Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty
Review
Does X mark the spot?
by Chris Scott
reviewed on PS3
Graphics and sounds
Coming from Insomniac though, many things do work right. They know how to tap into the power of the Playstation 3 and made this game, like its predecessor, visually beautiful. Regardless of if you enjoy the game or not, there is no denying that Quest for Booty is one of the best looking games, downloadable or not, available. Another area that Quest for Booty shines is in the sound department. The game has fantastic music and excellent voice acting. The sound is actually the technical star this time around. The music fits the game’s settings perfectly and does a wonderful job of projecting an epic summer blockbuster movie type of vibe.
Gameplay
Things do come a bit unglued in the gameplay department though. Its not that Quest for Booty doesn’t play well because it does but the game seems to have an identity crisis in the gameplay department. The game plays very much like the opening levels of a new full length Ratchet game, making it easily accessible to newcomers. But it leaves veteran players with a game that doesn’t really provide much of a challenge. I finished it in about three hours including download and installation time. Better players are going to breeze through it a little quicker and newcomers will take a slight bit longer but I can not see anybody getting more than four hours of play time. Ultimately though the game plays very well and is just as polished as Tools of Destruction was.
Quest for Booty has a stronger emphasis on platforming and puzzle solving than the last couple Ratchet games but there is still plenty of fighting to be done. Without Clank to give Ratchet a hand, Insomniac gave Ratchet a couple upgrades to his trusty wrench. The first is the tether ability, with which Ratchet will be able to pull stuff towards him using his wrench and the second is the ability to pick things up with his wrench. Most of the puzzles in the game make use of these two new abilities, although none of them really posed much of a challenge.
Interesting experiment
While the new abilities were a lot of fun to play with there really is not much reason to go back to the game after it has been completed. There is no Extra Challenge mode. There are no Trophies or Rewards to get. There is really just no reason to replay, especially when Tools of Destruction offers you much of the same experience on a much grander scale.
I am not going to say Quest for Booty is a bad game, because that would not be giving it enough credit. But considering the price I can’t honestly tell you that this is a must play game either, unless of course you are a Ratchet fan. Quest for Booty is an interesting experiment and I like the idea that Sony is trying to pursue here, taking their big franchises and giving a bite sized portion for a bite sized price. On that level Quest for Booty is a success but hopefully Sony will give a bit more fleshed out experience with their next experiment.
7.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
