Ever since Ratchet & Clank came out, the series has drawn comparisons to Pixar animated movies. The comparisons have always been a bit exaggerated, but thanks to continued advancements in technology the upcoming PlayStation 4 Ratchet & Clank — the game based on the animated movie which retells the story of the first game — really does look like it’ll be as close as a video game has come to delivering Pixar caliber animation and visual fidelity in playable form.

More importantly, the game isn’t just another spit-polished HD remaster. Ratchet & Clank on PS4 takes the spirit of the 2002 PS2 game and builds on the original elements with “modern controls, several new planets, new and updated gameplay segments, all-new Clank gameplay, all new boss fights, new flight sequences, and more.”

And don’t forget both new and returning, fan-favorite tools of destruction. Ratchet’s arsenal is going to be far more deadly than it was over a decade ago. One of the all-new weapons that has been revealed is the Pixelizer, a gun that transforms enemies into mounds of 8-bit pixels that explode into tiny voxel cubes when hit with a follow up wrench smash. Sweet!

Ratchet & Clank makes its debut on PS4 in spring 2016, timed up with the theatrical release of the animated film on April 29th.

Source: Ratchet & Clank on PS4: Where Past and Future Meet [PlayStation.Blog]

The Ratchet & Clank animated movie has been picked up for US distribution by Focus Features and is officially scheduled to makes its theatrical debut on April 29, 2016.

Better yet, the video game feature film adaptation that hopefully will not suck like all the others has secured strong Hollywood voice talent. Paul Giamatti will be the voice of Chairman Drek. John Goodman will play Ratchet’s mechanic mentor Grimroth. Bella Thorne has been cast as Galactic Ranger Cora. Rosario Dawson will be the voice for Elaris of the Galactic Ranger support team. And good ol’ Sylvester Stallone is in the role of Chairman Drek’s lieutenant, Victor Von Ion.

Fans need not worry that this will be a complete Hollywood takeover of their beloved series. James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, Jim Ward, and Armin Shimerman, the original actors behind lead characters Ratchet, Clank, Captain Qwark, and Nefarious in the video games, will all reprise their roles for the movie.

Although a specific launch date hasn’t been announced yet, Insomniac Games continues to work away on a PlayStation 4 re-imagining of the original Ratchet & Clank that will be timed up for a spring release alongside the film. The game will tie in with and expand upon the movie by re-telling the Ratchet & Clank origin story, while also featuring a mix of remade and entirely new levels, brand new weapons and gameplay, and graphics rebuilt from the ground up to harness the power of the PS4.

Sounds like 2016’s going to be a great year for Ratchet & Clank fans. And if the movie achieves the same level of charm and humor as the games, Sony’s bound to win over a whole new audience of people who previously never even knew the names Ratchet and Clank.

Source: Ratchet & Clank Movie Releases April 29, 2016 in US [PlayStation.Blog]

If the budget price point of $29.99 isn’t enough to sell you on Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, maybe this latest bit of bootylicious news will.

All retail copies of Into the Nexus–the epilogue chapter to the Future storyline and likely the series swan song on PlayStation 3–will come packaged with an insert containing a voucher code to download a free copy of Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty. If you already own Quest for Booty, just gift the voucher to a friend or gamer in need.

In other news, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus has officially gone gold. The game’s on full thrusters heading towards its November 12th North American launch date. Will any one actually remember that with the PlayStation 4 coming out just a few days later?

Buy Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, Get Quest for Booty [PlayStation.Blog]

The dynamic Lombax and robot sidekick duo of Ratchet and Clank are returning for a new intergalactic adventure this holiday season exclusively on PS3. (No Vita version? Boo!)

After All 4 One and Full Frontal Assault experimented more with multiplayer, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus will mark the return of a story-driven single-player campaign, serving as an epilogue to the Future games. You can expect new gadgets and weapons, plenty of laughs, zero-g exploration, and gravity manipulation Clank puzzles.

A clear indicator that the game isn’t of quite the same scope as previous single-player R&C games, Into the Nexus will retail in stores and on PSN for a budget price of $29.99. Insomniac has said that the game isn’t as long as A Crack in Time, but is the “biggest downloadable Ratchet & Clank game yet, dwarfing the size of both Quest For Booty and Full Frontal Assault.” That’s good to hear. As is confirmation that multiplayer will not be included in any form. Ratchet & Clank doesn’t need multiplayer, thank you very much.

Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus Coming to PS3 This Holiday [PlayStation.Blog]

Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault came out last November on PS3. I bought it months ago for my birthday, but still haven’t so much as cracked the case open yet because I’ve been waiting for the Vita version so I can take full advantage of the whole cross-play/cross-save thing. As a lover of all things Ratchet & Clank, it’s been a long, painful wait.

