniac Games making a Ratchet game with 4 player co-op. After witnessing the quality of All 4 One i can safely say its a good game.

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One – Demo Impressions

I am a big Ratchet & Clank fan. I even took part in the Ratchet & Clack: All 4 One beta a month or so ago. Which brings me to this particular Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One demo. PSN recently added a new SINGLE player demo. Thats right, no multiplayer unlike the beta. At any rate i played through the demo and wrote some thoughts below. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is a cooperative action platformer videogame developed by Insomniac Games and published by SCEA. The Playstation 3 is the only system its available on and the game released October 18, 2011.

After i gotten over the shock of no multiplayer for this heavily cooperative designed game i got started in some single player. The main menu featured Offline, Online, Profile, Options and Extras. The only menus accessible in the Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One demo are Offline and Options. Offline here i come. The Locations available are exactly the same as the beta. You have Luminopolis: Amphitheater nad N.E.ST.: Vertigus Cliffs. The two levels are distinct from one another one being at night in a city and the other outside, sunny with cliffs and canyons.

It really didn’t dawn on me till i started playing as to why the demo wasn’t co-op. The reason being is that the devs want gamers to experience the AI of Clank as you control Ratchet. I beleive they also wanted you to experience the game in single player mode which actually wasn’t that bad at all. Granted online co-op is more fun with friends but single player is also fun in of itself. Playing Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One in single player does sorta feel like playing a normal Ratchet & Clank game focused on single player. AI Clank is very good as he fights when he supposed to and leaps back in Ratchet’s back when he’s done. Using the Vac-U on Clank was easy and seamless. Using him to progress on each level wasn’t problematic at all.

Button layout via Duel Shock 3: L2-call, L1-lock-on, d-pad-weapon/gadget, LS-move, RS-weapon select, X-jump, O-Vac-U, Square-melee, Triangle- swing shot, R1-fire. Controls are tight just like every game Insomniac developed. Locking on and flipping while shooting enemies never felt so good and never gets old in Ratchet & Clank. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One has some wild guns such as the Cambuster, Arc Lasher, Warmonger, Doppleganger, Pyro Blaster and the Plasma Bomb Launcher.

All of the weapons are very unique and outrageous which makes Ratchet & Clank…Ratchet & Clank. When you pause you can access some in-game stats such as Bolts collected, Gold bolts collected as well other collectibles. You can always check out your Objectives in the pause menu anytime. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One may have a totally different premise from its predecessors but its still fun. The presentation is spot on featuring goodlooking visuals, art, sound design and the same comedic atmosphere. The fixed camera does get annoying but what can you do?

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One demo wasn’t as fun as the beta. But this particular demo did show me that the AI revolving around Clank is top notch. Thanks for reading.