There’s a robot who leads a life of danger. To everyone he meets, he stays a stranger. With every move he makes, another chance he takes. Odds are he won’t live to see tomorrow. Secret Agent Clank busts onto the shelves as the second venture by High Impact Games on the Playstation Portable. Following up their hit platformer, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, Secret Agent Clank takes place after those events and before the Playstation 3 title, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. This time, the folks at High Impact Games decided to sideline everyone’s favorite Lombax hero, Ratchet and give his sidekick Clank a chance in the spotlight.
Gameplay
What’s strikingly different about Secret Agent Clank that sets its apart from its predecessors is the focus on stealth. Being a pint sized robot doesn’t exactly lend itself well to the standard run and gun type of gameplay. Gamers are rewarded for their stealthing abilities and are afforded over eight different spy weapons to assist in dispatching your foes. One thing players will need to get comfortable with is the new sneak attack feature. Sneaking up behind an enemy and hitting square will trigger a timed random button matching sequence that if entered wrong, usually spells mission failure. If you manage to input the buttons correctly however, a cutscene will play, showing the little hero leveling his opponent with cat-like grace.
Progression through the game will take players through standard platforming where accurate jumping and smashing is king to unique mini-games that center on everything from rhythm coordination to all out Godzilla type battles. During certain parts of the story, you’ll have to test your rhythm expertise by matching the correct button press at the correct time in tempo with the background music. While this may sound like a nod to such games as Guitar Hero, in reality it feels hollow and out of place in the overall scheme of things. Perhaps if it had better integration with the music being played at the time, these sequences might have been more enjoyable. Other mini-games you’ll be treated to star those lovable little Gadgebots, Ratchet himself, fending off foes in prison and the bumbling anti-hero Qwark. While these games are enjoyable from the start, they seem to pop up at every new story progression and begin to feel tiresome. After a while, the mini-games detract from the main story and general feel of the game. The Ratchet mini-games for example, lack any real substance other than a mindlessly hacking and slashing your way through a set amount of mobs until you reach the appropriate amount of kills to win the stage. What started out as a great ride through a spy universe with a wise cracking robot ends up feeling like a chore with a barrage of unimaginative regurgitated mini-games.
Story
The basic premise of the game starts out with Clank witnessing his friend Ratchet being picked up for the police for allegedly stealing a valuable artifact known as The Eye of Infinity. Knowing this has to be a setup, Clank begins his quest to clear his friends name and return the Eye of Infinity to its rightful owner. Along the way, Clank will visit many different and creative planets ranging from a snow-covered world run by waltz loving countess to a casino world where slot machines are around every corner. The story however, never seems to grip you as anything but forgettable filler in between main titles. The packed together mini-games coupled with a lackluster story where liberties in the continuity of Ratchet and Clank’s universe are taken add up to a title that doesn’t quite live up to the pedestal its predecessors rest upon.
Graphics
Visually Secret Agent Clank is a mixed bag. While the action moves along at a nice steady pace, the graphics rarely do anything to impress when compared to current generation games being released on the PSP. Loading screens in between worlds show your ship flying through space. Often times these scenes are riddled with graininess and flattened tones. During gameplay however, attention to detail is apparent as every aspect of the game world has been detailed pretty well with what the PSP is capable of pushing out. Many worlds feature dynamic backgrounds that have action going on making the world feel alive. Unfortunately, most of the game is spent indoors, so you don’t get to enjoy the efforts made.
Sound
Music in the game is very fitting to the mood. Every new world features a song that radiates the spy theme and clearly pays homage to the spy movies in which the game parodies. Sound effects too are also accurate, rich and fitting with the devices, explosions or actions they’re associated with. The downfall has to be the balance in which the developers used in how much volume to apply to various scenes. In the aforementioned rhythmic mini-game, one would think it would help greatly to hear the music and time the rhythm section with the beat. Unfortunately if you’re not playing with headphones, the music doesn’t push itself to the forefront to allow you to truly feel engaged in the mini-game.
Controls
Exploring the game world within Secret Agent Clank is easy through its intuitive controls and ease of executing them. From the beginning, newcomers to the series will be given a brief explanation of how to control Clank and his arsenal of weapons. Veterans will find the tried and true control scheme there and just as easy to pick up. The only complaint is the lack of a fully unlocked camera. More of a fault of the hardware, the camera controls pivot on one axis and often lead to being caught in awkward angles. Additionally, not having the ability to scan up or down to fit the horizon after climbing a flight of stairs can lead to hairy situations in which you were supposed to sneak around a guard, only to end up right in his face.
Conclusion
Newcomers to the series may find Secret Agent Clank more enjoyable than I did, but veterans such as myself who have played all the other titles will realize that this game offers very little real substance. On the flipside, the newcomer would also be lost on story elements that are taken for granted and assume the player has played most, if not all, of the previous titles. While still enjoyable to play, it just doesn’t feel like the caliber of games worthy of carrying the title. It becomes quickly apparent that the game forces you through endless mini-games and doesn’t deliver a lot of the Clank that gamers may want. While the mini-games are fun, they quickly become overbearing in their sheer quantity and detract from the overall experience of the game. Fans of the series should check it out if for nothing more than just revisiting the endearing world of Ratchet and Clank.
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