Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters

Platform envy?

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While Insomniac's Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction recently graced the PlayStation 3 with a beautiful and well-received slice of Pixar-esque cartoon platform action, Sony's increasingly popular PlayStation Portable also played host to its own series offering in the form of High Impact's scaled down and similarly well-received Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters.

Arriving some time after that portable release, and working against the usual formula of shrinking down and porting PlayStation 2 titles to the PSP, the popularity of Size Matters has subsequently seen it blown up and transferred to the stalwart PS2... with decidedly mixed results.

Enjoying a well-earned beach break between bouts of galaxy-saving, Ratchet & Clank have their rest and relaxation abruptly shattered when Luna, a young autograph-seeking fan of their heroic exploits, is unceremoniously kidnapped by aliens. Initially confused as to why a seemingly innocent girl would be accosted by the attacking aliens, an ancient Technomite artefact dropped by Luna during her abduction soon leads Ratchet & Clank on a perilous intergalactic mission of rescue and discovery.

First off, and as an all-too obvious echo of the Size Matters portion of the game's title, porting down to Sony's handheld platform usually benefits a PS2 game in terms of making the visuals appear both sharper and crisper - dodgy control translations notwithstanding. However, the presentation delivered by this particular home console version is far from impressive and looks positively lacklustre and bare bones considering what the PlayStation 2 is capable of (God of War, Black, Final Fantasy XII, etc.).

Specifically, levels of detail that may have held their own on the PSP tend to look rather poorly defined when viewed on a larger screen, which really doesn't help matters when it comes to setting the scene for the lovable character appeal that Ratchet & Clank games generally trade upon.

The famed Ratchet & Clank character and humour is certainly in attendance throughout, with the heroic duo cracking cheesy one-liners at every available opportunity, while muscular dimwit Captain Qwark faithfully follows one step behind the battling pair and interjects his own moments of amusement between levels. Sadly, despite the solid humour and moderately witty writing, it's difficult to clamber over the ever-present fact that Size Matter remains ugly to look at and the PS2 jump seriously fractures the believability of the overall animation standard.

Level design also leaves something to be desired. While the relative limitations of the PSP version may have warranted a degree of forgiveness in this department, Size Matters for the PS2 fails to supply enough originality and pizzazz to maintain the player's interest - with most missions feeling uncomfortably as though they wouldn't be out of place in a formulaic and bland Hollywood tie-in like Zathura or the latest dour Harry Potter incantation.

On the upside, character controls translate fairly well after the PS2 shift, although changing up from one analogue stick to two is always likely to help in terms of accuracy and precision. And, to be fair, standard environmental interactions and battle mechanics are decent enough. Here comes the but...

But, that control stability is virtually wiped out (along with splintering player patience) during the game's truly awful 'hover board' moments. Suddenly tearing the action from plodding-but-reliable platforming into the world of hover board racing simply doesn't work here. While it may have been the developer's intention to change things up a little and provide an offshoot of variety to proceedings, the control system adopted by High Impact Games is so utterly woolly and unresponsive that the end product is distinctly Sonic Racers when the goal was to maybe emulate the breakneck inertia of WipEout.

It's perhaps easy to see why Sony green-lit the porting of Size Matters from PSP to PS2. The portable version boasts a Metacritic average of 85/100 and it's certainly a closer hardware fit than the PlayStation 3's Tools of Destruction. However, the true essence of Ratchet & Clank has been lost in the translation. Yes, the familiar comedy is evident, and it's difficult not to warm to the ongoing banter, but Size Matters isn't selling itself on intermittent laughs, it's selling itself on gameplay, which is exactly where it fails to impress.

The paint-by-numbers character missions (which periodically swing between Ratchet and Clank) manage to tick all the right boxes while never even so much as leaning against the boundaries of creative imagination, and the prerequisite armoury of available destruction expands steadily throughout the game to provide an interesting selection of offensive firepower. Yet the two elements never combine well enough to successfully shoot down the ominous sensation that both developer and publisher have signed off on ported mediocrity for the sake of scraping a few extra franchise bucks from the PlayStation 2's sprawling user base.

Ultimately, size does matter - but only to the point where bigger is not always better and certainly no substitute for convincing gameplay. Size matters insofar as this weakly-ported episode of Ratchet & Clank's battle to save the galaxy should have remained tied to the small-screened PSP because it depreciates considerably on the PS2 and only manages to dilute an otherwise standout series.

60%

By Stevie Smith