Con_Z_ǝdʇ
Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
Feels good to play and somewhat weird. Can't tell why.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart |OT| Next-gen just got riveting....
MaKTaiL
Member
Fidelity at 30fps probably has an overhead of 45fps which isn't enough for a smooth experience on 60hz displays but can be locked to 40fps for a smooth experience on 120hz displays.
Last edited:
sncvsrtoip
Member
40 fps on 120hz tv ? I wish I haven't sold it after completion now ;d wonder how it looks
Makes you wonder how many other games are out there around 45fps that could be locked to 40 in 120Hz mode instead of 30fps.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
That's what you get for returning GAF Mid Summer 2021 GOTY
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
This is very interesting. I remember the Uncharted 4 gameplay reveal at the PSX was running at 37 fps on base PS4. You gotta wonder if the PS4 Pro with 2x more GPU power wouldve run it around 50 fps even though it was being bottlenecked by that terrible jaguar CPU.
I think the jailbreak guys had to reduce the resolution to 560p on the base PS4 to get it to run at 60 fps. So reducing the resolution by 3x got them 2x more frames.
Sony needs to get VRR support out right away. I believe it kicks in around 40 fps. They can even unlock this framerate in this mode so it goes even higher when you arent in combat.
Tchu-Espresso
likes mayo on everthing and can't dance
Anyone with impressions of the 40fps mode?
Tchu-Espresso
likes mayo on everthing and can't dance
This should be a standard feature in games going forward. If a game can’t quite reach 60fps, lock it at 40-50 fps in a 120fps mode.
Edit: just realised 40fps is ideal here as it divides evenly into 120hz thus not even requiring VRR.
Last edited:
rickybooby87
Member
So many more games could benefit from this if you have a 120hz TV, I hope other developers take note.
Tchu-Espresso
likes mayo on everthing and can't dance
Shmunter
Member
When will wives look as good as Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart?Wife is in the mood but I just found out about this update...
ultrazilla
Gold Member
Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart is the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of 3d action games.
Remember when Horizon Zero Dawn and BOTW came out in similar time frames? I couldn't fucking play Dawn as Zelda had just trounced it IMO regarding open world games.
Same with Ratchet Rift Apart. I just let my brother
Solarstrike
borrow Sackboys's Big Adventure for the PS5 and he asked me "is it as good as Ratchet and Clank Rift?" and I just lol'd and said hell NAH.
So I'd recommend playing any open 3rd world action games in your backlog before RACRA. It's that damn good.
Remember when Horizon Zero Dawn and BOTW came out in similar time frames? I couldn't fucking play Dawn as Zelda had just trounced it IMO regarding open world games.
Same with Ratchet Rift Apart. I just let my brother
Solarstrike
borrow Sackboys's Big Adventure for the PS5 and he asked me "is it as good as Ratchet and Clank Rift?" and I just lol'd and said hell NAH.So I'd recommend playing any open 3rd world action games in your backlog before RACRA. It's that damn good.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
That's great and all but you don't need to post in giant letters.Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart is the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of 3d action games.
Remember when Horizon Zero Dawn and BOTW came out in similar time frames? I couldn't fucking play Dawn as Zelda had just trounced it IMO regarding open world games.
Same with Ratchet Rift Apart. I just let my brother
So I'd recommend playing any open 3rd world action games in your backlog before RACRA. It's that damn good.
Con_Z_ǝdʇ
Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart - Zero Punctuation - The Escapist
This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, the exclusively PlayStation 5 adventure from Insomniac Games.
www.escapistmagazine.com
Yahtzee called Rivet: "Snatchet".
Last edited:
sloppyjoe_gamer
Gold Member
Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart is the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of 3d action games.
Remember when Horizon Zero Dawn and BOTW came out in similar time frames? I couldn't fucking play Dawn as Zelda had just trounced it IMO regarding open world games.
Same with Ratchet Rift Apart. I just let my brother
So I'd recommend playing any open 3rd world action games in your backlog before RACRA. It's that damn good.
ultrazilla
Gold Member
Elbow Identity Shallow
Member
Finished my first playthrough yesterday and absolutely loved it, probably the best game in the series for me.
I completed it on whatever the standard skill level is and I do feel it was perhaps easier than the older games. I was level 10, I acquired all the available weapons, levelled them up to 5 and bought all the extras for them. Found all the Armour, Info Bots, Golden Bolts, etc before I completed it (Thanks Battleplex) which I think probably made the final event easy.
