G-pinions

A post for dogs.

If I would have written a post about Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando two weeks ago like I had originally promised, it would have a much different tone than this. Back then, before I actually finished the game, I was telling Nick how shocked I was that I had waited so long to finally play this game. I compared it to a Rare game, most notably Jet Force Gemini, with its polished gameplay and almost constant attempts at comedy. One quick note about that - for all the similarities it has with a Rare title, this had some of the most generic, bland music around. There were other things that kept it from reaching that most hallowed of levels, but most important was the complete lack of any effort in making an engrossing musical score.

Anyway, as I alluded to up there, I am now quite sour on this title. I finally finished the last level last night, a level which I have been sitting on for a number of weeks, and now wish I never played it. The level itself was fine - though the difficulty of the constant flow of enemies was neutralized by frequent save points and vendor stations. The end boss completely ruined this game, though. Well, that may be a tad harsh. It's more like eating a piece of tasty cake and finding a toenail in the last bite. You thought you enjoyed the cake while you were eating it, but looking back, the whole thing was probably full of toenails.

Anyway, in a previous post, Nick talked about how the final boss was so difficult. He said he had to fire every single scrap of ammunition in his arsenal to finally bring down the blue hell beast. He said the extreme difficulty caused him to replay the boss ten times. My experience couldn't be further from that. I killed him after a mere ten minutes, on my first try. I used most of the ammo... for one of my guns. I was only hit one time. In fact, he might have been the easiest boss I have ever fought. This is probably a first for any video game site, but Fable and R&C:GC have a lot of in common. They both lasted about 20 hours. They both got fairly repetive after a while. They are both home to two of the lamest, most easily defeated end bosses of all time. And they both have extremely short endings that neither satisfy nor entertain. And you said those games had nothing in common.

The end boss in R&C2 was so easy, in fact, that I actually called Nick afterwards to see if that was the actual ending. Not only did the end boss stink, but the story just kind of ended. There was no finality. No attempt at wrapping it up one bit. The last line was uttered as my robot pal Clank looked down at the broken remains of his female robot friend, "Don't worry, I'll fix her," said Ratchet. That's it, that's the ending of this game. I sat through five minutes of credits to make sure this was actually the real ending. I kept waiting for a screen to flash up "The real end boss is in another castle." But, alas, I was merely given the chance to compete in the Challenge Mode - a more difficult version of the main game. Boo to crappy endings, Insomniac.