Oddities and the PlayStation 5
Sep. 27th, 2021 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peeeeeeetI got a PS5. RTD is making more Doctor Who and JMS is rebooting Babylon 5. Perhaps humanity is stuck at the end of a record, the needle just going round and round. Who knows. Observations about the PS5:
It is not that diff from the PS4. It is really more of a PS4.2 or something. Yes, I noticed that baked reflections were higher res, and of course loading times are very fast indeed. But other than that, there wasn't the "this is a NEW GENERATION!" feel like going from PS1 to PS2 or PS2 to PS3. Honestly, the PS3 still holds up. I replayed FF XIII-2 recently and the only thing that ages it is the frame rate drops in places. Also whenever they do a close up on someone's hands they have weird sausage fingers. One thing about the PS5 is that they automatically record 14 seconds of video when you get a trophy and I wondered why I had so many recordings when I hadn't manually made any. I can imagine this filling up the drive after a while if you don't go in and manually remove them, and the interface hides a lot of options beneath layers of menus (even quitting a game is about three menu layers deep).
The game I played was RATCHET AND CLANK: RIFT APART and I'm afraid to say it was a chore to get through, and is probably tied for my least favourite of the series with either Quest for Booty or Nexus (I haven't played QfB for a while). Gameplay wise, aside from a newly spasmodic camera, the series has barely evolved since the second or third game; combat consists of strafing around having let loose two or three auto-aim thingies and is generally towards the bullet-hell side of modern combat rather than the cover-sniping of Naughty Dog / Tomb Raider. In principle I prefer this more kinetic, less repetitive style but familiarity eventually breeds contempt and this is the point at which I think I've had my fill. What's frustrating is that there were several obvious ways in which the combat could have been freshened up, which we'll get to shortly, but the general timidity and anxiety of AAA budgets - "we spent five years on this, we must not do a single thing that might piss off any player" - has again paralysed imagination.
SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT:
So, where does the game come in, storywise? We must assume that the Quark-narrated reboot is uncanon, since the developers have gone back to the last PS3 games and carried on from there. This assumes you are familiar with the PS3 arc, which involves a maguffin called the dimensionator and the idea that every Lombax who isn't Ratchet is hiding in another dimension. Now, I'm all for an arc, and I do accept that at present this arc consists of only three full-length games and two short ones and is thus not *that* long-winded, but it did begin around a decade ago now and it is perhaps time it was resolved. Rift Apart ends on pretty much the same cliffhanger that at least one of the previous games ended on, which is whether or not Ratchet will actually go find the Lombaxes or not. I don't mind in principle a Hamlet-style dilemma, but I do wish he would make up his mind once and for all. Actually, I thought he had; the premise of this game is that, having decided he WASN'T going to find the other Lombaxes, Clank built another dimensionator somehow and intended to give it as a present to Ratchet for some reason, but Dr Nefarious stole it? So, honestly, it's a fake premise contrived only to force yet another revolution of the record.
Ah yes, Dr Nefarious. In his first game, the third PS2 one (they have subtitles, or at least in the US they did, but like Bond films they're all a bit interchangeable), he was a hilarious spoof of cheesy villains, with a clear and comprehensible plan and a wonderful foil in Lawrence, his sarcastic valet. I accepted, grudgingly, when he was retrofitted into the reboot (and the movie), even if it meant the film couldn't decide whether he or Drek was the true antagonist; but this is an appearance too far. He's predictable, two dimensional and dull, dull, dull. Having surgically removed all the satire and parody of the earlier games, he is now exactly what he was originally lampooning. It's as if they made an Austin Powers film that was serious and emotional and Dr Evil was treated as a credible villain.
While I'm hating on characters, RIVET. OH GOD. The series doesn't do spectacularly well with female characters, but this is the nadir. Entirely without distinct personality or background, she spouts predictable dialogue throughout. Angela Cross was a scientist, a spy and a goofy klutz (and had the subtle joke of being the only person in the universe with a normal name), and she wasn't even playable. There is no excuse for how lazy and pandering Rivet is. Especially since, with every other "variation on an existing character" they put effort into pointing up the differences. Captain Quantum is a pirate pretending to be a robot, for heaven's sake. Rivet reacts the same as Ratchet, says the same things, and as for gameplay, has the same moveset and loadouts. Throughout the game you alternate between the two, but you don't *feel* like you're doing that, since they are identical in every way that matters. Why not instead have them fight alongside one another, like Atreus and Kratos in God of War, or like 9S and 2B in Nier Automata? Like those games, one could focus more on melee, the other on range or defence. Then the differences and similarities could develop in an organic way. As it is, there's honestly little reason for both to be in the game.
