Thank god I asked my wife to start the download early yesterday afternoon, because it didn't finish until 9pm. Took like 6 hours, like usual. I've never had a download interrupt but I'll be damned if that isn't a hellishly long time to have to wait to play something you know everyone else is already playing. Ordinarily, I just download everything overnight, and then play it the next day, but for Tools of Destruction, I had no patience, I had to play it now.
So, back on topic, I sat down to play the first level last night around 9PM. I was pleased with the overall quality of the demo, everything just felt finely tuned. Visuals were sharp and detailed, animations were well done, and the sound was superb.
Gameplay was standard Ratchet & Clank fare, if you've played the PS2 iterations, you'll feel like a pro right from the get-go. There's a few tweaks here and there, with a new shoulder-mounted camera angle as is the latest trend in action gaming, and some fun new weapons on display, most of which have been talked about already in this thread.
Personally, I found the grenades to be the most useful weapon available, as they are incredibly effective at taking out hordes of baddies in a single swoop. But the real joy of R&C is the combining of weapons, resulting in hilarity and utter effectiveness.
Toss a Transmorpher onto a horde, turn them all into hapless penguins, then hit them with the Groovitron, and watch them dance like the puppets they are. Then toss a nade into the chorus line, and watch in glee as seemingly hundreds of glorious metal bolts scatter about in a display of particles never before possible. It's quite satisfying to say the least.
The first level does a decent job at giving you a different look at various forms of gameplay, from standard hack and slash, to long range shooting, jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper, grinding along rails with monorail trains coming at you fast and furious. Enemies shower you and the environment around you with laser blasts and missle attacks, buildings tumble as you soar past them, and it all comes together to make it feel like a living, breathing world under attack, and you're just a little insignifigant speck amongst it all.
Of course, your mission, is to make yourself not so insignifigant.
Basically, this is the same Ratchet & Clank we all know and loved. not much has changed, at least not in this level, and that's both good and bad simultaneously. On the good side, it means you are playing a finely tuned machine, an engine that knows what it can do and therefore offers up as smooth as an experience as you're likely to experience anytime soon. It runs fast, throws everything at you without seemingly ever breaking a sweat, and allows you to completely and totally enjoy the adventure without stopping to be bothered by the technical issues that hamper so many other games this generation.
But on the flipside, if in the past Ratchet & Clank failed to capture your imagination and thus, your gaming dollars, Tools of Destruction isn't likely to change that fact. It's a showpiece for the system to be sure, but no moreso than the PS2 versions were for that console. Fact is, you either love Ratchet & Clank, or you don't.
Persoanlly, I don't think there's better game of this type on any console. Not that I've seen/played anyway.
