14 DAY TRIAL // 
Despite the fact that the Ratchet & Clank series has focused, as its name suggests, on two major character, Ratchet, the small yet agile Lombax, and Clank, his robot buddy, all the games, whether they arrived on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable or PlayStation 3, have only had a single-player mode.
Now, with Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, the new North Carolina-based branch of developer Insomniac Games is trying to overhaul the series by placing an emphasis on cooperative play, not between just Ratchet or Clank, but also Captain Qwark, as well as Dr. Nefarious.
So, is All 4 One a great direction for the adventure series or should we take a wrench at it? Let's find out.
Story and Concept After saving the universe way too many times, Ratchet and Clank are having a go at the retired life, but still help out Captain Qwark, or shall we say Galactic President Qwark, from time to time. Now, after a failed revenge attempt by the evil Dr. Nefarious, the villain from Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, all four of them are transported on a special planet where some of the deadliest monsters from across the galaxy are being collected by a mysterious orbital space station.
While reluctant at first, our heroes learn to work together and eventually find out just what’s really going on. In between and even during gameplay, you’ll be treated with the same great Ratchet & Clank humor, whether they’re clever quips between Nefarious and Qwark or some of the great dialog between Cronk & Zephyr, the two old robot that are now helping out the heroes and villain with information about their predicament.
While it doesn’t really stand out from past stories in the series, All 4 One delivers a good narrative that more than supports the unlikely team and their long array of encounters. You’ll spend quite a lot of time with it, as it might take you around 10-12 hours to complete, depending on how many friends you have with you or how good all of you are at working together.
From a conceptual standpoint, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is a breath of fresh air, managing to deliver a pretty well paced experience with a heavy focus on cooperation and teamwork, while its levels manage to keep the gameplay diversified enough to not become tedious.
Gameplay All 4 One, like its name suggests, is built around the concept of four-player cooperative play, but this doesn’t mean it's a purely-online focused game. If you’re kicking it old school, you can choose a character, from Ratchet, Clank, Qwark or Nefarious, and the AI will control another, either Clank in most cases or Qwark when you’re in control of the tiny robot.
Besides the heavy co-op focus, however, the game still delivers a classic Ratchet & Clank experience, meaning you have to shoot or throw wrenches at all sorts of different enemies, ranging from small, easily defeatable ones, to huge bosses that require team work, strategy and good old fashioned firepower.
You’ll also experience quite a lot of puzzles, especially certain optional ‘test chambers’ where you need to guide small critters through a series of tubes in order to unlock pieces for a new Ryno weapon. Other breaks from combat include traditional rail sections, where you glide on top of them, as well as some rather interesting vehicle sections, like controlling space ships, albeit in a 2D plane, not like in Tools of Destruction, or inflatable rafts using fans mounted on top of it.
As in regular Ratchet & Clank fashion, Insomniac has delivered a brand new array of outlandish weapons, ranging from your trusty Combuster, to fan favorites like Mr. Zurkon, and all-new ones, including a Critter Strike, which turns enemies into pigs, or a new Ryno VI weapon, which this time is a massive mechanized armor suit, that unleashes copious amounts of damage upon your enemies. Each character has specialized items, like Ratchet's Dopplebanger, which creates a decoy, Clank's Zoni Blaster, Qwark's shield or Nefarious' Cloaker.
Besides the aforementioned weapons, you’ll also unlock several gadgets, including a very important Vac-U, which not only sucks bolts, making it easier to collect them, but also enemies and even companions, that helps solve many puzzles and even revive them. Needless to say, while some are forgettable or won’t give you any real advantage, the weapons and gadgets in All 4 One are still very satisfying.
While All 4 One does quite a lot of things right, there are still some problems that dwindle its appeal. First up, in order to accommodate the cooperative play, there’s now a fixed camera. While it’s not usually bad, there are key moments when it goes completely wrong, either zooming in too much or not moving you want to reach a special corner. What’s more, when you get to the limits of a certain platform, it doesn’t zoom our immediately, meaning you’ll plunge to your death quite a few times.
If you opt to play alone, with the help of an AI-controlled partner, be prepared to see him die quite a lot of times, especially by just falling off of platforms or cliffs. While most of the times you won’t see any problem, behaving very well during puzzles, you’ll often see him get stuck on ramps, which gets a bit aggravating as you progress through the story.
Besides the sometimes clumsy AI, towards the end of the story the difficulty curve jumps way above what’s normal, as the game throws at you a huge amount of enemies one after another, without allowing you to refill your ammo or life points, and sometimes even putting you on a destructible platform that gets smaller and smaller with each enemy attack.
This might not be so bad, considering you can purchase a lot of weapons and rotate among them, but most enemies are damaged by consistent and timed attacks, meaning both you and your partner need to fire at the same time if you hope to actually take down the hulking enemies.
Multiplayer As I’ve said above, you can play Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One as a traditional game from the series, but you can also bring in up to three other buddies, in real life or online, and go through the experience controlling either Ratchet, Clank, Qwark, or Nefarious.
Online connectivity is very good, although you do need a PSN Pass that’s either shipped with new copies of the game or can be downloaded for $10 (10 Euros) on the PlayStation Store. Playing offline, in the same room, is still rewarding, and great fun even if you don’t have the PSN Pass.
Things do get a bit hectic and you may experience some slow downs during intense firefights when everyone is doing all sorts of things, but, most of the times, All 4 One remains a solid experience that’s very fun, even if you might get pushed off a platform or throw into a lava pit.
Bolts, the in-game currency, goes to whoever smashes boxes or defeat enemies, and the in-game characters are more than willing to remind others if they’re in the lead, so be prepared for some fierce fights to get some more bolts and upgrade your weapons.
Visuals and Sound Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is a step down in visual fidelity as opposed to 2009’s A Crack in Time, as the co-op focus did take a toll on its top notch graphics. Still, this doesn’t mean you won’t get a pretty game, as it retains the great stylized Ratchet & Clank theme, going through all sorts of colorful environments with ease.
Cinematics get a bit bump in fidelity, but, seeing as how the camera doesn’t zoom in on the action too much, you won’t be put away by the visuals or effects in All 4 One's actual gameplay.
Sound-wise, the game handles very well, with weapons, gadgets or enemies sounding great, while the main characters are brought to life by talented voice actors that deliver the witty banter with perfect timing.
Conclusion While Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One plays very good, you get the feeling that a lot more polish was needed before it should have arrived on the market. There are a lot of tweaks needed, some to the camera, others to the AI-controlled players, not to mention the difficulty curve towards the end.
Still, even so, All 4 One is a fun experience that’s quite impressive nonetheless, and shouldn’t be missed by fans of the series or people looking for a great cooperative experience.