Thankfully that's less true of Kit, Clank's counterpart. With headlamps that look like cute little bunches, she is rather adorable, but where she really scores is in her backstory, which takes elements of Clank's - that he was built in a warbot factory and was supposed to be gigantic - and remixes them in a suitably emotional and character-forward way. Yes, it's predictable as all hell, and everything about the way she interacts with Rivet in the second half is contrived, but it's something. In fact, if this had been the Ratchet-meets-Clank storyline in the reboot, it could have worked really well, adding back the conflict between the pair that was a key part of their dynamic in the first game but dialled way down in every subsequent one. I almost wish this had been a Rivet and Kit-only game with Ratchet and Clank as NPCs, and effectively made it a soft reboot, rather as Star Trek XI was, where the story is back-to-basics but in a way that had echoes and shadows of the past. What if Rivet has been searching for the missing Lombaxes herself all this time, and Ratchet's dimension is the first one to offer any hope at all? But wait, that would be imaginative, fresh and challenging, so obviously it was never going to happen.
Also, the Clank puzzle sections in this game are TEDIOUS AS FUCK.
PETE'S DEFINITIVE RANKINGS OF THE RATCHET AND CLANK GAMES THAT HE HAS PLAYED:
1: R&C 2 (Going Commando) - some neat improvements to the core gameplay including a better strafe, more interesting Challenge Mode and the addition of a battle arena. The Tribble-inspired storyline was fun, developing characters nicely from the first game, and the locations are nicely varied.
2: R&C 1 - aside from the points above, it's amazing how much of the core gameplay is in the first game, including giant clank sections, clank-controls-little-bots, grind rails and swingshots. A little rough around the edges but still fantastically playable, and in its later levels, a real challenge. Also note the difficulty level is often down to some very complex platforming, rather than just endless levelling up of weapons (though there is a lot of that too). Really memorable (odd) score, too.
3: R&C Future: A Crack In Time - The best of the "Future" series, the ability to fly your ship around the solar systems adds layers to the gameplay and it all feels smooth and seamless. The Clank-only sections are memorable (if a little laborious) and the overall storyline is strong, with a great guest character in Alistair Azimuth, though I'm not keen on adding more significance to Clank's existence than had already been done.
4: R&C 3 (Up Your Arsenal) - much more combat focussed than the first two games, I like it but I don't always get on well with its more streamlined, less exploratory gameplay. However the story and characters are amongst the best ever - Courtney Gears for the win - and the return to the environs of the first game is neat.
5: R&C, i.e. the PS4 reboot - fans do not seem keen on the reboot. I think it's fine and some of the changes are probably for the best, such as speeding up the tedious "disguise yourself as a robot" bits from towards the end. If it vanished from existence I probably wouldn't miss it much, though.
6: R&C Future: Tools of Destruction - the first PS3 game has visual polish and memorably daft robot pirate ghosts but not much else going for it. In particular this marks the point at which bullet-spongery becomes a hindrance rather than just an irritation, which certain points at which you must make multiple trips back to a vendor because you ran out of ammo partway during a fight.
7: R&C Future: Nexus - short and playable enough, Nexus's big gimmick was zero-gravity stuff, meaning more complex use of the magneboots, though it doesn't make that much difference overall. The first, I believe, of two games where I couldn't be bothered to complete the game in Challenge Mode.
8: R&C Rift Apart - OK, we're putting it here. Tedious characters, predictable plot, same old gameplay, but it does at least load very quick, so there's that.
9: R&C Future: Quest For Booty - look, I can't remember anything about this one. I know it's short, and Talwin and those two doddery old bots are in it, and it has good music. Probably it is better than Rift Apart and maybe Nexus too, but not any of the others, and certainly it has no memorable gameplay mechanics that I can bring to mind, so for now, down at the bottom it goes.