I have started a Challenge Mode playthrough so I know there's all the levelling up to do again, which I really don't mind. I do have a couple of trophies still to earn but the one thing that stands out to me is the CraiggerBears!
Maybe I'll pick a few up on my second plyathrough but I was wondering if there was anything in game which helped with collecting them? I can't see them refered to anywehre in any of my game data. So far it's really felt that the ones that I did find were down to luck more than anything? Am I missing something with these?
I'm sure once I've done my second playthough, if it is random then I'll try and find them but I don't really want to refer to an online map or something but I'm obviously not going to spend 50 hours blindly searching for the last one if I can't find it. I have 5/9 so far.
I completed it on whatever the standard skill level is and I do feel it was perhaps easier than the older games. I was level 10, I acquired all the available weapons, levelled them up to 5 and bought all the extras for them. Found all the Armour, Info Bots, Golden Bolts, etc before I completed it (Thanks Battleplex) which I think probably made the final event easy.
I have started a Challenge Mode playthrough so I know there's all the levelling up to do again, which I really don't mind. I do have a couple of trophies still to earn but the one thing that stands out to me is the CraiggerBears!
Maybe I'll pick a few up on my second plyathrough but I was wondering if there was anything in game which helped with collecting them? I can't see them refered to anywehre in any of my game data. So far it's really felt that the ones that I did find were down to luck more than anything? Am I missing something with these?
I'm sure once I've done my second playthough, if it is random then I'll try and find them but I don't really want to refer to an online map or something but I'm obviously not going to spend 50 hours blindly searching for the last one if I can't find it. I have 5/9 so far.
Salmon Snake
Member
Just platinumed the game!
What an awesome time I had with it. The only Ratchet game I've played before this was the 2016 remake, which I enjoyed a little bit more than this one.
It felt a little buggy at times, but what wizards Insomniac's crew are?
The game is so pretty and buttery smooth on RT 60 mode.
Also the load times are just so fast that I really feel like playing Super Nintendo.
Rivet is great, but Ratchet is number one Lombax ❤
What an awesome time I had with it. The only Ratchet game I've played before this was the 2016 remake, which I enjoyed a little bit more than this one.
It felt a little buggy at times, but what wizards Insomniac's crew are?
The game is so pretty and buttery smooth on RT 60 mode.
Also the load times are just so fast that I really feel like playing Super Nintendo.
Rivet is great, but Ratchet is number one Lombax ❤
Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart is the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of 3d action games.
Remember when Horizon Zero Dawn and BOTW came out in similar time frames? I couldn't fucking play Dawn as Zelda had just trounced it IMO regarding open world games.
Same with Ratchet Rift Apart. I just let my brother
So I'd recommend playing any open 3rd world action games in your backlog before RACRA. It's that damn good.
sainraja
Member
I can relate. Breath of the Wild made it hard to go back to many games for me for a while. lol. Nintendo nailed it with BOTW.Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart is the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of 3d action games.
Remember when Horizon Zero Dawn and BOTW came out in similar time frames? I couldn't fucking play Dawn as Zelda had just trounced it IMO regarding open world games.
Same with Ratchet Rift Apart. I just let my brother
So I'd recommend playing any open 3rd world action games in your backlog before RACRA. It's that damn good.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
This game is insane.
3liteDragon
Member
What TV is that?This game is insane.
Ogbert
Member
Nah.Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart is the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of 3d action games.
Remember when Horizon Zero Dawn and BOTW came out in similar time frames? I couldn't fucking play Dawn as Zelda had just trounced it IMO regarding open world games.
Same with Ratchet Rift Apart. I just let my brother
So I'd recommend playing any open 3rd world action games in your backlog before RACRA. It's that damn good.
Visually, it is without peer. Incredible.
But as a game, it does nothing new. Beat it over a weekend and uninstalled it.
FunkMiller
Member
Looks like a fellow LG CX owner to me.
Playing a game on a new mid-tier TV reminds me of wandering into Toys R Us, CompUSA, or an arcade as a kid and seeing a game that looked just better -- just not possible on my 486/NES/Genesis/etc. Kinda like seeing Mario 64, That FF Ultra 64 demo, Quake, etc. Those were obviously much more drastic jumps in quality but it's tickling that same nerve and nostalgia center in my brain.
What a joyful game.
What a joyful game.
How do I unlock the rest of the story? I’ve started to think about selling the game.
Last edited:
Con_Z_ǝdʇ
Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
We didn't need 4 gigantic shots for that!Nothing is unlocking for me in the story after Cordelion and all I have left to do are some boring taks like help Trudi in Sargasso or win the bronze cup in Scarstu. My save file says I’m only at 55% progress.
