Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal Review

Long before the days when playing a game by Insomniac Studios would mean soaring through New York City as a friendly neighborhood webslinger, you could count on their quirky science-fiction platformer series of Ratchet & Clank games to keep your 2002 tube blaring all night, resulting in a less-than-friendly neighborhood the following morning.

After two successful games starring the titular Lombax and robot, Insomniac decided to culminate the original PlayStation 2 trilogy with 2004’s Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. After you’re done giggling over the title’s innuendo, you will find a game that remains feeling remarkably fresh 15 years later. Thanks to its writing and gameplay, it is the strongest Ratchet & Clank game on the PS2 — and possibly in the entire series.

Characters

Three adventures in, and Insomniac has an effortless control over the tone of this game. Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal goes from hilarious to heartfelt to straight-up endearing. Most of that is due to the laser-focused writing that portrays the characters in a tonally congruent manner. Everyone’s dialogue fills them with personalities that feed organically off each other, even if its clearly taking on a cartoony vibe.

Whether the characters are returning favorites or new faces, they are inherently likable from the start, even if their actions in the story are not the most heroic. I will always get a get a chuckle out of Captain Qwark’s cowardly egotism, but the snarky butler Lawrence had me in stitches just as many times.