It is not that diff from the PS4. It is really more of a PS4.2 or something. Yes, I noticed that baked reflections were higher res, and of course loading times are very fast indeed. But other than that, there wasn't the "this is a NEW GENERATION!" feel like going from PS1 to PS2 or PS2 to PS3. Honestly, the PS3 still holds up. I replayed FF XIII-2 recently and the only thing that ages it is the frame rate drops in places. Also whenever they do a close up on someone's hands they have weird sausage fingers. One thing about the PS5 is that they automatically record 14 seconds of video when you get a trophy and I wondered why I had so many recordings when I hadn't manually made any. I can imagine this filling up the drive after a while if you don't go in and manually remove them, and the interface hides a lot of options beneath layers of menus (even quitting a game is about three menu layers deep).
The game I played was RATCHET AND CLANK: RIFT APART and I'm afraid to say it was a chore to get through, and is probably tied for my least favourite of the series with either Quest for Booty or Nexus (I haven't played QfB for a while). Gameplay wise, aside from a newly spasmodic camera, the series has barely evolved since the second or third game; combat consists of strafing around having let loose two or three auto-aim thingies and is generally towards the bullet-hell side of modern combat rather than the cover-sniping of Naughty Dog / Tomb Raider. In principle I prefer this more kinetic, less repetitive style but familiarity eventually breeds contempt and this is the point at which I think I've had my fill. What's frustrating is that there were several obvious ways in which the combat could have been freshened up, which we'll get to shortly, but the general timidity and anxiety of AAA budgets - "we spent five years on this, we must not do a single thing that might piss off any player" - has again paralysed imagination.
SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT:
So, where does the game come in, storywise? We must assume that the Quark-narrated reboot is uncanon, since the developers have gone back to the last PS3 games and carried on from there. This assumes you are familiar with the PS3 arc, which involves a maguffin called the dimensionator and the idea that every Lombax who isn't Ratchet is hiding in another dimension. Now, I'm all for an arc, and I do accept that at present this arc consists of only three full-length games and two short ones and is thus not *that* long-winded, but it did begin around a decade ago now and it is perhaps time it was resolved. Rift Apart ends on pretty much the same cliffhanger that at least one of the previous games ended on, which is whether or not Ratchet will actually go find the Lombaxes or not. I don't mind in principle a Hamlet-style dilemma, but I do wish he would make up his mind once and for all. Actually, I thought he had; the premise of this game is that, having decided he WASN'T going to find the other Lombaxes, Clank built another dimensionator somehow and intended to give it as a present to Ratchet for some reason, but Dr Nefarious stole it? So, honestly, it's a fake premise contrived only to force yet another revolution of the record.
Ah yes, Dr Nefarious. In his first game, the third PS2 one (they have subtitles, or at least in the US they did, but like Bond films they're all a bit interchangeable), he was a hilarious spoof of cheesy villains, with a clear and comprehensible plan and a wonderful foil in Lawrence, his sarcastic valet. I accepted, grudgingly, when he was retrofitted into the reboot (and the movie), even if it meant the film couldn't decide whether he or Drek was the true antagonist; but this is an appearance too far. He's predictable, two dimensional and dull, dull, dull. Having surgically removed all the satire and parody of the earlier games, he is now exactly what he was originally lampooning. It's as if they made an Austin Powers film that was serious and emotional and Dr Evil was treated as a credible villain.
While I'm hating on characters, RIVET. OH GOD. The series doesn't do spectacularly well with female characters, but this is the nadir. Entirely without distinct personality or background, she spouts predictable dialogue throughout. Angela Cross was a scientist, a spy and a goofy klutz (and had the subtle joke of being the only person in the universe with a normal name), and she wasn't even playable. There is no excuse for how lazy and pandering Rivet is. Especially since, with every other "variation on an existing character" they put effort into pointing up the differences. Captain Quantum is a pirate pretending to be a robot, for heaven's sake. Rivet reacts the same as Ratchet, says the same things, and as for gameplay, has the same moveset and loadouts. Throughout the game you alternate between the two, but you don't *feel* like you're doing that, since they are identical in every way that matters. Why not instead have them fight alongside one another, like Atreus and Kratos in God of War, or like 9S and 2B in Nier Automata? Like those games, one could focus more on melee, the other on range or defence. Then the differences and similarities could develop in an organic way. As it is, there's honestly little reason for both to be in the game.