How do I unlock the rest of the story? I’ve started to think about selling the game.
Doesn't the game always tell you where to go?
I didn’t realise and I edited. I had been posting from my phone. Apologies.We didn't need 4 gigantic shots for that!
Doesn't the game always tell you where to go?
yes it’s telling me I’ve cleared all the planets and it’s telling me where to find Trudi or where to earn my bronze medal. Have I fiiished the game? Surely that dimensionator has to be put to use?
LordCBH
Member
Go help Trudi!
This game is insane.
did you make your own ambilight? i'm about to build one using a pi and addressable rgb leds.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Close. LG C1 77” . Highly recommend.
Govee Immersion kit. It’s fantastic. Bought two for my game room and living room. 70 bucks.
VeganElduderino
Member
i just finished it , it was just awsome the whole time , i can't wait to see what they will come up with for the next titles , it was pure fun and the best looking game i've seen.
i want MOREEEEE 10 out of fucking 10
i want MOREEEEE 10 out of fucking 10
leo-j
Member
I wish the game was way longer than it was. Just got the platinum for it. You don’t have to complete challenge mode or get the gold bolts to get the trophy either.
Another 5 hours would have been great. They really should consider an open world ratchet and clank using this engine. The open levels were phenomenal.
Another 5 hours would have been great. They really should consider an open world ratchet and clank using this engine. The open levels were phenomenal.
So I'm now done with the game, took me about 60h to get through it without getting hit on Renegade Legend.
What I find a bit of a pity is that they didn't have the courage again to experiment more or to offer something non-linear like in previous R&C games...
Especially with Rivet it would have been great to establish a second character with a different skillset/tools to e.g. visit planets several times with the different characters to reach different places. In previous R&C games, it was basically standard to come back again (not only because the gold bolts were much better hidden) because you lacked the equipment to reach certain areas.
Similar to e.g. Orxon in R&C 1 which you first explore with Clank and later when you have the right equipment you experience the planet again from Ratchet's perspective...
Unfortunately, Rivet and Kit are basically just different skins of Ratchet in terms of gameplay, I think they gave away some potential here.
The boss fights also offered very little variety. Basically, there are only nine different ones and here I am being generous in counting.
Unfortunately, I also encountered glitches and bugs more often while playing through the game. Something I have otherwise rarely encountered in Insomniac games... Probably the time pressure was somewhat to blame here... The game output of Insomniac is not to be despised...
I am left with mixed feelings... On the one hand I'm glad that Sony continues the series and doesn't drop it dead like Jak and Sly but I wish Insomniac would experiment more and try out more innovations in the game.
At least the ending hints at a sequel and maybe there will be a Rivet spin off
What I find a bit of a pity is that they didn't have the courage again to experiment more or to offer something non-linear like in previous R&C games...
Especially with Rivet it would have been great to establish a second character with a different skillset/tools to e.g. visit planets several times with the different characters to reach different places. In previous R&C games, it was basically standard to come back again (not only because the gold bolts were much better hidden) because you lacked the equipment to reach certain areas.
Similar to e.g. Orxon in R&C 1 which you first explore with Clank and later when you have the right equipment you experience the planet again from Ratchet's perspective...
Unfortunately, Rivet and Kit are basically just different skins of Ratchet in terms of gameplay, I think they gave away some potential here.
The boss fights also offered very little variety. Basically, there are only nine different ones and here I am being generous in counting.
Unfortunately, I also encountered glitches and bugs more often while playing through the game. Something I have otherwise rarely encountered in Insomniac games... Probably the time pressure was somewhat to blame here... The game output of Insomniac is not to be despised...
I am left with mixed feelings... On the one hand I'm glad that Sony continues the series and doesn't drop it dead like Jak and Sly but I wish Insomniac would experiment more and try out more innovations in the game.
At least the ending hints at a sequel and maybe there will be a Rivet spin off
Great Hair
Banned
The game dropped 2 points on Metacritic because of Tim Arsehole Chick
link (webarchive)
here the link and review, let´s not give her traffic
What a great time to be a fan of ray tracing! Whatever that is. I couldn’t tell you what ray tracing is if my life depended on it. Something to do with reflections and light? I figure it’s like lens flare: if I notice it, it’s not doing its job. But I’d have to know what it is to notice it. So, hurrah, ray tracing has finally come to Ratchet & Clank thanks to the power of the Playstation 5! And since I haven’t noticed it, it must be working!
Wait, hold on, what’s this setting in the options menu?