Thankfully, the wait is finally over. Almost.

The Vita version of Full Frontal Assault is scheduled for PSN release next week, on May 21st. Players with a retail PS3 copy will be able to download the game and transfer it to the Vita from the “Disc Benefits” XMB menu, while purchasers of the digital version will be able to freely download the game to the Vita straight from the PlayStation Store. New PSN Store shoppers altogether can nab both versions for the price of one through the wonders of cross-buy.

As a thank-you bonus for the wait, Sony and Insomniac will also be making Ratchet: Deadlocked HD available to download for free for those who buy Full Frontal Assault. Other than Full Frontal Assault, Deadlocked is the only Ratchet game I still haven’t played. I’ll be all over this bonus freebie.

In other Full Frontal Assault news, a new game update has been released today adding a new map, Molonoth Fields, and a new match type, 2v2 Full Frontal Assault, to the game’s multiplayer mode. Both are free, and both are exclusive to the PS3 version. DLC customers can now also pick up character skin packs for $1.99 each, including Monsters, Intergalactic Foot Soldiers, and Plushy.

Now that Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault is coming to PlayStation Vita, in addition to the originally announced PS3 version, it has all the “cross” buzzwords covered: cross-play, cross-save, and cross-buy!

What’s more, Insomniac has confirmed that on top of the new element of tower defense, the game will now also feature a player-vs-player MOBA-style multiplayer mode. 2-4 players will shoot it out in three-phase matches to see who can destroy the opponent’s base first. You’ll start by capturing map nodes in Recon phase, build defenses in Squad phase, and then unleash hell in the Assault phase.

Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault launches this fall exclusively on PlayStation Network. (In PAL regions, the game is subtitled Q-Force and will be available on Blu-ray and via digital download.) And remember, it’s a cross-buy game now, so you get the game on both platforms for the price of one. Qwarktastic, indeed!

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Hopefully a feature that will now become the standard for all games that appear on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, Sony has announced a “Cross Buy” initiative that will kick in for three upcoming titles scheduled for launches this fall.

In similar fashion to recent titles like Foosball 2012 and Sound Shapes, games supporting Cross Buy will provide the consumer with both versions for the price of one, thus promoting the further growth of cross-play and cross-save functionality between platforms.

This two-platforms-in-one scheme will be available when Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale go on sale later in the year. Digital vouchers for the Vita versions will be provided with new copies purchased for PS3. (Or if games are purchased digitally, they’ll be downloadable across both systems.)

And yes, if you didn’t catch it, Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault is coming to the Vita. Previously it had only been announced for PS3. Score!

Image Credit: Kotaku

Never shy about introducing new wrinkles to the established Ratchet & Clank formula with each installment, Insomniac Games is taking another bold step forward with the next game, Full Frontal Assault, due out this fall as a PlayStation Network digital download for PS3.

The new twist this time, as showcased in the first in-game screenshots displayed on this page, is the addition of a tower defense element. Don’t worry, the same action-packed R&C gameplay, innovative weapons, and upgrades and unlockables galore you know and love from the past are still front and center, only now there is almost a Starhawk-like layer of strategy to building and defending a base.

You’ll be able to play by yourself or go at it with a partner, locally or online, with your choice of character between Ratchet, Clank, or Captain Qwark. There will also be another online mode of some kind, but Insomniac isn’t revealing those details quite yet.

A game like Sanctum on PC has proven that first-person shooting and tower defense can coexist in harmony, so why not third-person shooting? I think this is a great pairing with the wacky Ratchet & Clank brand of weapon-based platform shoot-’em-up action. Color me intrigued.

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Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault Adds a Tower-Defense Twist [PlayStation.Blog]

When Insomniac Games signed up with EA to begin development on Overstrike and subsequently wrapped development on Resistance 3 and Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, it seemed like the once PlayStation-exclusive developer was going multi-platform for good. But it looks like Insomniac isn’t abandoning its PlayStation loyalties after all.

News crossed the wire today that, in addition to the HD trilogy collection of the original PS2 games, Insomniac is hard at work on a brand new chapter in the Ratchet & Clank universe. Suggestively subtitled Full Frontal Assault in true franchise style, the new R&C adventure will eschew the format of All 4 One for a return to the series’ roots in terms of the camera, controls and weapons. Other innovations will be implemented and online multiplayer will play a major role in some form, but details on those elements haven’t been announced at this time.

In the comments over on the PlayStation blog, Insomniac’s James Stevenson likens the game’s size to the previous PSN Ratchet & Clank, Quest for Booty, and also says that the game will “probably be the most replayable PS3 Ratchet & Clank game,” again hinting at whatever the mysterious online mode is.

