"Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal" Platinum Review

Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal is the third game in the Ratchet and Clank franchise. It is the last main storyline game released on the PS2. Two more games were released after UYA (Size Matters and Deadlocked) but are considered to be spin-offs. In 2012, it was remastered along with the previous two games for the PS3.

Instead of going through the entire story, I’ll just give you a brief almost spoiler-free summary of it and then tell you the funniest moments of the cutscenes.

A demented robot named Dr. Nefarious and his robot butler, Laurence (I’m sorry. Lauuuuuuurrrrrrence) wants to destroy all organic life forms because they’re tired of sharing the universe with them. Cpt. Qwark assembles a group he calls the Q-force that he believes can stop him. It’s like the Avengers. You know, if the Avengers consisted of a dumb hoverboarder, a two ft tall robot attached to a cat-like creature with unlimited lives, a bitchy drill instructor, a plumber, and a f**kin monkey. Throughout the game, Qwark goes through with the team heist plans to help with their quest that surprisingly actually work. So, there’s no way that he came up with them on his own because he’s an idiot who couldn’t steal a sandwich from the inside of an open paper bag.

• One of Nature’s mysteries: Close to the beginning of the game, Ratchet and Clank were given information and a special report on the whereabouts of a “former superhero living out in the jungle as a monkey” and every few seconds it reveals a surprising fact followed by: “or not, it could be ONE OF NATURE’S MYSTERIES.” So funny.
• Poor guy on the death course: An advert for Annihilation Nation shows a small nerdy guy named Fred getting ready to run their death course. He waves and smiles to the crowd, then immediately gets blown to smithereens. So funny.
• Qwark’s Ocean’s 11 plans: Qwark shows “the Q-Force” his plan to break into Nefarious’ top-secret base, which is actually a series of crayon drawings that looks like it was drawn by a 5-year-old. His narration is hilarious. Ratchet’s reaction to when Qwark assigns him the job of wading through a sewer full of raw sewage is priceless. So funny.
• Dr. Nefarious sign language: We first meet the villain Dr. Nefarious and his robot sidekick Laurence (I’m sorry. Lauuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrence) with Nefarious warning the galaxy that he’s going to kill all organic lifeforms. Meanwhile Laurence is translating it via hilariously over the top sign language. So funny.
• When Nefarious gets worked up, his circuits malfunction and his brain (or whatever the robot equivalent of a brain is) starts playing sensual soap opera love scenes. So funny.
• “It was mating season. How I supposed to know she was your sister.” So funny.
• Cpt. Qwark’s “funeral”
• “I AM Inglebert: Cpt. Qwark is watching a soap opera where a woman reveals that her boyfriend isn’t the father of her baby. In fact, it was the man’s evil twin Inglebert. The man then said: “But girl. I AM Inglebert.” So funny

• One of Nature’s mysteries: Close to the beginning of the game, Ratchet and Clank were given information and a special report on the whereabouts of a “former superhero living out in the jungle as a monkey” and every few seconds it reveals a surprising fact followed by: “or not, it could be ONE OF NATURE’S MYSTERIES.” So funny.
• Poor guy on the death course: An advert for Annihilation Nation shows a small nerdy guy named Fred getting ready to run their death course. He waves and smiles to the crowd, then immediately gets blown to smithereens. So funny.
• Qwark’s Ocean’s 11 plans: Qwark shows “the Q-Force” his plan to break into Nefarious’ top-secret base, which is actually a series of crayon drawings that looks like it was drawn by a 5-year-old. His narration is hilarious. Ratchet’s reaction to when Qwark assigns him the job of wading through a sewer full of raw sewage is priceless. So funny.
• Dr. Nefarious sign language: We first meet the villain Dr. Nefarious and his robot sidekick Laurence (I’m sorry. Lauuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrence) with Nefarious warning the galaxy that he’s going to kill all organic lifeforms. Meanwhile, Laurence is translating it via hilariously over the top sign language. So funny.
• When Nefarious gets worked up, his circuits malfunction and his brain (or whatever the robot equivalent of a brain is) starts playing sensual soap opera love scenes. So funny.
• “It was mating season. How I supposed to know she was your sister.” So funny.
• Cpt. Qwark’s “funeral”
• “I AM Inglebert: Cpt. Qwark is watching a soap opera where a woman reveals that her boyfriend isn’t the father of her baby. In fact, it was the man’s evil twin Inglebert. The man then said: “But girl. I AM Inglebert.” So funny.

The gameplay of this game is almost identical to Going Commando: Ratchet is given outlandish weapons he uses to kill his foes. The more you use them, the more they level up and the more powerful they get. As always, your trusty sidekick Clank is there to help you glide and to get to hard to reach places.

Something I can say, though is that the game has a different feel to it than the last two. I can’t really explain it; it just feels different. I don’t know if it is the brighter colors, if the fact that the Skybox Insomniac used in the levels was more orange, but despite the similar gameplay, this is definitely a different game than Going Commando. I’m sure none of that made sense to any you guys, but it made sense to me. All of this is good, though. Nobody wants to play a sequel that is just a carbon-copy of the previous one. Ratchet and Clank games are good because they keep all the things that make them great and add just enough to make it seem fresh. Oh. I guess that’s a better way to explain how the two games are different.

The trophy haul is basically the same as Going Commando except for the implementation of minigames and challenges. Throughout the game, you have to help a group of troops called the Galactic Rangers. Save Ratchet’s home planet of Veldin from attack. Only a couple of these challenges must be done in order to proceed with the story. However, you have to do all of them for the platinum trophy. The rest of the trophies are roughly the same: Get all the skill points, the titanium bolts, and arena challenges. Despite this, the game never gets old. Never once throughout my platinum trophy journey did this game get boring. It was a blast the entire way. Even the Qwarktastic arena battle, which consists of 100 waves of nonstop enemies and took a whole half and hour to complete was fun.

Overall, Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal is an insanely fun game that never gets boring. There is a reason I consider it to be my favorite PS2 game and second only to Spyro: Year of the Dragon as my favorite game of all time. It has everything it needs to be a fantastic videogame: great gameplay variety, a hilarious yet compelling story, likeable characters, and of course, various ridiculous weapons that you can use to annihilate your enemies. Collecting all the skill points and titanium bolts can take a bit of time, but it is time well spent. The titanium bolts are in some unique places that you probably have to use a guide for and the skill points can be annoying, but like I said before, the game never get’s old. Therefore, I will give the Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal a platinum review of Platinum It.