Secret Agent Clank

Since this is the first video game I'd played regularly in some years, I was more than a little daunted when I leafed through the manual for Secret Agent Clank. I mean, the manual for, say, Duck Hunt said little more than “Shoot the ducks, not the irritating dog.” I would be playing as more than one character? I would drive vehicles? I would have to memorize button combinations? Apparently, it's not just the manuals that have changed since the Duck Hunt era.

Review: Secret Agent Clank
Approximate hours played: 10-12
Reviewed by: X-34 minus 5R1-6X36


But I should take a step back: before embarking on Secret Agent Clank's fun / silly / challenging missions, I had held a Sony PlayStation Portable (that's a PSP, folks) in my hands approximately once. It seemed nice, but it seemed to have too many buttons. I'm happy to report not only that I now know my Square from my Circle, but that Secret Agent Clank is a game well-suited to someone who wants to orient him- or herself to the particulars of PSP operation: the game is a good match for this system, by which I mean that the controls and combinations are neither too complex for rapidly flying thumbs, nor are they too simplistic. To succeed at this game, one needs good, solid dexterity, but nothing, really, beyond that

Secret Agent Clank cleverly farms out its diverse array of skill-tests to its four main characters. The titular hero handles the main gaming action, advancing the story and participating in a varied array of activities: puzzle-solving, bad-guy-smashing, and the like. My favorite part of playing as Clank was the game's “Stealth Bonus” feature, which awards points based on how subtly you take out the badsters. While there's plenty of shooting and blowing things up, the emphasis on less bruiserish skills lends the game a welcome extra dimension.

The game's narrative has Ratchet, Clank's pal, wrongly arrested for some sort of space-jewel heist. Ratchet is in jail for a large part of the story, and the game designers have opted to use this character as a means for the player to work on his or her fightin' skills. Clad in jailbird stripes, Ratchet's part in the game consists mainly of getting into fights with an array of prisoners, in all of whose incarcerations he apparently played some part.

When playing as the Gadgebots, one operates three identical droidlike fellas whose limited array of actions (stand on each other's shoulders, wait, follow, or bite things) force the player to do more with less. Some of the Gadgebot missions were perhaps too challenging, but the intention behind their characters is to be praised.

The primary highlight of playing as boastful, would-be superhero Qwark is getting to kick the bejabbers out of both giant flying Godzilla things and gigantic explosive robot ninjas. One can hardly ask for more.

I found most of the “missions,” in which you hone various skills (shooting, puzzle-solving, jumping, etc.) that you'll use in the game's main narrative, to be enjoyable and duly designed to reward practice. I'll credit the designers, rather than any learning curve I may have climbed, for devising these missions so that you truly do gain skills by repeated attempts. This seems praiseworthy to me: you don't want a game to be either too easy or too hard, and Secret Agent Clank maintains an apt balance.

And I may be the only game-player (I haven't earned the sobriquet “gamer” yet) who doesn't much care for the Guitar Hero-style puzzle in which one must hit specified buttons at specified times, but games of this kind are just not that interesting to me. They're just raw mechanics and timing, it seems to me; I'd rather employ skills like those in a denser game. Secret Agent Clank, by incorporating such elements here and there, dates itself as having been produced in the Guitar Hero era. The missions which employ these skills fall a little bit flat, but they're generally tempered with enough gentle, oddball humor that it's not much of a problem.

Most of the weapons had clear, obvious benefits, but there were some which I either couldn't get to work quite right, or which didn't wind up performing especially distinctive functions. (Probably the former.) Neither did I care for the weapon-switching interface, which took a long while to get right. One nifty weapon which merits mention is the Bee Mine Glove, which releases upon thine enemies a swarm of robotic apian chaos. Awesome.

Secret Agent Clank is an enjoyable, pleasingly daffy game whose strength lies in its testing of multiple types and levels of players' skill. It also happens to be, I've found, ideally suited for novice PSPers. Any faults are pretty minor, and the game's universe is large, richly detailed, and fun to explore. Clank is no clunker; it clicks.