Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault

I came into this review with a lot of harsh thoughts based on what amounts to "You took my single player away from me." But after examining what was accomplished, and what was released at a decent price range ($19.99) for the package, I am kinda seeing the value in Insomniac's latest R&C experiment. I really hope we see a true single player sequel in the future, especially on next-gen equipment, but if this is what we have to deal with in the mean time, waiting might not be so bad.

The tower defence element in Ratchet & Clank: QForce feels familiar from the get-go, and we were surprised it has never been done in a Ratchet & Clank game before. It's a shame the single-player campaign is a little bit short, but the multiplayer will keep you entertained for quite a while. QForce gives the Ratchet & Clank franchise a much needed refresher.

A very short list of flaws are barely able to tarnish what amounts to a hidden gem among a busy holiday retail season filled with blockbuster AAA titles.

A great addition to the series, packing plenty of content and fresh ideas.

In the final assessment, Full Frontal Assault feels like an experiment that produced mixed results. If I squint, I can just make out the vision of the perfect melding of tower defense and third-person action that the game was meant to be. However, the true image of FFA is a game that feels as though it's attempting to complete two different objectives, and failing to fully carry out either one. I admire Insomniac for continuing to take chances with the Ratchet & Clank series, but I'd rather the studio devote its resources to the new action/platformer that fans want.

New ideas and a sense of refreshment are being implemented in this new chapter of the Ratchet & Clank adventures, with quite good results.

The latest offering in the Ratchet & Clank series fails to innovate, instead opting to blend overused formulas that other games have done better. The current road for the series seems bleaker with every passing installment. [Jan 2013]

Full Frontal Assault is a nice little experiment, but all we were thinking is how much fun the old Ratchet & Clank games were. Making a multiplayer tower defense game of one of the greatest platformers of all time was not the best idea. But for a small budget price it is still good fun for a little while.

Those 15 deaths, the difficulty imbalance, the weapon irrelevance and manual camera notwithstanding, the game was fine. But you know, those are all really big issues that drag down a game's score. Ratchet and Clank: Full Frontal Assault also is dreadfully boring, so I can't rate it anything higher than "average."

For their tenth birthday, Ratchet and Clank are not making an incredible come-back. And yet, despite the lack of humor and graphics that are getting old, Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault remains entertaining enough thanks to its interesting gameplay mechanics and its well-balanced difficulty. Multiplayer mode won't occupy players for the next ten years, but it will surely please them.

Especially fun if played with friends –or against them–, this new Ratchet & Clank doesn't seem to fully work as a whole, but at least brings us something fresh for the series.

The single player mode suffers from a lack of variation, but the competitive and team based multiplayer is a fantastic addition to both the Ratchet & Clank universe and the Tower Defense genre as a whole.

A different approach to the well-established formula of Ratchet & Clank that works well... for the most part. The single-player is extremely short, but the strategic nature of the gameplay makes the online multiplayer very enjoyable.

This $20 game does one thing well: it has a competitive multiplayer mode that blends tactics and action in a way that allows for some exciting and unpredictable battles.

As good as QForce is, it feels as though Insomniac is having an increasingly hard time recapturing the magic of the fabulous duo that put them on the map in the first place.

Insomniac took a risk with this title, but I think it has paid off. It is a fun game to play with a friend and is worthy of being called Ratchet and Clank.

It's damn fun to collect bolts, shoot some enemies and improve the base-defense, but only in the multiplayer mode. Lacking gameplay-depth makes the single-player not really entertaining. In my point of view the game is ok, but it's not a true Ratchet & Clank game. It seems that Sony took the name of a well-known franchise and made a traditional base-defense-game instead of a new game in the world of Ratchet & Clank.

Ratchet & Clank: QForce is short and lacks content and variety, but fun nevertheless if played with or against a bunch of friends. A full scale entry in the franchise might benefit more from these interesting new mechanics.

It's one of the worst Ratchet and Clank but it's different. Low price and cross-buy make it more irresistible but its graphics are mediocre and it isn't well balanced. Online modes with cross-play PS3-PSVita.

Enjoyable, if lightweight, tower defense at a decent price. [Feb 2013, p.87]

Ratchet and Clank Q Force is not a bad game, but it’s not a great one either. If you are a fan of the franchise there is definitely something here for you however you may be under whelmed.

The concept with its mix of well-proven action and exploration on one side and tower defense on the other is interesting. But especially when it comes to everything associated with the latter the QForce leaves much to be desired.

Ratchet & Clank QForce scores points for trying something different with the series, but the so-so implementation of ideas and elements leaves it falling slightly flat. The game looks and sounds great, but without the solid gameplay reinforced by some of its predecessors, this rather short game may be the last time we see Ratchet & Clank for a while, but it might be for the best.

A decent multiplayer game, Q-Force falls flat in the campaign and lasting appeal departments.