One of the advantages of an exclusive console game is that the designers can design for specific hardware. They know its limitations and possibilities. They know exactly what they can and can’t do. That’s how we got seminal hits like Goldeneye, Halo, and Ratchet & Clank: talented people who know exactly what hardware they’re working with so I don’t have to. I don’t even have to know what kind of graphics GPU is in a Playstation 5, which is great because I couldn’t care less. I have a PC for that. My Playstation and Switch are for when I want the minimum number of layers between me and the designer’s intended experience.
However, after some conspicuous choppiness in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, I looked more closely at the options menu. Hmm, a setting for “fidelity”. I could also choose “performance ray tracing” or just “performance”. At which point, the game ran smoothly. Of course, it also looked flatter. I don’t have the vocabulary or technical know-how to describe how different it looked, so “flatter” is all I’ve got. But throughout my time with Rift Apart, I kept second guessing whether I should have kept the option on “fidelity” or whether I should step up to “performance RT”, and did I really need to keep it on “performance”, given that I’d just paid over $500 for a system to run this particular game? So I’d change the setting and then suffer bouts of third-guessing. Followed by bouts of fourth-guessing. It was a nagging annoyance the entire time, a constant source of irritation, like tinnitus.
“Our hardware will support this feature, but you have to sacrifice frame-rate” is not a welcome addition to console gaming. And it’s not even in the top five reasons I hated Rift Apart. But I’m guessing it’s the new trend for console games. Now we get to futz with graphics settings. Now one of the main selling points of console games — designers designing to specific hardware — is gone.
Before you respond with, “But, Tom, choice is good!”, I’m going to disagree with your premise. Some choices are good. Other choices are merely cover for a designer not doing his job. Namely, tuning Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart to take full advantage of the Playstation 5, a system for which it was specifically designed. Yet it can either look good at 30 frames per second, or not look as good at 60 frames per second, or just forego ray tracing entirely at an even smoother 60 frames per second. The constant tension between looking good and running well soured what should have been bland comfort food.
Comfort food is the charitable way to put it. The more direct way to put it is this: there is nothing in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart that I haven’t already done in various Ratchet & Clanks, not to mention other action games in recent years. This is one of the least ambitious, most repetitive, least memorable videogames I have played from a AAA studio in a long time. The same weapons, the same enemies, the same levels, the same barely interactive traversal gimmicks, the same breaks in gameplay for puzzles, the same half-baked approach to collectibles and replayability, the same insipid writing, the same joylessly juvenile attempts at humor.
In terms of what’s new, there are two brief sequences on a flying lizard that don’t go anywhere. There’s a speeding beetle — called a speetle — that I sometimes ride instead of a hoverboard. But I also have jet boots where the hoverboard used to be. For the puzzle breaks, I got to play a not-very-good 3D version of Lemmings to solve dimensional instabilities. It was only while I was fussing with the graphics that I saw the option to “skip puzzle”, prominently placed in the options menu. This tells you all you need to know about Sony’s confidence in these sequences. Someone realized these bits of the game aren’t good, and they don’t fit with the rest of the game, and therefore people might not want to play them! In which case, why are they even in there? The other puzzles — also skippable — are for hacking. Hacking used to be whimsical minigames, but now I control a little crab robot that runs around shooting at stuff. I wonder whose idea it was to add running around shooting at stuff in a game already consisting of running around shooting at stuff?
Rift Apart has nothing unique or even new to offer. The same slurry of indistinguishable cartoon biomes, the same tired level design, the same progression scheme, and even the same weapons. Oh, sure, some of them have been re-themed. For instance, the last game had a disco ball I could chuck into combat. It would light up and force everyone to dance. Dancing does damage-over-time, of course. But in Rift Apart, I throw out a lawn sprinkler that turns everyone into topiary versions of themselves. Being a topiary does damage over time, of course. Well, it will when you upgrade it. Like dancing. One important difference is that dancing meant new animations for each of the enemies. But being a topiary version of something is just a reskinning. Which tells you all you need to know about Sony’s lack of creativity when it comes to weapons in Rift Apart. Ratchet & Clank used to be a showcase for clever weapon design, for cool guns, for interesting interactions between what you’re shooting and what you’re shooting at. Now it’s just a repository for half-hearted reskins and stale ideas.
