Previews: Ratchet & Clank Future
Exclusive first look, screens and video of Ratchet on PS3!
By Matt Leone 03/16/2007
VIDEO: Click on the image above to check out the first ever direct feed trailer of Ratchet & Clank Future, showing everything from a cinema to the new graphics engine to a crazy boss fight. Note: if you are reading this Friday morning, the trailer might not be up just yet -- check back midday.
If the MotorStorm team made a Pixar movie, this is what it would look like. Take the glossy landscapes and mud from Evolution's game, throw in colors other than brown and smooth almost-too-perfect looking characters from... well, any Pixar film... and you've got one of the prettiest next-gen games.
That game, of course, is Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, known to some as Ratchet & Clank 5 (or I-9 if you work at Insomniac), and the developer's first non-combat-focused entry in the series since 2004. For a team that ships a game a year, that's a decent-sized break from Ratchet's roots, which explains the concept behind Tools of Destruction.
Asked to describe the idea in 10 words, Insomniac president Ted Price says, "It's a visit to what people loved about Ratchet originally." (And that's 10, assuming you let the contraction at the beginning slide.) Yep, it's a return to the series roots -- platforming, crazy weapons, creative characters, and loads of personality -- but in a next-gen world.
"One of the things that we talk about when we start a game is we kind of pick one word that is the emphasis behind everything," says design director Brian Allgeier. "For the earlier Ratchets it was 'adventure' and then later it became 'adrenaline' and it was more aggressive, and so now we decided we wanted to go back and do something a little bit different -- well, something that we've done before -- and we picked 'wonder.'"
A key part of achieving that is the game's graphical style ("Visually it's a significant step above anything we've tried here at Insomniac," says Price), but also what the engine allows the developers to create. From the scale of the levels to the size of the characters (and one boss you can see in today's trailer), everything just feels bigger.
SCREENS: Though we don't have any screens of it, we got a brief glimpse of the game's new space combat gameplay while at Insomniac, and it's simpler and more straightforward than in the past. It has a Star Fox meets Wing Commander feel that looks to please action fans who love shooting lots of meteors and fighting their way through the skies more than those who like exploring in space. [Click the image above to check out all Tools of Destruction screens.]
A second part of hitting that "wonder" goal is filling up these environments. We witnessed a few different sections of the game during our time at Insomniac and were extremely impressed by how much was going on despite the size of everything. If you remember back to the game's first teaser trailer from GDC last year (which never officially made it online), the main thing everyone said about it was that there seemed to be a ton going on in the world -- mostly referring to ships flying around in the air (maybe they've had this "Future" concept floating around for awhile...).
With the on-foot gameplay, it's the same idea -- just because the stage is bigger doesn't mean you don't need more actors. So when you look at the screenshots of the game and you see every inch filled with a character, a tree, or a graphical effect, it's like that in the real game too, at least in the areas we've seen. It's not just a bunch of empty space.
EGM: While we have early impressions of the game online today, the April issue of EGM (in stores now) features super high-resolution screenshots and more info. on the story, the characters, the concept, the bosses, and turning enemies into animals.
Naturally, you'll have plenty of firepower on your side to combat this world -- look at the title of the game, after all -- so keep an eye out for the Groovitron that makes enemies dance as a way of stunning them, as well as some returning favorites. Taking things in a different direction for the series, some of the weapons will even incorporate Sixaxis motion sensing. So far, we've seen one example, the Tornado Launcher, which sends out a mini tornado to suck up enemies in its path while you use the motion controls to guide it.
"It's something we're always taking into consideration with the development of each weapon," says Allgeier. "Sixaxis works for different weapons -- works great for the tornado; it would work great for the flamethrower." While we didn't have a chance to test it out ourselves, we watched Allgeier use the motion mechanic multiple times, and it seemed very easy to control while running around with Ratchet at the same time. We can't help but wonder how confusing it would all get if you were to control Ratchet on the left stick, the camera on the right stick, and the tornado with the motion controls simultaneously, but it looks like there's going to be the potential to pull off some crazy stuff if you want that option.
Of course, this being our first look at the game, Insomniac seems to be holding back some of the craziest stuff. Beyond new abilities for Clank hinted at by Allgeier, there are plenty of possibilities on how the game may tackle multiplayer or co-op elements -- especially since Home should be available by the time Ratchet ships. Surely, Insomniac wouldn't ship a first party PS3 game without some Network tie-ins, right?
So while we wait to find out more about the gameplay, we're happy to know that the world and style of Ratchet are already firmly in place. It seems that Allgeier's goal to "create a living breathing galaxy" is well on its way. "The reason we're calling it Future is because we feel this marks a whole new beginning for the franchise," he says. "We've got an epic story that we feel will span multiple games. There's going to be greater effects, greater spectacle, new forms of gameplay -- the whole package will deliver the ultimate Ratchet & Clank adventure."