Because new weapons are found instead of bought, every bolt you collect is used for upgrading your base with turrets, shields and mines. Despite all that carnage, it is still necessary to jump into the fray yourself most of the time. [January 2013, p.78]

The exploration is a blast, but the shooting is a bust. Gradually upgrading defenses feels rewarding, but grinding for bolts proves tedious and stressful. In the end, the positives and negative battle to an uneasy stalemate that results in an experience that's simply middling.

An okay little game. Overall, it's fun, but the gameplay can get grindy, repetitive, and frustrating at times. It's certainly a good idea that had a lot of potential, and at downloadable price it's really not the worst deal out there. However, it's not the game that R&C fans wanted to celebrate the series' ten-year anniversary with. It doesn't have the story, the action, or the overall feel of classic Ratchet and Clank adventures.

A decent hybrid of genres but why is it so short? [CD-Action 04/2013, p.78]

[O]nline modes can be great fun, but they have one glaring weakness – within a week of release, they were all but deserted online. Getting into a 2v2 competitive match – which is the only thing that anyone has been playing at all – has been a struggle since launch, which is never promising. If you've got friends who also bought the game, this won't be a problem, but if you're hoping for something to play against random folk online we wouldn't expect this one to have a sudden huge surge in players. [February 2013, p76]

There is still joy to be found in Ratchet and Clank's trademark weapons and humour, but Q-Force's lack of focus ultimately proves its undoing.

Fun, but short and a bit dull. We expected much more from Insomniac Games.

QForce is quite enjoyable and with the budget price it comes with can certainly be recommended to fans of the franchise. But it's not a "proper" R&C game and certainly not the ideal way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Insomniac's beloved duo.

Full Frontal Assault takes the series in a direction that seems fitting. It is just a shame that the pieces didn't come together as well as they could have.

An odd mix of genres that doesn't capture the magic you usually get from a Ratchet & Clank title. A game that can be fun for a while but never really manages to create its own identity.

Unfortunately, despite being fun, there's just not much to it. It's a quarter of a story and just one online mode. And while the whole tower defense thing works, and the game looks, sounds, and plays perfectly well, you can't shake the feeling that you've seen it all before.

There is no denying that Full Frontal Assault can be an entertaining game in the realm of multiplayer, but with no story mode that fans have come to expect, and a lack of further multiplayer options, the experience becomes repetitive and somewhat boring quite quickly.

I don't know if I can recommend Q-Force to fans of the series. I think that after 11 games with these heroes, Insomniac Games has hit a wall. It's quite a good and demanding game that, unfortunately, has nothing in common with the "platform shooter" that the fans know and love. Insomniac has some ideas for this brand, but the new game isn't great both as a platformer, and as a tower defense game. Mixing these two elements produces a decent end result, but you should want more from such a developer.

Enjoyable multiplayer modes are only worth so much when backed by a paltry single player campaign, but taking the budget price tag into account, we can think of worse Christmas stocking-fillers for fans of the series of the tower defense genre.

The tight competitive multiplayer experience is a ray of hope in what's otherwise a rather depressing package. Campaign mode downplays the wide-eyed humor that was once the soul of the series, diluting it with a stressful, poorly balanced tower defense clone.

Full Frontal Assault isn't as much of an evolution of the series as it is a fun experiment with its mechanics. Unless the support is there for more maps down the road, it might not be in your regular rotation for more than a few weeks or so. Still, it's a pretty good bang for your buck whether you're a longtime fan or not.

Ratchet & Clank: QForce shows that hybrids of different games hardly ever work well. The attempt at uniting tower defense- and platform-action, only works in the competitive multiplayer. This combination only limits the rest of the game.

The game always looks good, and it amuses sporadically, but there's no heart - and following on from the similarly scattershot All 4 One, it sets a worrying precedent. Ratchet and Clank are in danger of losing their way. Insomniac needs to regain confidence in its still-popular series and play to its strengths rather than chasing trends for the sake of change.

Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault has some interesting ideas, but repetition and poor level design let the single-player campaign down. The innovative multiplayer mode represents the mini-adventure's strongest asset, but it's unlikely to hold your attention for very long. PlayStation's most enduring duo have seen better days, but this is still a likeable celebration of a fantastic franchise.

It's certainly great that Insomniac Games wanted to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Ratchet & Clank series with a fresh new gameplay experience. Sadly, Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault doesn't totally work. It's possible that the PS Vita will be a more natural fit for the game, and we expect to spend some time with that version when it is released.

It just ends up feeling like a slog. [Issue#227, p.70]

Ratchet and Clank: QForce desperately needs to be played with company, either locally or online, otherwise it will be a quick journey to boredom.

QForce is a disappointment because it feels like a Ratchet and Clank game, and to see the series go from some of the most high-profile Sony releases to an obscure multiplayer focused budget releas such as this is kind of disheartening.

The dynamic duo Ratchet and Clank has their 10 year anniversary, and it's a crying shame they couldn't get a more interesting game than this for the jubilation.

A flawed mix of shooter and Tower Defense, but a far great failure as an anniversary celebration – since it seems certain to decrease the chances of there ever being another.

Often it simply feels like too much work for a single player, as you're constantly bombarded with conflicting tasks.