Thankfully that's less true of Kit, Clank's counterpart. With headlamps that look like cute little bunches, she is rather adorable, but where she really scores is in her backstory, which takes elements of Clank's - that he was built in a warbot factory and was supposed to be gigantic - and remixes them in a suitably emotional and character-forward way. Yes, it's predictable as all hell, and everything about the way she interacts with Rivet in the second half is contrived, but it's something. In fact, if this had been the Ratchet-meets-Clank storyline in the reboot, it could have worked really well, adding back the conflict between the pair that was a key part of their dynamic in the first game but dialled way down in every subsequent one. I almost wish this had been a Rivet and Kit-only game with Ratchet and Clank as NPCs, and effectively made it a soft reboot, rather as Star Trek XI was, where the story is back-to-basics but in a way that had echoes and shadows of the past. What if Rivet has been searching for the missing Lombaxes herself all this time, and Ratchet's dimension is the first one to offer any hope at all? But wait, that would be imaginative, fresh and challenging, so obviously it was never going to happen.
Also, the Clank puzzle sections in this game are TEDIOUS AS FUCK.
PETE'S DEFINITIVE RANKINGS OF THE RATCHET AND CLANK GAMES THAT HE HAS PLAYED:
1: R&C 2 (Going Commando) - some neat improvements to the core gameplay including a better strafe, more interesting Challenge Mode and the addition of a battle arena. The Tribble-inspired storyline was fun, developing characters nicely from the first game, and the locations are nicely varied.
2: R&C 1 - aside from the points above, it's amazing how much of the core gameplay is in the first game, including giant clank sections, clank-controls-little-bots, grind rails and swingshots. A little rough around the edges but still fantastically playable, and in its later levels, a real challenge. Also note the difficulty level is often down to some very complex platforming, rather than just endless levelling up of weapons (though there is a lot of that too). Really memorable (odd) score, too.
3: R&C Future: A Crack In Time - The best of the "Future" series, the ability to fly your ship around the solar systems adds layers to the gameplay and it all feels smooth and seamless. The Clank-only sections are memorable (if a little laborious) and the overall storyline is strong, with a great guest character in Alistair Azimuth, though I'm not keen on adding more significance to Clank's existence than had already been done.
4: R&C 3 (Up Your Arsenal) - much more combat focussed than the first two games, I like it but I don't always get on well with its more streamlined, less exploratory gameplay. However the story and characters are amongst the best ever - Courtney Gears for the win - and the return to the environs of the first game is neat.
5: R&C, i.e. the PS4 reboot - fans do not seem keen on the reboot. I think it's fine and some of the changes are probably for the best, such as speeding up the tedious "disguise yourself as a robot" bits from towards the end. If it vanished from existence I probably wouldn't miss it much, though.
6: R&C Future: Tools of Destruction - the first PS3 game has visual polish and memorably daft robot pirate ghosts but not much else going for it. In particular this marks the point at which bullet-spongery becomes a hindrance rather than just an irritation, which certain points at which you must make multiple trips back to a vendor because you ran out of ammo partway during a fight.
7: R&C Future: Nexus - short and playable enough, Nexus's big gimmick was zero-gravity stuff, meaning more complex use of the magneboots, though it doesn't make that much difference overall. The first, I believe, of two games where I couldn't be bothered to complete the game in Challenge Mode.
8: R&C Rift Apart - OK, we're putting it here. Tedious characters, predictable plot, same old gameplay, but it does at least load very quick, so there's that.
9: R&C Future: Quest For Booty - look, I can't remember anything about this one. I know it's short, and Talwin and those two doddery old bots are in it, and it has good music. Probably it is better than Rift Apart and maybe Nexus too, but not any of the others, and certainly it has no memorable gameplay mechanics that I can bring to mind, so for now, down at the bottom it goes.