Consider how some of these weapons supposedly support the new Playstation 5 controller. They have different effects based on whether you pull the trigger half way or all the way. Yet so many of these functions could have instead been slaved to the left trigger. The blaster pistol shoots slowly but more accurately if I pull the trigger half way. But if I pull the trigger down all the way, the blaster pistol shoots more quickly but less accurately. That could have been mapped to two different controls. Say, left trigger and right trigger. In fact, that’s how many of the weapons work. Most of the “pull the trigger half way” effects call up a throwing arc. Which is also what the left trigger does. There’s no reason the left trigger couldn’t be used for different firing modes. No reason other than Sony wanting you to think Rift Apart would only work on a brand new Playstation 5.
Even the central conceit is tired. Rifts are nothing more than fixed grappling hook points. And before anyone points out that some rifts spawn enemies, how is spawning enemies out of mid-air any different than a hundred other games? It’s especially insulting how Sony has touted rifts as somehow showcasing the unique power of the Playstation 5 to instantly move me around between levels. Yet I’m riding the same slow elevators, and sitting through the same spaceship loading screens, and plodding through the same scripted traversal conversations, and riding out the same pointless rail grind sequences. Claiming that rifts somehow improve the experience or leverage the unique power of Sony’s new hardware is blatant gaslighting. Marketing at its most shameless. Presenting a heavily scripted grappling hook as a selling point for a $500 hardware boondoggle. That tells you all you need to know about Ratchet & Clank developer Insomniac finally becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony.
I suppose some people play Ratchet & Clank for the story, which makes sense if you’ve only ever played A Crack in Time. Otherwise, the writing in these games has been sophomoric and derivative for a long time. It’s watery glue dribbled into the cracks between desultory levels. It’s forced and unfunny jokes, lacking any charm or personality. Rift Apart probably thinks it’s being clever by introducing a lady Clank and a lady Ratchet, but like the difference between the disco ball and the lawn sprinkler, it’s just a low-effort reskinning. It doesn’t help that most of the story is the same three or four voice actors doing the same tedious schtick for the umpteenth time. To explain the weapons, the Dr. Nefarious voice actor just screams into the mic, like a cross between Tiny Tina and Bobcat Goldthwait. The difference being that Tiny Tina and, to a lesser degree, Bobcat Goldthwait are actually funny. There is not a single worthwhile joke in this limp excuse for a comedy. The unintentional recurring joke is that it takes four button presses to skip a cutscene, and cutscenes often play in back-to-back sequences of three or four at a time, each of which must be skipped separately. The joke’s on me for not wanting to sit through these painfully unfunny cinematics, especially for the obligatory second playthrough (talk about re-using assets!).
It’s not even a very polished game. There’s far too much falling off or even through the level design. I got stuck on the level geometry several times. I had a number of weird sound bugs that had me digging around in the audio settings. I’ve never had to dig around in audio settings on a console game! Yet I spent more time in the options menu of Rift Apart than I’ve spent in the options menus of all the previous games combined. You’d think Sony would know their own hardware better than this.
And to top it all off, it’s a short game (“This food is lousy…and such small portions!”). The whole thing is linear, with occasional choices of which order to do the next two missions, with only minimal exploration, and very few side quests. The optional pocket dimension puzzles are all junky asset recycling. Sony’s new trophy system expects you to pay a monthly fee if you want to get hints for how to finish the trophies, which might be one of the crassest uses of a monthly fee this side of Nintendo’s online tomfoolery. I guess I would have objected more strenuously if I thought I couldn’t find online whatever information is locked behind the monthly fee, or if I cared about trophies. Rift Apart also includes a constant nag to upgrade to some premium version which has deluxe skins and the promise of unique content. Maybe that’s where the rest of the game went. Behind the markup for the premium version.
There was a kind of magic in the early Ratchet & Clank games, and then a competence in the later lesser games. The frenetic onscreen chaos of wacky cartoon monsters, smashed crates, imaginative gunplay, and a swarm of bouncing coins was a true joy as we all discovered it twenty years ago. These days, it’s all on offer in a hundred different games. But without the magic or at least the competence, it’s just a flurry of sloppy colors and shapes, a whirlwind of ineffectual nostalgia, absent any innovation, creativity, confidence, or finesse. It took many years, but now that it’s being used to prop up a piece of hardware, Ratchet & Clank finally feels like the soulless corporate property it’s become.
link (webarchive)
here the link and review, let´s not give her traffic
Rift Apart brings ray tracing — and not much else — to Ratchet & Clank (score 1/5)
What a great time to be a fan of ray tracing! Whatever that is. I couldn’t tell you what ray tracing is if my life depended on it. Something to do with reflections and light? I figure it’s like lens flare: if I notice it, it’s not doing its job. But I’d have to know what it is to notice it. So, hurrah, ray tracing has finally come to Ratchet & Clank thanks to the power of the Playstation 5! And since I haven’t noticed it, it must be working!
