90°
4.0

Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault Review | Gaming Union

Gaming Union: "With such a low price to play this new addition to the Ratchet and Clank series, it really speaks volumes when you find out how low the quality is in this game on most levels. Pretty visuals, characters, guns, and nostalgia add insult to injury in this installment. Unless Insomniac plans on bringing this series back and showing us what such a talented studio can do, Ratchet and Clank need to take a long break and think about what they have done."

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gamingunion.net
GuyManDude4152d ago

Here you go, no need to click:

Announcing a brand new Ratchet and Clank game after the divisive All 4 One caused many fans to become excited. They wanted to see how Insomniac Games planned on bringing this duo back to their former glory. However, upon discovering that the twist this time is tower defence, you would be cautious to think this would match up with previous greats. This results in a game that not only under delivers, but leaves this once beloved series in a state so dark you might think it was sent out to die.

Full Frontal Assault has such a lack of content it almost aids the fact that playing through the game kills any sort of fun it could generate. The story mode dangles a sliver of narrative in front of you at the beginning and tricks you into thinking this will be a regular occurrence. However, ignoring the fact that this has one of the lowest character counts in the series' history, the opening movie has its moments of funny dialogue.

You can choose to play as Ratchet, Clank, or Captain Quark and this never makes the game feel any different besides in game dialogue. The rest of the campaign is made up of five levels that do little to motivate you to continue. Not until the end of the game does the story ever really do anything to build development with the heroes and villain. This is a waste since the main villain is a great throwback to past games and is severely underused.

Still the story is the least of this game's problems as the gameplay is so uneven and broken that if you started a curse jar, you'd have a pretty penny by the time you see this title to the end. When you pick up the controller, the jet boots and weapon wheel let you know you are playing a traditional Ratchet game. That is until you get an alert that your base is under attack and you haven’t got enough bolt to make a single defence.

As you travel the map completing objective after objective, you will need to find enough weapons and bolts to hold off waves of enemies. The rate that enemies try and take your base happens so unexpectedly and gives you no warning before you start losing control of your resources. Mix that with the fact that collecting bolts is tedious and takes way too long. All these elements lead to you needing to restart from the last checkpoint over and over again until you micromanage things so much that playing the game just feels like work.

Once you extend this over four of the game's five mission and add the fact that there are only three different worlds to choose from, the whole game reeks of lazy repetition. It fails to impress at any point in the story. Having the crazy guns and gadgets you know and love only makes things nostalgic until you realize that almost none of them ever feel as powerful as they should. The fact that having a lot of defences never changes feeling underpowered adds to the frustration.

There is a better mix to the tower defence elements in multiplayer thankfully. Since things take place in phases, every player knows what is coming up next and has a fair chance at defending their own base. It is odd that things work so much better and it leads to the feeling that Insomniac crammed a campaign in at the end of development. Unfortunately the multiplayer is difficult to get into, with low numbers of players being the major problem.

Pretty visuals can only distract from a game that is at its core not fun to play. That is unless you manage to find a decent multiplayer game. The game has detailed visuals for a budget title/downloadable game, but this is the norm for this long running series. While the visuals made a nice transition, the score is uninspired and does nothing special as it gets buried under the shots fired in most games.

GuyManDude4152d ago

And he can't even spell defense. Come on Spencer.

Nodoze4152d ago

That's how they spell it in the UK. Way to be worldly.

News flash there is a world outside of the US.

GuyManDude4152d ago

@ Nodoze

That would be acceptable, except that the author of the review is an American and the site isn't a UK-focused website (it's US/Can/UK).

I'm perfectly aware of the differences in English spelling across countries. That's why I clicked the author's name to check his background, and also why I checked the background of the site before posting.

Unless their editor-in-chief edits their posts and changes the spelling to fit UK grammar rules. I guess that wouldn't surprise me.

SilentNegotiator4152d ago (Edited 4152d ago )

@Nodoze

To be fair, most US people know that some words in England are spelled differently, but not ALL of them.

Expecting people to know "defence" is like expecting people who know Spanish to know perfect Italian. Making it worse is that it's a pretty common 'misspelled' word, so the distinction isn't going to even be noticed by a lot of people.

@GuyManDude
"Unless their editor-in-chief edits their posts and changes the spelling to fit UK grammar rules. I guess that wouldn't surprise me"

A lot of dumbass hipsters do that.

4152d ago
Williamson4152d ago

Wouldn't 4/10 mean that the game is either broken in a way/ unplayable? The game should in my opinion receive no less then 7. Its still fun leveling up the weapons, moving around on the jet boots, and taking out hoards of enemies. Sure its not like the main series but its fresh and only 20$.

