At Gamescom 2010, Ted Price of Insomniac announced a new title in the Ratchet & Clank series. Despite previous Ratchet titles this new one “Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One” would be centered around 4 player co-op play. You can choose from Ratchet, Clank, Qwark, and Doctor Nefarious. The game also would feature drop in/drop out cooperative play even in offline like in the “Lego” games.
“The game takes place when an evil plan set in motion by Nefarious to destroy his three archnemeses once and for all backfires, sending the four of them into the snare of a mysterious machine known as the Creature Collector. Now, they are forced to work together and cooperate in order to escape from the machine and get back home.”
It is now Fall 2011 and the online beta for R&C is out and I played enough of it to give my impressions of it. The two levels in the beta are “Luminopolis” and “N.E.S.T.”. The gameplay works like the rest of the series with you smashing everything in sight to get bolts. There is even a competition in the game each time to see who gets the most bolts which can lead to saying “F U” to all your teammates.
“Luminopolis” revolves around you and your team tracking down and eventually fighting the Z’Grute which is causing havoc and mayhem across the city. You traverse the environment fighting various enemies using either the combuster or plasmabomb launcher. The combuster specifically has received a major upgrade and when used by the entire team at the same time, will even take down the bigger enemies.
But before you know it your thrust into a taxi that is on a collision course with nearly everything in view. This is where your team must all shift their weight to one side of the taxi to keep it going. You also get a bit of skating practice as well. You finish out this level in blockbuster style as you and your 1-3 teammates are firing at the big Z’Grute with mounted machine guns and just like that you are done with the level. Based on the different feats you accomplish in the level you’re ranked along with your team and the one with the highest points wins for the game.
Overall, the game is promising and fun but with only two levels shown in the beta there’s no way of knowing how the game will turn out. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One will be out on October 18th.
