The Name’s Clank, Secret Agent Clank

I’ve always been a big fan of the Ratchet and Clank franchise. The humor is mature without going over the heads of little kids who play the games. The gameplay is quick, the graphics at once cartoon-ish and pristine. I’ve owned two titles myself, Up Your Arsenal for the PS2 (see, even the titles have a bit of adult humor!) and Tools of Destruction, which was packaged with my PS3. The latter I figured I’d play a tiny bit of before moving onto my big titles like Call of Duty 4 and Assassin’s Creed. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how much I still liked the Ratchet and Clank gameplay, a whole four years after I originally played it on PS2. The basic premise of the games consists of playing as Ratchet, a young and furry rebel, and going on inter-galactic adventures with the help of your trusty and wise sidekick robot, Clank. Clank himself is used once in awhile as the main playable character in order to reach small areas, open doors, and, well you get the point; Clank does Ratchet’s dirty technical work. In Tools of Destruction it became clear to me that Insomniac Games was trying to market a stand-alone character for Clank independent of Ratchet. Several times throughout Tools of Destruction, a mysterious bunch of “Zoni” aliens guide Clank through puzzles, shrouding the little robots seemingly simple story with intrigue.

Secret Agent Clank, released exclusively for the PlayStation Portable on June 17, 2008, takes Clanks independence and importance to a much greater level. While attempting to intervene in the robbery of the precious “Eye of Infinity” jewel, Clank finds that his trusted comrade Ratchet is actually the thief. In an attempt to exonerate his jailed friend, Clank travels throughout the galaxy, uncovering some pretty unnerving plots including: mind control, a giant laser, and the destruction of every planet in the galaxy. You play as Clank throughout most of the game, though several times you control Ratchet in jail (fighting off enemies he himself originally threw in jail) and Captain Qwark, the series’ good for nothing “hero.”

This game, only for the PSP, is obviously targeting a specific audience, children who don’t know the franchise very well but like the idea of playing as the robot in gameplay that is fairly straightforward. Though, for any hardcore fans of Ratchet and Clank this title should help shed some light on a question that constantly hangs: What is Clank’s story?

Posted by on 08/01 at 09:39 PM