Wait, hold on, what’s this setting in the options menu?
One of the advantages of an exclusive console game is that the designers can design for specific hardware. They know its limitations and possibilities. They know exactly what they can and can’t do. That’s how we got seminal hits like Goldeneye, Halo, and Ratchet & Clank: talented people who know exactly what hardware they’re working with so I don’t have to. I don’t even have to know what kind of graphics GPU is in a Playstation 5, which is great because I couldn’t care less. I have a PC for that. My Playstation and Switch are for when I want the minimum number of layers between me and the designer’s intended experience.
However, after some conspicuous choppiness in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, I looked more closely at the options menu. Hmm, a setting for “fidelity”. I could also choose “performance ray tracing” or just “performance”. At which point, the game ran smoothly. Of course, it also looked flatter. I don’t have the vocabulary or technical know-how to describe how different it looked, so “flatter” is all I’ve got. But throughout my time with Rift Apart, I kept second guessing whether I should have kept the option on “fidelity” or whether I should step up to “performance RT”, and did I really need to keep it on “performance”, given that I’d just paid over $500 for a system to run this particular game? So I’d change the setting and then suffer bouts of third-guessing. Followed by bouts of fourth-guessing. It was a nagging annoyance the entire time, a constant source of irritation, like tinnitus.
“Our hardware will support this feature, but you have to sacrifice frame-rate” is not a welcome addition to console gaming. And it’s not even in the top five reasons I hated Rift Apart. But I’m guessing it’s the new trend for console games. Now we get to futz with graphics settings. Now one of the main selling points of console games — designers designing to specific hardware — is gone.
Before you respond with, “But, Tom, choice is good!”, I’m going to disagree with your premise. Some choices are good. Other choices are merely cover for a designer not doing his job. Namely, tuning Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart to take full advantage of the Playstation 5, a system for which it was specifically designed. Yet it can either look good at 30 frames per second, or not look as good at 60 frames per second, or just forego ray tracing entirely at an even smoother 60 frames per second. The constant tension between looking good and running well soured what should have been bland comfort food.
Comfort food is the charitable way to put it. The more direct way to put it is this: there is nothing in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart that I haven’t already done in various Ratchet & Clanks, not to mention other action games in recent years. This is one of the least ambitious, most repetitive, least memorable videogames I have played from a AAA studio in a long time. The same weapons, the same enemies, the same levels, the same barely interactive traversal gimmicks, the same breaks in gameplay for puzzles, the same half-baked approach to collectibles and replayability, the same insipid writing, the same joylessly juvenile attempts at humor.
In terms of what’s new, there are two brief sequences on a flying lizard that don’t go anywhere. There’s a speeding beetle — called a speetle — that I sometimes ride instead of a hoverboard. But I also have jet boots where the hoverboard used to be. For the puzzle breaks, I got to play a not-very-good 3D version of Lemmings to solve dimensional instabilities. It was only while I was fussing with the graphics that I saw the option to “skip puzzle”, prominently placed in the options menu. This tells you all you need to know about Sony’s confidence in these sequences. Someone realized these bits of the game aren’t good, and they don’t fit with the rest of the game, and therefore people might not want to play them! In which case, why are they even in there? The other puzzles — also skippable — are for hacking. Hacking used to be whimsical minigames, but now I control a little crab robot that runs around shooting at stuff. I wonder whose idea it was to add running around shooting at stuff in a game already consisting of running around shooting at stuff?
Rift Apart has nothing unique or even new to offer. The same slurry of indistinguishable cartoon biomes, the same tired level design, the same progression scheme, and even the same weapons. Oh, sure, some of them have been re-themed. For instance, the last game had a disco ball I could chuck into combat. It would light up and force everyone to dance. Dancing does damage-over-time, of course. But in Rift Apart, I throw out a lawn sprinkler that turns everyone into topiary versions of themselves. Being a topiary does damage over time, of course. Well, it will when you upgrade it. Like dancing. One important difference is that dancing meant new animations for each of the enemies. But being a topiary version of something is just a reskinning. Which tells you all you need to know about Sony’s lack of creativity when it comes to weapons in Rift Apart. Ratchet & Clank used to be a showcase for clever weapon design, for cool guns, for interesting interactions between what you’re shooting and what you’re shooting at. Now it’s just a repository for half-hearted reskins and stale ideas.
