The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I guess at some point I played Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.

I was really kind of unimpressed. Back a few Christmases ago, Jonathan got me Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters for the PSP, and that was pretty great. Since I hadn’t played one of these games before, the shooting and stuff was really kind of novel and fun. I blew up a bunch of things, and tried a bunch of weird weapons. It was pretty neat. Near the end of the game, though, I got to a boss battle that I just couldn’t handle, and had to put the game down. Up until then, though, it was fun times.

However, I didn’t really realize a couple things about the game, since I hadn’t played others. For one, I didn’t realize that the incredibly disjointed and almost nonsensical plot of the PSP version was actually accurate to what the full console releases had. I felt like stuff had gotten cut out to fit it all on a UMD or something, but no, Tools of Destruction has the exact same lack of plot. You’re just going to incredibly random locations for no real reason to shoot people, and it never really tries very hard to explain it. There are some cutscenes, where people talk, but there might as well not be: they don’t say anything that clarifies anything that you are doing. This was really disappointing to me. People throw around terms like “Pixar movie” when describing the style of these games, but there’s nothing about them that connects with that at all besides a vague art direction element.

I also didn’t expect the big games to be so dead-set on giving me huge areas with no guidance that I have to stumble my way through. Because it was on the PSP, there were no big arenas in Size Matters. It was one straightforward shot. This worked well, and Tools of Destruction works well when it is following a linear path, shooting dudes as well. When it gives you bigger, exploratory areas, though, the game completely falls apart. The controls and the map system were not designed for this kind of gameplay. There’s no guidance on where to go, and some of the jumps you have to make are not very clear. The whole reason I sent this back to Gamefly was because I got into one of these exploration sections and, even after consulting a walkthrough, I had no idea where to go. It was infuriating.

Eventually, though, I did figure it out, only to get into a Clank puzzle section in which I was given no guidance at all. I was told that Tools of Destruction was a “reboot” so the series would be friendly to newcomers, but the game assumed I knew all the, quite different, Clank controls from previous games. Once again, I had to consult a walkthrough just to learn what arbitrary buttons to press to get the game moving again. After managing that, I got a long way through the puzzle section, then died. I learned, then, that I was checkpointed at the beginning, and I had to redo it all.
Fuck. That.
I sent it back to Gamefly.

So yeah, I guess I didn’t really enjoy Tools of Destruction too much. Which is a shame, because it was yet another PS3 game that had gotten great buzz and I was really looking forward to trying. I don’t know if I just have a very thin skin for not knowing what to do now, or what, but I just can’t stand that kind of guesswork any more. I have so many other awesome things to do with my limited free time, I see no reason to spend it frustrated at a game that won’t make my objectives clear.