LogFAQs > #951124344

#14. Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2, 2004)
The last of the Ratchet & Clank games! This time, the 3rd one. Ive in my head found it actually pretty difficult to separate these. The gameplay is largely the same in most of the games with some new mechanics or other little differences in each one that make you want to keep playing, but maybe arent distinctive enough to really tell them apart. So why do I have this one the highest? Well, for one I simply just remember liking it the most. Getting at why might be more difficult, but what I do remember about it is having one of the best battle arenas (tied with the 2nd game), but it also had some obstacle courses beyond just the enemy gauntlets, so those were really fun. It also had these additional sort of ground battlefield missions where you were just holding your ground and staving off waves of enemies- basically like the arena but with access to some turrets, a small squadron of helper bots and some things to protect. Those would up pretty challenging sometimes and were fun to do all of them.



Other good stuff in this game- segments where you guise yourself as one of the enemy species and play a rhythm game to convince them to let you through their base, a Secret Agent Clank section where you play out a scene in a show as Clank (who is a big TV star in this game) with the director yelling production notes, a totally not dated reference in the Courtney Gears character, and a segment in the sewers- like the sand/ice area in the 2nd game- but even better here as you wander through the pipe-like maze, trying to find all 99 crystals, either laying around or of course, inside slime monsters.



This is also probably the most humorous game that I recall- with the first appearance of Lawrence and Dr. Nefarious, probably my favorite characters in the series (Nefarious short circuiting to play soap opera excepts somehow never gets old), and I think you also have Qwark at his best in this game. The Qwark comics are a particular delight, interjecting some classic 2D Platforming to break up the usual Ratchet & Clank game play, with some comic-style cutscenes.


This game really also fleshed out the weapon upgrade system. While the second game only letyou upgrade each weapon once (and one additional time on NG+), this let you go up to V5 (and V8 in NG+). My favorite weapons in this game are the Plasma Whip, the Suck Cannon, Flux Rifle, Annhilator, and Quack-O-Ray.

In the end, as Ive thought more about it, I think Crack in Time is probably overall the best of the bunch, but I hold the original 2 in the highest regard for introducing me to the series and just being all-around fantastic games.

Next up: Who knew praying mantises could be such assholes?


---

~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS