Review: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

Action-platformer games have been a staple of consoles ever since Pitfall! made its debut on the Atari 2600 back in 1982.

Screen shot from Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

Action-platformer games have been a staple of consoles ever since Pitfall! made its debut on the Atari 2600 back in 1982.

Technology has come a long, long way since then and games have taken full advantage of those changes to provide newer and more impressive experiences while still staying true to their genre conventions.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart has been developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony exclusively for the PlayStation 5 console, and is an excellent example of this.

The game is about a Lombax – a cat-fox like creature – named Ratchet and his robot sidekick Clank, who have spent several games previously battling their primary antagonist, the megalomaniacal robot Dr Nefarious.

This time around, while Ratchet and Clank are being honoured in a parade – which even Ratchet seems bemused by – Dr Nefarious shows up and steals the centrepiece of the festivities; a device known as the Dimensionator.

Using the Dimensionator, Dr Nefarious opens a portal to a different dimension – one where he beats Ratchet and Clank – and escapes through it, tearing the fabric of space and time in the process and threatening the very existence of the universe. It’s a simple but effective set-up.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

As well as Ratchet, you also play as his dimensional counterpart Rivet, a female Lombax. Both characters have identical weapons and abilities, but offer a different character perspective on the events they are experiencing. Clank also has a dimensional counterpart, in the form of Kit.

In a nutshell, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was everything.

The game is solidly family-friendly, with no gore, swearing, suggestive situations or anything even remotely inappropriate in it, yet for the most part never felt like it was condescending or talking down to players. There were, however, a few ‘obligatory positive message moments’ of the ‘Your flaws make you unique’ and ‘You can achieve anything with the help of your friends’ variety which you’d expect from anything aimed at a tween-and-teen audience, and these sometimes felt a bit shoehorned in.

Control wise, it was pretty standard stuff. There are a lot of weapons available in the game, ranging from a blaster pistol to a drone that fires rockets to a sawblade launcher to a lightning gun, all with some fun effects and providing different effectiveness against different enemies.

The varied environments are really well done too, striking just the right balance between navigability, exploration and having a clear path to the objectives. The game does some really good things with perspective too, particularly how the mini-rifts that function as tether points seem to teleport you rather than drag you across the screen, magnetic surfaces which mean you can be travelling upside down or twisting around while fighting enemies, and even switching between dimensions across the same level to solve problems and navigate past obstacles.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

The visuals and animation in the game are absolutely amazing. In particularly, the detail on Ratchet and Rivet’s fur is so believable I almost wanted to reach out and pet them like a cat. The lighting effects are excellent as well, whether it’s the neon signs of a city or electricity arcing between enemies or the glowing.

The screen does get quite busy and crowded at times, particularly in larger battles – I was reviewing the game on a 48in TV and couldn’t help but feel a larger TV might have made for an even better experience.

There’s a neat mini-game where you control an AI creature called Glitch and run around inside computers zapping viruses – the levels were quite well done and often involved running upside down on walls.

The one I really loved, however, was a Lemmings-like puzzle where Clank or Kit had to guide metaphysical versions of themselves through an obstacle course to help repair some of the dimensional fabric.

All in all, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was very much like playing in a modern animated show come to life and I had a lot of fun with it. Ratchet, Clank, Rivet and Kit are engaging characters to spend time with, the combat was fun, the action and puzzles were engaging.

I really loved how the game is something my primary school aged children will be able to enjoy too – not just because of the suitable content, but because of the appealing visuals, accessible controls, and adjustable difficulty that provides just the right level of challenge.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a reminder that games should be fun, that they can be bright, and they don’t have to be super serious either.

Whether you’ve got kids in the house looking for something to play or just want to enjoy a well-done action-platformer game yourself, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart comes highly recommended.