Ratchet & Clank: Q-Force Reviewed By Ben McCredie

Rating: 75% (Ratings Key/Explanation)

To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Ratchet and Clank series, Insomniac Games decided to throw fans a bone by developing and releasing a downloadable title (also available at retailers), Ratchet and Clank: Q-Force, also known as Ratchet and Clank: Full Frontal Assault in the USA.

Ratchet, Clank and fan-favourite Captain Qwark return as the "Q-force", a response team to any threats the galaxy may face. Before long, a real threat emerges as a masked villain (whom the identity of had me pleasantly surprised!) proceeds to shut down various planetary defence systems, thereby leaving the Q-force to save the planets from certain invasion.

This becomes the main thrust of the game, as the player picks between any of the 3 Q-force members and proceeds to defend each planet from wave after wave of invading marauders. In each self-contained world, the goal is fairly simple - set up a Q-force base, repel the invaders, and reactivate the planetary defence system so that they can't come back. Things become a bit more complicated when the enemies begin erecting shield walls around the defence system; forcing the player to first disable the scattered shielding devices before the main goal can be reached.

Whilst maintaining the ranged and melee combat familiar to the series, the game adds an extra element of tower defence as the invaders will intermittently assault your base and try to destroy 6 power generators within. Losing all 6 power generators results in a Q-force retreat and loss of the level. The player can prevent this by using bolts (the in-game currency) to purchase various turrets and shield walls that defend the 2 bottleneck openings to your base.

For the most part, this seems to work quite well. Building defences is relatively seamless and the 3rd-person exploration and assault of the enemies' fortifications works quite well. The only issue that really sticks out is how over-bearing each assault on your base feels. With each and every assault wave I would find myself necessarily running back to my base (thankfully made easier with the inexhaustable rocket boot ability) so that I could be on-hand and assist my turrets in defending it.

The game feels too unbalanced in this sense, as the turrets simply don't do enough damage to some of the higher-level enemies. This issue becomes compounded by the fact that bolts aren't really in abundance. On average I could only afford 3-4 turrets per bottleneck, despite each having approximately 10 spots to build on. At no point did I ever have a base that could actually defend itself without my assistance. This is particularly tedious when you're out and trying to take down an enemy shield structure, only to be
notified that your base is about to be assaulted, and upon repelling the assault you return to the shield structure to find that all the enemies have respawned!

Each map is also littered with "Weapon-pods" from Captain Qwark's ship, which more-or-less serve as the only means by which Ratchet and company can obtain the outlandish weapons the series is so known for. Once the player has located the weapon pod and defeated the surrounding enemies, unlocking the pod is done by performing an extremely quick mini-game that can net the player some extra bolts and ultimately a choice between a few select weapons. These can then be utilised for the remainder of the level, but once the player begins a new mission all the weapons are "dropped" again and need to be reclaimed. As per the previous titles, each weapon is upgraded through an experience bar that accumulates simply by using it, progressively growing in power and usefulness. Each weapon's experience level is permanent and carried throughout the campaign.

One of the more notable features is the multiplayer. Featuring 1v1 and 2v2 options, it works on a restructuring of the single player, whereby the battlefield is divided symmetrically to house a Q-Force base for each team. Battles are seperated into 3 phases - Recon, Squad and Assault. Recon sees both teams duke it out to gain control of as many key nodes on the battlefield as possible within a set time period, with each node controlled generating bolts for your team. Squad then lets the player(s) spend said bolts not only on defences for their base, but also on units that will automatically deploy and attack the opposing base during the Assault phase. The goal of the assault phase is to destroy all 6 of the opposing team's power generators, and it ends when there are no more threats in either base (ie. All summoned units have been destroyed, and opposing players have been killed and respawned within their own base).

If both bases are standing once the assault phase is over, all 3 phases then repeat. This proves to actually be an immense amount of fun. All too often it becomes very thrilling when your base is being pounded on by 2 enemy players, some foot soldiers and a tank, only to realise that your forces have managed to punch through their defences and the enemy base is now being mercilessly ripped apart. You now get to laugh maniacally as the opposing players are forced to withdraw to their base post-haste in an attempt to salvage whatever remains. Sadly the online population isn't exactly bursting at the seams, which can often make it difficult to find anyone to play the multiplayer with if you're a friendless sod like me.

Ratchet and Clank: Q-Force certainly isn't flawless, but for the most part it's definately enjoyable. Luckily certain issues can be alleviated, such as the tedious back-and-forth of the single player which can be made more manageable by the added co-op feature. It's much more fun to have one player camp out and defend the base whilst the other brings the hurt to the enemy. With only 5 stages in the campaign, don't expect too much replayability here. Mixed with some multiplayer, one can easily expect between 5-10 hours of entertainment out of this, which isn't bad for what is essentially a downloadable title.

Thankfully the trademark humour of the series also makes a return, meaning I did feel like I was playing a Ratchet and Clank game, and not some shoddy arcade cash-in. Overall, a nice little 10th Anniversary present for fans of the series.