Consider how some of these weapons supposedly support the new Playstation 5 controller. They have different effects based on whether you pull the trigger half way or all the way. Yet so many of these functions could have instead been slaved to the left trigger. The blaster pistol shoots slowly but more accurately if I pull the trigger half way. But if I pull the trigger down all the way, the blaster pistol shoots more quickly but less accurately. That could have been mapped to two different controls. Say, left trigger and right trigger. In fact, that’s how many of the weapons work. Most of the “pull the trigger half way” effects call up a throwing arc. Which is also what the left trigger does. There’s no reason the left trigger couldn’t be used for different firing modes. No reason other than Sony wanting you to think Rift Apart would only work on a brand new Playstation 5.
Even the central conceit is tired. Rifts are nothing more than fixed grappling hook points. And before anyone points out that some rifts spawn enemies, how is spawning enemies out of mid-air any different than a hundred other games? It’s especially insulting how Sony has touted rifts as somehow showcasing the unique power of the Playstation 5 to instantly move me around between levels. Yet I’m riding the same slow elevators, and sitting through the same spaceship loading screens, and plodding through the same scripted traversal conversations, and riding out the same pointless rail grind sequences. Claiming that rifts somehow improve the experience or leverage the unique power of Sony’s new hardware is blatant gaslighting. Marketing at its most shameless. Presenting a heavily scripted grappling hook as a selling point for a $500 hardware boondoggle. That tells you all you need to know about Ratchet & Clank developer Insomniac finally becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony.
I suppose some people play Ratchet & Clank for the story, which makes sense if you’ve only ever played A Crack in Time. Otherwise, the writing in these games has been sophomoric and derivative for a long time. It’s watery glue dribbled into the cracks between desultory levels. It’s forced and unfunny jokes, lacking any charm or personality. Rift Apart probably thinks it’s being clever by introducing a lady Clank and a lady Ratchet, but like the difference between the disco ball and the lawn sprinkler, it’s just a low-effort reskinning. It doesn’t help that most of the story is the same three or four voice actors doing the same tedious schtick for the umpteenth time. To explain the weapons, the Dr. Nefarious voice actor just screams into the mic, like a cross between Tiny Tina and Bobcat Goldthwait. The difference being that Tiny Tina and, to a lesser degree, Bobcat Goldthwait are actually funny. There is not a single worthwhile joke in this limp excuse for a comedy. The unintentional recurring joke is that it takes four button presses to skip a cutscene, and cutscenes often play in back-to-back sequences of three or four at a time, each of which must be skipped separately. The joke’s on me for not wanting to sit through these painfully unfunny cinematics, especially for the obligatory second playthrough (talk about re-using assets!).
It’s not even a very polished game. There’s far too much falling off or even through the level design. I got stuck on the level geometry several times. I had a number of weird sound bugs that had me digging around in the audio settings. I’ve never had to dig around in audio settings on a console game! Yet I spent more time in the options menu of Rift Apart than I’ve spent in the options menus of all the previous games combined. You’d think Sony would know their own hardware better than this.
And to top it all off, it’s a short game (“This food is lousy…and such small portions!”). The whole thing is linear, with occasional choices of which order to do the next two missions, with only minimal exploration, and very few side quests. The optional pocket dimension puzzles are all junky asset recycling. Sony’s new trophy system expects you to pay a monthly fee if you want to get hints for how to finish the trophies, which might be one of the crassest uses of a monthly fee this side of Nintendo’s online tomfoolery. I guess I would have objected more strenuously if I thought I couldn’t find online whatever information is locked behind the monthly fee, or if I cared about trophies. Rift Apart also includes a constant nag to upgrade to some premium version which has deluxe skins and the promise of unique content. Maybe that’s where the rest of the game went. Behind the markup for the premium version.
There was a kind of magic in the early Ratchet & Clank games, and then a competence in the later lesser games. The frenetic onscreen chaos of wacky cartoon monsters, smashed crates, imaginative gunplay, and a swarm of bouncing coins was a true joy as we all discovered it twenty years ago. These days, it’s all on offer in a hundred different games. But without the magic or at least the competence, it’s just a flurry of sloppy colors and shapes, a whirlwind of ineffectual nostalgia, absent any innovation, creativity, confidence, or finesse. It took many years, but now that it’s being used to prop up a piece of hardware, Ratchet & Clank finally feels like the soulless corporate property it’s become.
Shmunter
Member
Someone’s looking for attention…
VeganElduderino
Member
you call that a online attention whore
RPS37
Member
Just finished TLOU2 and immediately jumped into this.
Played up to the title screen.