ShaunCameron4151d ago

Too bad you have to re-collect the weapons for each stage.

Williamson4151d ago

Well yeah ill admit that can be a nuisance but imo it doesnt automatically make it a fail of a game.

BoNeSaW234152d ago

I played the beta and it played and felt like a mission or side-quest that was cut from one of the main games(Which I Loved!)and for a good reason, it gets boring after 2 or 3 plays and is really not that fun or addicting.

This one stinks Insomniac! Such a poor waste of resources and time! I'll be playing through the HD Collection waiting for a REAL Ratchet game because Fuse looks like BLAH! now.

SoapShoes4152d ago

No way it's actually very addicting online or co op and a good small spin off IMO.

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160°

Celebrating 20 years of Ratchet & Clank

20th Anniversary Armor Pack arrives today for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart; more games coming to PlayStation Plus Premium November 15.

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blog.playstation.com
darthv72535d ago

Man... what i wouldnt give to have a full PS5 UHD of all the R&C games in one collection. i guess streaming them on PS+ is the next best thing (or naturally a PS3)

Aloymetal535d ago

Rift was a joy to play, absolutely beautiful.

FallenAngel1984535d ago

They couldn’t make PS2 versions of those R&C games like they did with the J&D games?

mkis007535d ago

considering they are ps3 games that never had ps2 versions....no.

CobraKai534d ago

Yeah? You might wanna double check that.

mkis007534d ago

Kobra
What fan that waited for launch day needs to know? There were 4 ps2 games the rest starting with tools was ps3 only. Quest for booty, a crack in time, nexus, full frontal assault were ps3 games.

FallenAngel1984535d ago

You really saying Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal and Ratchet: Deadlocked weren’t on PS2? 🤨

theandinator92535d ago

Even Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank had PS2 versions...

mkis007534d ago

Of course I wasn't talking about the actual ps2 games...why would they need to make ps2 versions of ps2 games? That is why I only included the ps3 games in my comment.

FallenAngel1984534d ago

@ no

You must’ve misunderstood what I asked for.

I’m saying they should’ve made PS2 Classic versions of these Ratchet & Clank titles on PS4 so they’d be downloadable just like Jak & Daxter had rather than just streaming the PS3 versions

mkis007534d ago

Ya I realized you meant emulated versions after the fact.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 534d ago
Relientk77535d ago

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is amazing. I really hope Insomniac are working on more. I'm always up for another Ratchet & Clank game.

CobraKai534d ago

I think it’s still the only “Next Gen” game that truly looks next gen.

Levii_92535d ago

Sick ! R&C is still one of my favourite franchises.

Show all comments (19)
230°

Ranking the Ratchet and Clank Games from Worst to Best

From Xfire: "Insomniac Games first introduced the unlikely duo of Ratchet and Clank back in 2002 on the PlayStation 2. Since then, the series has taken audiences on a journey that has spanned not just an entire galaxy, but multiple dimensions, with its most recent outings."

Levii_921038d ago

Best games of the franchise are Up Your Arsenal, A Crack in Time, 2016 Remake and without a doubt the newest one Rift Apart. You simply can’t go wrong with these.

Man what a glorious game series.

neutralgamer19921038d ago

Only ones I don't like as much are all 4 one and full frontal assault other than that all games are awesome( even these are good games just not up to the standard of other games in the series)

victorMaje1038d ago

Nice article, good list, they're all fun & I love this game!
Rift Apart is spectacular.
Insomniac are wizards, I want their next game to be a new Resistance. I can't wait to see what they have in store for us next.

DOMination-1038d ago

Ryan Mccaffrey said last week that Resistance 4 was in development but Sony cancelled it due to the high number of post-apocalyptic games around at the moment.

victorMaje1037d ago

Well that’s a shame. I feel they could do something truly special with today’s technology.

chicken_in_the_corn1038d ago

I'm looking forward to playing Rift Apart then the whole series sometime afterward. Up Your Arsenal is my favourite

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100°

All the Ratchet & Clank PS3 exclusive games can now run on the Playstation 3 emulator, RPCS3

The RPCS3 team has announced that all the Ratchet and Clank games that were released exclusively on Playstation 3 can now run on the latest version of RPCS3. RPCS3 is the best Playstation 3 emulator that is currently under development and its incredible progress has really amazed us.

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dsogaming.com
Retroman2033d ago (Edited 2033d ago )

No Quest for booty/ into the Nexus??

Oops from the video both is emulated.