Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
...just another platformer

Tom: I have to give Irrational's Ken Levine credit for summing up Going Commando in one word: he called it "generous". It constantly gives you presents. Here's a crazy new gun, have this cool upgrade, add these fancy tricks to how you get around the world, try this next area with these new creatures, have another minigame. It's a constantly expanding bag of meaningful tricks that doesn't even stop when you've reached the end. Going Commando is nothing if not bountiful (although the painfully unfunny cutscenes are the equivalent of a lump of coal in your stocking). This is a best-case example of how a great game should constantly establish paradigms so that it can break them. It teaches you that you can jump so high, and then gives you something that lets you jump higher. All told, here's thirty plus hours of unmitigated entertainment, immaculately paced, skillfully drawn, steeped in the joy of gaming, and adroitly balanced on that thin line between challenge and frustration that seems to elude so many games. To dismiss it as 'just another platformer' is like dismissing the Mona Lisa as 'just another picture'. It is the nonpareil of its genre and hands down my favorite game of 2003.

Mark: Don't you play as a furry animal in this game? That's a tough leap for me to make, sort of like trying to jump the Grand Canyon on one of Dean Kamen's scooters.

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