Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
Description official descriptions
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters is the first game in the Ratchet & Clank franchise to appear on the PSP and it does not stray away from the console versions. In this 3D action platformer, the duo gets lured into a mysterious quest and soon rediscovers a forgotten race of genius inventors known as the Technomites. These inventors set out to create an army of clones.
Ratchet & Clank are supplied with an all-new arsenal of upgradable weapons along with some old favorites, like the Agents of Doom, the Hypershot and the Suck Cannon. Gameplay includes an RPG-like experience system that allows the player to buy new mods, similar to Up Your Arsenal. Ratchet can also collect pieces of different armor sets. These can be worn and mixed at will, but full sets (helmet, gloves, boots, suit) provide extra abilities. Ratchet's hovercraft races, Giant Clank's space battles, and Clank's battle robot arenas are all minigames tossed into the mix with the platforming elements.
Multiplayer is supported through Wi-Fi Ad Hoc or Infrastructure with 4 game modes: DeathMatch, Team DeathMatch, Capture the Flag, and Iron Lombox Challenge. In the Iron Lombox Challenge mode the players need to complete specific goals like loading cows into a giant meat truck or collecting power cells for the team.
Spellings
- ラチェット&クランク5 激突!ドデカ銀河のミリミリ軍団 - Japanese spelling
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Screenshots
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Credits (PSP version)
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Sr. Environment Artist | |
Triceratops Programmer | |
Art Director | |
Destroyer of Worlds | |
Project Manager | |
Señor Artist | |
Sr. Character Animator | |
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Environment Artists | |
Lead Modeler | |
Sr. Game Designer | |
Sr. Engineer (The Enforcer) | |
Lead Systems Programmer | |
Lead Engine Programmer | |
Controller | |
Engine Coder | |
Lead Animator | |
Sr. Programmer | |
Criminal Mastermind | |
Design Director | |
Network Programmer | |
Lead Artist | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 84% (based on 74 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 24 ratings with 1 reviews)
The Good
I did not intend to get Ratchet Size Matters on my own, but it came with the new PSP 3000 bundle so I decided to give it a try. It's been about 10 years since I last played a true platformer (not counting 3rd person shooter/adventure action games) and I was afraid I would not be able to do well here, but I'm glad I was proven wrong.
The overall gameplay is solid, but accessible for even novices like me to pick up. The heart of the game is a mix of platforming/jumping and shooting action. The game also tosses in a lot of variety in other game modes that are also a fun addition so that the platforming doesn't dominate the experience. These include a space shooter, a a skyboard racer, a rail jumper for hacking locked doors, and more.
There's also a wide selection of weapons from standard guns to missiles to mini protection droids that surround you and even a "suck" cannon that can suck up objects and small enemies to be shot out as ammo. You can easily choose your playing style by focusing on a few weapons and upgrading them with extended use as well as buying modifications using the nuts and bolts you collect from defeating enemies and basing objects.
High Impact produced a very polished game in all the presentation respects, with graphics that are colorful and creative while also technically smoother looking than many other PSP titles. All the levels were different in theme and executed well. The sound effects are solid as well, with good music accompaniment.
Controls are also responsive and well laid out. I've now moved on to some other PSP platformers, and I would say Size Matters has one of the better control setups with using the triggers for the camera and moving some lesser used options behind 2 key layers -- I especially appreciated this as it allows you to choose whether to use the analog or d-pad for movement.
The difficulty was just right for me, proving enough to be a challenge without being terribly frustrating. The length was also good, about 20 hours for me, but probably would be 30%-50% less for platforming gurus. There are also other challenge modes and unlockables so that experienced gamers can get mode value out of it.
The Bad
My biggest complaint is still with some of the puzzles being a bit too difficult. There's probably only a handful, but many of the I had to play over at least 20 times to pass. They're all short sequences, but they require a progression of precision jumping that one mistake means game over. These sequences are probably only 1 minute long, at most 2 minutes, but having to spend an hour replaying the same short sequence was not enjoyable.
Another area of disappointment is with the RPG element of gaining experience -- Rachet's max health increases as you progress. This works well for the weapons as they change visually and in power, but with Ratchet's health the enhancement seems trivial.
Basically the issue is that many things like elite enemies and traps seem to [I didn't do an actual test to prove it] do a percentage of your max health in damage, so it defeats any point in gaining health. Now standard opponents do seem to do only fixed damage amounts so it does help against them, but most of the time they are a pushover anyway so it's not much of a improvement.
The selection of weapons also seem a bit overboard. There's about a dozen, but you can get through the game focusing on just a third of them. While they are all unique, it comes down to just doing damage so they are similar in that sense. I actually replayed a lot of levels in order max out the mods and experience in all of them, and I have a little bit of regret in wasting the time in doing so now.
The "suck" cannon really does suck literally and figuratively, as it's quite useless even when maxed in power (the main problem being that it can only suck about half of the enemy types on a given level, and sucked ammo doesn't stay in level/scene transitions.
Lastly, I didn't really feel that attached to the characters or the story. It seems like the plot was designed for fans of series, so little character development actually happens and what kept me coming back was just the gameplay and eye candy.
The Bottom Line
Given all my complaints, I would still highly recommend Size Matters to any platform gamer or Ratchet franchise fan.
For those on the fence about platformers, I would still give it a good reference, but definitely not for those not as twitch-gaming inclined.
Even though I mentioned that I didn't care much for the characters or setting presented in this game, I am more interested in the franchise now and looking forward to future Ratchet games.
PSP · by grimbergen (433) · 2009
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Greatest Hits release date?? | Fred VT (25942) | Apr 8, 2014 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Awards
- GameSpy
- 2007 – #6 PSP Game of the Year
- 2007 – PSP Action Game of the Year
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Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
Official game website (US)
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Stratege.
PlayStation 2 added by Kabushi.
Additional contributors: Sciere, Hervé Piton, Freeman, Alessandro Piva, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, Geon.
Game added February 19, 2007. Last modified June 9, 2024.