Film tie-in games - what some of the more hardcore gamerz might refer to (unfairly so) as the scourge of the games industry. Generally short on budget, short on time and short on levels, there has been some pretty poor ones over the years (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles springs to mind) - but there have been some pretty good ones too (like the excellent Kung Fu Panda). It's something we've largely grown accustomed to though - after all, a tie-in game of some description is pretty much inevitable with almost every single kids film ever made. But how many games can you think of that have inspired their own spin-off films? In fact, we struggle to think of many beyond Pokemon, and Professor Layton. Pokemon, Layton and now the famous Playstation platforming series, Ratchet & Clank.
Fans of space-travelling Lombaxes (that's Ratchet), smart-talking robots (his small metal buddy Clank) and incredibly handsome, intelligent and heroic guys in green spandex (series lovable idiot Captain Quark) can rejoice, as the folks behind the stellar Ratchet & Clank series have a bit of a pre-E3 treat for you! While last year's giant gaming convention brought with it news of a Ratchet & Clank film inspired by the series, in an amazing fit of Pimp My Ride's Xzibit-style logic, this year brings news that work is underway on a game inspired by the game that inspired the film - how do you like that, dawg?
Well... less of a dawg and more of a fox/cat/red panda type thing really.
A remake of sorts of the original Ratchet & Clank game, which released way back when on the Playstation 2, what initially started out life as a simple PS4 'reimagining' of the Lombax's origin story has now morphed into what appears to be verging on a totally new adventure, tying in with the deeper tale of Ratchet's beginnings from the film.
A melding of sorts of the original Playstation 2 games and the more recent Playstation 3 'Future' trilogy, the upcoming game (currently simply titled Ratchet & Clank) introduces us once again to the anthropomorphic fox/cat beast, Ratchet and his friendly robot pal, Clank, as they foil a plan to destroy the galaxy, with a whole host of unusual weapons at their disposal. Drawing on more popular features from more recent games, the PS4 outing will see the introduction of several new planets, some brand new sections, boss fights, flying sections, unseen Clank gameplay and oodles more, all wrapped up in a more modern control scheme and some graphical bells and whistles that take advantage of the more powerful console. And, as it's a title that inspired a film, you'll also find a whole load of extra cinematics, including some lifted directly from the film.
But it wouldn't be a Ratchet & Clank game without some seriously out of this world weaponry, and it seems the Playstation 4 'remake' won't disappoint in that department either. Apparently, the "majority of [your] arsenal are weapons that weren't in the original game" - meaning you'll be fighting bad guys with a mix of new and fan-favourite tools of destruction from the more recent games. We're glad to see our two favouritest weapons have made the cut too - the dance party-inducing Groovitron and the hilarious trash-talking, wise-cracking robotic bodyguard Mr. Zurkon. New weapons include the Pixelizer, which transforms enemies into exploding 8-bit piles of pixels - although it sadly can't correct it's own American spelling.
Even bosses like to let their hair down with a disco dance from time to time.
Fans who pre-order the game can nab themselves another, exclusive weapon - an oldie but a goodie from Ratchet & Clank 2: Locked & Loaded. Known as 'The Bouncer' it launches a bomb that then explodes into a plethora of tiny homing bombs that bounce towards your enemies, before exploding them into the afterlife.
As for when we can get our paws on the new game, Insomniac games have remained relatively schtum, only going so far as to say it'll be out sometime next spring, alongside the animated film. And to get you in the mood for helping Ratchet and Clank save the galaxy for the first time, again, why not check out the brand-spanking new trailer below:
