With the swipe of a ratchet and the clang of bolts scattering the vast lands of your tv screen, the new Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time continues the story of our beloved heroes.

All that aside, this has been a great game so far. Being a student and pressed for time I find myself limited to playing games that are easy to pick up and put down again, and with Ratchet and Clank I’ve always been able to accomplish that. And this newest installment to the series didn’t fail to deliver.

If you’ve played all the Ratchet and Clank games up until this point, this story line is a nice continuation. If you’re like me, however, you got too busy to finish Tools of Destruction, but didn’t want to miss out when a Crack in Time came out. (What can I say, sometimes I’m just impatient). Well never fear in that department…the game provides a recap video at the beginning of the game thorough enough that I felt as if I were fully caught up yet short and sweet enough I didn’t feel as if half my youth and beauty (…) had been wasted away.

Depending on what you were looking for in this new addition to the series, it’s going to be more or less the same as all the others as far as game play. Running around and shooting things and hitting them with your wrench. Maybe that’s your cup of joe, maybe it’s not.

The nice twist this new game offers is now that Clank is separated from Ratchet, he gets almost the same amount of screen time. You move back and forth in the story line, sometimes playing as Ratchet and sometimes playing as Clank. The cool thing is the the varied game play. Ratchet is his old hitting and shooting self, but the Clank levels mix it up with a more puzzle based approach.

One of the big issues that I have with this game isn’t even a big issue. It just irks my style of game play. When another character is talking to you, you are forced to stay within a close proximity of that talking person the whole time. I like to explore and play with random items during all this. Sure I could just ignore what he or she is saying, but heaven forbid I miss something important as I see a box I can smash and their voice fades into nothingness as I walk away….

The weapon selection, of course, has been one of the main trademark of these games and A Crack In Time certainly doesn’t skimp on it. The big shift, however, is the type of weapons you have in this game. In Tools of Destruction, for example, you had more of a diverse set of weapons. You could throw a bomb, you could shoot a rocket, you had an electrical whip, etc. With Crack in Time the tools you get as Ratchet aren’t quite as diverse. But instead of choosing from a variety of weapons, you instead get a base weapon (a gun, a bomb) etc. with different cool upgrades or “mods” you can get for them.

And for the fashonista in you (it’s ok, we won’t judge) there is a new feature where you can paint your weapons.

Classy? No?

Not only do these mini-quests make for a little pick-up game play, they are amazing to watch visually. There is a part of the game where you fly around to little planets which have been crafted to have its own visually stimulating quirks be it ice, fire, rock or grass. Running around the small spherical world a-la Mario Galaxy, with small details here and there that catch your eye and are so cool looking that you accidentally run into a pile of hot lava. (No? Just me? ok…).

What I thought was really interesting are the cutscenes you get when you acquire a new weapon. They show 50′s cartoon looking versions of all the characters showing you how to use the weapon. Odd, but a neat feature.

I’m not a rich man, and I don’t have a very classy tv (In fact it’s about 10inches and is roughly about that many years old too) yet this game still looks amazing on it. I think I would keel over dead if I ever saw it on a real screen.

Second Opinion(from MidwestGamer aka Zack):

Cassi’s review up there pretty much covers everything that I would want to cover while discussing this game, so I’ll keep it brief.

I’m just gonna preface this by saying that this game is definitely in the running for one of the top 3 games of the year. Aside from the fact that it has a great story, great graphics, great music, great sound effects, great controls, and great greatness, this game is just a whole lot of fun. That alone is what separates this game from so many other games of 2009. Even if a game is critically regarded as “great”, it could honestly be no fun at all to play. (i.e. this or this) But that is not the case with Ratchet and Clank-A Crack in Time. It is, perhaps, the most fun I’ve had on a PS3 all year. (Except for, you know, this.) Insomniac took a masterful formula, from a masterful series, and cranked it up to 11. No matter what was happening in the game, I always had a smile on my face. And I feel like that is review enough for a game. Pure, unadulterated joy.