Ratchet and Clank 2: Going Commando Review

"What?! Even the computers are charging us? That's it, this galaxy blows!"

There are a decent number of Ratchet and Clank games. Four on the PS2, two on the PSP, three on the PS3 with three downloadable adventures(which can also be bought in stores, thanks for the consideration Insomniac.) a crossover with Jak and Sly and many others I might have forgot. But I won't be reviewing all of them, mainly because I'll just be repeating myself. Out of all the games, I only stuff to talk about for three games: Going Commando, Gladiator and Q-Force. Lets talk bout Going Commando first, one which I have weird feelings for

Story
After Ratchet and Clank's fifteen minutes of fame, the Megacorp CEO, Abercrombie Fizzwidget, kidnaps them and wants Ratchet to rescue an experiment that was stolen by a thief while Clank gets a job as an account. Now Ratchet must save the fluffy ball of fur before it's too late.
This is one of the harder games to talk about, not because it's overly complicated, but because the story is in the 'clever in hindsight' category. I will talk about a few points though.

• I liked the thief and Thug-4-Less because the thief was slapstick gold and T4L  were a bunch of fun, dumb brutes.
• There's a cute girl infobot, which they never used ever again.
• While not the funniest of the series, this one has some of my favorite jokes

Gameplay
This game is the start of many elements for the series. First is the level up system, where your health and guns gain experience as you kill enemies. You have to use the gun in order to level it up which is a big plus as a problem of the first game is that I never used any weapon besides the wench. You can also get five weapons from the first game for free if you have the save data for it. You also get more health from killing enemies but also from a few helix's, two of which can be the hardest items to get in the whole game.
This is also the first game with the arena, where you do series of battles, each with a certain condition like one weapon only or don't get hit. These are simple compare to Arenas in later games, but this is a great first impression. There are also space ship levels, which they never did in this again. Which is having an open area to fly round in as you do one of four missions per levels. I like these levels but strangely the space races were easier than I remember. Also they're bike races which I also like although they can get repetitive.
As for gadgets, you get a tractor beam to move some pillars, a hypnotic device to control hypno-bots, a thermal gun that turns water to ice and vice-versa and our old friend the slingshot. The slingshot also gets a new friend with the dynamo which turns on machines and holograms that you can use as platforms, and I do mean friend as the next, the gadgets have a baby called the hypershot. If there's anything I didn't like, I didn't like hacking mini-game and the Clank levels are the weakest. There's one robot that you only use once just to lift a block.

PresentationVoice acting's good. Ratchet's got a noticable voice change, one he keeps for the rest of the series and all the other voice acting do a job well done. That's probably the only applause I'm gonna give it as everything else is not bad, but very lacking. The music is very bland for my taste with only three songs standing out, Oozla, the arena boss theme and the final T4L boss theme. The art is also very dull to me, as most of the levels take place in grey factories. Even the level that has hellish red skies looks bland.

Verdict
I think I figured out why I don't like this game compared to others in the series. I just don't like the galaxy it takes place in. Like an a person who just smiles and  waves and you have this irrationally dislike for them. It's not a favorite but I can't deny it's good.
8/10