Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters

This latest installment in the Ratchet & Clank series is as enjoyable, well-designed, and well-humored as its recent predecessor, Secret Agent Clank. It’s a pleasure to play; I was a bit sad when I finished it.


Review of Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
by X-34 minus 5R1-6X36



Size Matters’s story presents the player with an array of diverse challenges, which range in difficulty from Quite Easy to Damnably Difficult. (I lied in the above paragraph: I’m actually still stuck on the game’s final boss.) The characters – you play most of the game as Ratchet, and a series of isolated challenges as Clank – develop their skills organically: a host of creatively designed tasks allow you to familiarize yourself with the wide array of weapons and gadgets, so that you may synthesize your skills as the game progresses. (The devices themselves merit a tangent. Some, like the Bee Mine glove, are massively useful: I get the sense that I used it more often than the designers intended me to, but the game is supple enough to allow for such “unconventional” usage. Others, like the Acid Bomb Glove and the Concussion Gun, don’t really distinguish themselves. I tried many many times to use them effectively, but they didn’t really seem to do very much. Among the gadgets, the PDA, which allows you to reload all weapons from any location – not just from ammo-vendors – is indispensable. But I still don’t like the clunky weapons-selection interface.) Perhaps “astounded” is too strong a word, but I was highly impressed at the range of missions and obstacles. They are so diverse as to genuinely prepare the player for the game’s steadily mounting difficulty.

To me, this is good game design. Great care has been taken to allow the player to hone, combine, and refine the essential skills of gameplay.

Another standout element of Size Matters is its goofy sense of humor. Many games are either needlessly portentous or limply unsuccessful in their attempts at humor, so it’s nice to see one hit the mark. I mean, you probably won’t laugh your head off, or anything, but the game maintains a pleasantly goofy, lighthearted tone that complements nicely its many scenes of ass-kicking. The pop-culture-savvy are rewarded with occasional movie references, including a lovely citation of North by Northwest.

I’d like to give some props to the game’s composer, as well. The score for Size Matters is catchy without being irritating, and as diverse as the game’s array of obstacles and enemies. I detected a few nods to the work of Jerry Goldsmith, one of the great Hollywood composers, specifically to his score for Gremlins.

Oddly, I find myself without a great deal more to say about Size Matters, though this is not for want of a positive response to the game. Honestly, it’s everything a game ought to be: very fun, challenging, diverse, creative, humorous, colorful; the game is well-designed, and offers an array, both broad and deep, of tasks, subgames, and missions that should engage gamers of all levels. It’s a fine franchise, and I hope they keep ‘em coming.

Approximate hours played: 20

Will I play it more?: Well, no, but only because I finished it. If I had the inclination to continue, though, the game offers a large number of challenges to which one may return at any point. Unlike my esteemed colleague Tanx, I am not a videogame completist, so I didn’t mind skipping some of these. Suffice it to say, though, that if you really like this game, you can play it for a really long time, gaining skill points, etc., all along.