In North America, Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault will be available this fall exclusively as a PlayStation Network digital download. However, in Europe the game will be released on Blu-ray in addition to PSN under the alternate title Ratchet & Clank: Q-Force. The HD remaster collection is scheduled to ship over the summer, and North American fans will get a “make good” bonus for having to wait for the compilation’s arrival past the June release in Europe. On the PS Blog, in response to another commenter Stevenson seems to hint that a Deadlocked HD remaster or PS2 Classics re-release is coming. Could that be the surprise make good?

Insomniac Games is going all-out guns a-blazing this holiday season, releasing two big titles for Sony’s PlayStation 3. Resistance 3 has released to solid reviews and lots of positive word of mouth (VGBlogger’s review of R3 is forthcoming).  The second title coming soon from Insomniac is a new Ratchet & Clank title, All 4 One.  As the title would suggest, the game is largely a four player experience (although it will be fully playable in single player).  Due out next month, Insomniac has released a beta presumably for online testing, but I secretly think it is to help spread word of mouth for a title that could otherwise get lost in the huge list of holiday titles.

So what is in the beta?  Two levels from the game, one early in the game (probably even the first level due to the tutorial nature of screen icon explanations) and one later in the story (due to the sheer volume of weapons at the player’s disposal).  As with all previous R&C titles released on the PS3, the game looks gorgeous.  Like watching a playable Pixar movie, players take control of Ratchet, Clank, Quark or Dr. Nefarious, and set out smashing boxes, jumping throughout the environment, speeding down rails, and shooting enemies with an ever growing arsenal of weapons.

Particular to A41, is the fact that you can play with four people locally or online, or any combination of both online and local.  My first few attempts with playing online games were not optimal as the game screen goes black and nothing happens, then a few seconds later the game pops back to life and gameplay continues.  Hopefully the synchronization between two or more online players is smoothed out with the final release because the current process almost gives the impression that the PS3 is frozen.  Aside from the first day of the beta where joining online games was sketchy (I’m guessing systems on the back end weren’t fully turned up yet) I’ve found that playing online games is a good overall experience. Playing locally with my son, within a minute of starting a level we had two additional random players join and the level played as smooth as if all four of us were sitting on my couch.

Like LittleBigPlanet, and many other PS3 multiplayer titles, the online community can be hit or miss with having mics enabled to chat.  My online game time found all other players joining my games devoid of mics, but Insomniac has meshed the character’s typical banter throughout the level with verbal hints or commands to help drive gameplay without needing mics for online players to communicate with each other.  While it would be nice to chat with other players, it is also nice to see the game smartly adapt and verbally give clues without everything flashing gold or having big arrows pointing out the obvious.

R&C games have always had a large, humorous variety of weapons.  A41 does not disappoint in this area.  One of my favorite weapons is the Critter Strike which concentrates a beam on an enemy and depending on their strength, shortly after being hit will turn into a pig. There is nothing quite like a screen full of snorting pigs.  

The method for switching weapons is a bit different from the past few games and will take some getting used to.  Previously the weapon wheel was brought up by pressing the Triangle button and selecting a weapon with the right stick.  With that control method, once the weapon wheel was closed the right stick then controlled the camera.  In A41, the camera is controlled by the game and bringing up the weapon wheel is done by simply moving the right stick.  Initially this was very frustrating.  Mid battle, I would want to move the camera to get a better view, not be able to, and suddenly change weapons instead.  After playing through a few times this instinct to want to move the camera has fortunately waned.  Bringing up the weapon wheel pauses the game while playing with local players but does not while playing online.

There are several meta game components going on while playing the actual game.  Bonus points are given to players for working as a team, either by having everyone target the same enemy for a quick defeat or solving puzzles together.  Additionally, collecting bolts is a competition of sorts as well.  Every item destroyed, be it crates or enemies, explodes with bolts.  Bolts are the currency to purchase weapons (and presumably upgrades to weapons as is the norm for R&C games) but bolts also act as a measure for who is “winning” in the level.  Death penalizes players by reducing the amount of bolts collected and at the end of the level a leaderboard is displayed showing who had the most kills, who collected the most bolts,  as well as who died the most often or who worked best as a team player.  Insomniac has added cute titles assigned to each player at the end of each round and my son got a huge laugh when he saw that he had gotten the most kills in one of our online games while I was labeled a ‘Noob’. Apparently I had died the most.

All 4 One was not a title that I had previously had on my list of “must have” holiday titles, but after playing the beta and seeing that online gameplay integrates so smoothly with local players, I can’t help but want more.  Two levels that are long enough to satisfy for the time being, but leave the desire to want more is a huge win in my book for Insomniac.  As they say, “The first taste is free.” While I do think that the online sync process can be improved and hopefully Insomniac gets good reliable feedback from this beta, I think largely, as stated earlier, that this beta is more a sly way for positive word of mouth promotion. It’s working!