Holy shit.
This should’ve been my first experience with the PS5.
How the Hell am I going to finish Horizon, Miles Morales, Death Stranding DC, and Ghost of Tsushima when I’ve got this in front of me?
Played up to the title screen.
Holy shit.
This should’ve been my first experience with the PS5.
How the Hell am I going to finish Horizon, Miles Morales, Death Stranding DC, and Ghost of Tsushima when I’ve got this in front of me?
jakinov
Member
I just got platinum. The game was fun but it was an extremely buggy experience. I kept getting stuck, bosses would turn invicible forcing me to restart the fight, I got stuck in a pocket dimension and had to reload a backup save (apparently this issue was reported months ago and Insoniac acknoloedged but never fiaxed)., a cutsene wouldn't play, an important platforming part had graphical hiccups where I couldn't see where to go, and audio for certain characters would disappear at certain parts requireming me to relaunch to fix.
The CraigBears not showing up in the UI and not being easiy discovereable in the game was also annoying. The game could have been a little longer too. You get veryt strong by the end of the game and a lot of mechanics but you don't get to use them for long.
The CraigBears not showing up in the UI and not being easiy discovereable in the game was also annoying. The game could have been a little longer too. You get veryt strong by the end of the game and a lot of mechanics but you don't get to use them for long.
Yamisan
Member
Did a patch break the game or something? I had no issues like that at launch o.o
jakinov
Member
Probablyt not. You can find various people complaining in the last several months on other sites. The thing about bugs in general is now everybody hits them.. It might just be my playstyle. I played on harder difficulty too so enemies are doing more than lower difficulties and I myself play aggresively. I'm zooming through with those roller boots when traveling everywhere and even in combat. In combat, I'm using multiple weapons at once to try and max them out so there's a lot going on (for excample, mr fungi flying around, bomabardiers shooting peope, sprinklers, people frozen, electrucuted, ricochets bouncing around and I'm also very quick and aggresive. By thazt I mean for some of the bosses glitching over and over again I figured out was often because I shot at them as soon as I could and it showed i was "damaging" them which seemed great but in reality it just glitched them befcause they were supposed to do some animation to be vulnerable again when they leave the map (doing an attack or they leave to spawn enemies) but I blocked them from doing it by shooting at them too early and they get stuck.
Also a lot of the bugs were fixed by relaunching so it shows that the game just gets into bad states in memory which is likely a result of what I do differnetly than the people that don't get their game in bad states.
RPS37
Member
Game is STILL just so enjoyable.
I already have a couple weapons fully upgraded.
Graphics continue to impress.
I should’ve known I would love this game after loving Tools of Destruction and the PS4 remake.
Crazy to play this after finishing Psychonauts 2 and TLOU2.
Really want to finish Zero Dawn before this, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
I also have GOTDC over on the side giving me the eye.
I already have a couple weapons fully upgraded.
Graphics continue to impress.
I should’ve known I would love this game after loving Tools of Destruction and the PS4 remake.
Crazy to play this after finishing Psychonauts 2 and TLOU2.
Really want to finish Zero Dawn before this, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
I also have GOTDC over on the side giving me the eye.
Last edited:
skit_data
Member
Playing it now via PS Plus, never bought it (too many other games that were simply higher up on my list).
Its a very solid game, I found it to be a lot better than the PS4 Remake of the first game. The characters and script feels well written and that results in the game being surprisingly engaging for what it is. Performance RT mode is simply awesome, easily my favourite mode in terms of visuals. It's a shame so few developers actually offer a mode with similar settings.
However... I'm honestly a bit shocked by how often the geometry of the level/area seem to cause you to either get stuck or simply die by falling through it. I can understand it happening in some of areas you're really not to go (like many of the areas of the swamp where Rivet has her hideout) but it happens every now and then when you're just traversing the critical path to next objective. Has it been like this since launch? Was it even worse at launch than now?
Its a very solid game, I found it to be a lot better than the PS4 Remake of the first game. The characters and script feels well written and that results in the game being surprisingly engaging for what it is. Performance RT mode is simply awesome, easily my favourite mode in terms of visuals. It's a shame so few developers actually offer a mode with similar settings.
However... I'm honestly a bit shocked by how often the geometry of the level/area seem to cause you to either get stuck or simply die by falling through it. I can understand it happening in some of areas you're really not to go (like many of the areas of the swamp where Rivet has her hideout) but it happens every now and then when you're just traversing the critical path to next objective. Has it been like this since launch? Was it even worse at launch than now?
Similar threads
- Poll