Ratchet Gladiator - Cheap Thoughts

Ratchet & Clank has had a lot of videogames in it's decade and a half life, most of which are awesome, a couple are crap, and there are some that are just plain forgotten. Ratchet Gladiator (Or Deadlocked if you're American). Which is kind of a shame because I think it's a damn great game. Ratchet Gladiator once again joins us with Ratchet & Clank, except this time Clank isn't a field operative, hence why it's just called Ratchet. And the two, along with their buddy Al have been abducted and forced to fight in an arena style tournament/gameshow where the loser is killed. Ratchet of course ends up winning the tournament, defeats the villain and saves the day, yeah this game doesn't have much going for it in the story department. The gameplay is what sells a Ratchet & Clank game, and despite Gladiator removing half of the gameplay mechanics from the previous games (taking the platforming out of an action-platformer) it becomes a straight up action game. In the original Ratchet & Clank games there were tournament modes, certain levels based around fighting waves of enemies with certain challenges, they were always the most fun parts of the games and they decided to make an entire instalment based around those levels.

And that's really the main draw to the game, i absolutely loved the tournaments in the original Ratchet & Clank games and they are just as fun here, yes the platforming sections have been removed, but there is still plenty of gameplay here, including vehicle sections which are still plenty of fun. The action elements are still as smooth and fun as they've ever been, only now with the inclusion of Combat Bots, two robots that follow you around and give you extra fire power. The level designs and challenging gameplay is the best it's ever been and to top it all off, this is probably the funniest Ratchet & Clank game yet, particularly from the commentators of the tournament, making random quips as you play the game "oh that must have hurt like a spank from my momma!".

Some people have complained about the limitations of the game, for example, the game is shorter than the other Ratchet & Clank games, which I can understand that as a criticism, but being honest if this game had been longer then I feel like it would have come across as stretching out a game just for the sake of making it longer, thus harming the experience more. And then there is the smaller weapon variety than the other games, after all, Ratchet & Clank has always been about the creative weapons, so having only a maximum of 10 weapons just seems stupid. True, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the weapons we did have, so I personally didn't mind the limited number of weapons.

One criticism that I don't understand is the darker tone of the game in comparison to the previous games. I don't understand it because the game isn't a darker tone, yeah the environments aren't as colourful as before, but that doesn't make it a darker tone. If they mean that the humour is dark...well of course it is, Ratchet & Clank has always had a dark sense of humour; that's one of the reasons why I love it so much and why it's even more fun to play them now than when I was a kid, to catch all these jokes that i missed. So frankly, i don't consider this game to be darker than the others, it just looks dark, but the humour has always been kinda sadistic, that's just part of the identity of this franchise.

In the end, i hold this game up to be just as good as the original trilogy, admittedly i don't think this is a necessity to buy like the first three games, but if you're a fan of the series then i'd say absolutely get this. And if you've never played Ratchet & Clank then you absolutely need to do that, because they are some of the best games ever.

And i'm giving Ratchet Gladiator an 8/10

-Danny