On Christmas, with Christmas money, I ordered Ratchet & Clank: Tools Of Destruction. Everybody knows, I gotta rock the Ratchet any chance I get. It's been so many years since the last one! I replaed all of the previous ones at least twice and it probably wouldn't have been long until I went for another round, but luckily I have been saved by this new one (of course, there's another
newer one, but that's still new, I can't afford that).
It finally arrived this weekend, which is crazy slow, by the way. I played on Sunday for a while, and then the weirdest thing happened. On Monday morning (morning would've sounded lame in the title), an alien creature that looked like my wife said "Why don't you play Ratchet, so I can watch Law & Order?" Now, ignoring the logistics of how one enables the other (trust me, it does in this house), this whole experience was incredibly odd and unlike any other in my life. I was in the middle of writing a work email, and told her I would play when I finished. It was some pretty involved serious work I was doing, but how can I turn down a demand like that?
And so that is how I spent 12 hours yesterday finishing Ratchet & Clank 5. I've never binged that hard on a game before, I was just really trying to tear it apart and be done so it could stop haunting me. Unfortunately, having reached the end doesn't mean I'm done. With any Ratchet & Clank, there's Challenge Mode to play! So I'm partway through that now, but the great thing is that once it's done, I'm really done. Don't have to play anymore. It's not like WoW that will never end. Let me tell you, Ratchet games rule.
And they are chock full of design ideas to steal. I just hope all the little things I thought about as I went along don't fall out of my head because these guys know how to design addictive fun. One thing is for sure: an upcoming Hamumu game will feature (as Happyponygate was planned to) tons of destructible objects that spew out riches. That's always the kicker with Ratchet. It never gets old! If you have played Ratchet games (and Spyro games before they got bad), you can see large portions of them that were stolen to make every Hamumu game. I don't remember the specific inspiration for the Madcap Modes that are in a couple Hamumu games, but if it came from somewhere else, it was still heavily informed by the bliss of Ratchet's Challenge Mode. And it will return in future games because I loves it!
