For the uninitiated, Ratchet is the main character and Clank his robot sidekick. Whether or not you’re familiar with Ratchet and Clank games, the environments in UYA will draw you in and make you feel right at home. The art is superb, successfully blending bright colors and cartoony characters with the feeling of a battle zone – and nothing ever seems out of place. The dialogue is also strong, with good voice acting. The game has a refreshing sense of humor that isn’t gut-busting by any stretch, but it is grin-inducing often enough to be appreciated. The story isn’t drawn out and it’s clear the goal is to simply set up the next level and get out of the way, and that’s usually how it should be done.

In fact, Up Your Arsenal does as good a job as any game in establishing a personality without making it the focus of the game. Fighting the hordes of Dr. Nefarious (the bad guy in charge) means fighting dozens of different kinds of robots plus the occasional creature. There’s a lot of creativity that went into those robots and it deserves some credit. There are robots that fire guns, sure, but there are also ninja robots, giant robots, robots with blades flying everywhere, vehicle-based robots and on and on.

With regard to gameplay, the biggest draw to Ratchet and Clank is really the diverse weaponry. The platform aspects are pretty mild. Ratchet can switch weapons on the fly and there’s lots to choose from, like a gravity gun, lava gun, a gun that creates black holes, shoots electricity, you get the idea. These are in addition to more traditional armaments like a rifle and grenade launcher. They also improve as you use them, as if the weapon is gaining experience. Some become more powerful, while others get new abilities, like a lock-on. Most of the weapons have a fun factor associated with them, but the most effective tend to be the most traditional.

The combat ranges from pretty easy to moderately challenging. It seems feasible that you could get through most battles by running and gunning and hoping for the best. But you’re usually better off using cover and being more careful when you notice enemies that do the same. Not all of them do – many just run right up to you and wait to be shot. But when you do come across smarter bad guys, you’ll usually be punished for not taking them seriously. For a platform game, there isn’t much puzzle solving. The closest thing to a puzzle you’ll come across is trying to figure out which gun will be the most fun to use when blowing up the bad guys.

There are control options that will no doubt go a long way in making certain players more comfortable. You can switch from the standard third person perspective to first person if you prefer. There’s also a mode that locks you into a strafing movement that makes the game play more like a modern shooter. During the single player game, I found each to be equally worthwhile, it just depends on what you want to get used to.

The online mode of UYA is probably the most welcome new feature. Games are customizable for different maps and total number of players. The game types are a little limited, but include the basics of capture the flag, deathmatch and siege, which puts two teams against one another and challenges you to knock out the other’s base. There are also lots of skins to choose from for your online avatar and a simple but useful ranking system so you can tell, generally, how experienced the other players are. It also supports a USB headset for voice communication. But most important of all, the game runs very well, with only a few hiccups in all the time I played it – which means it runs as well as any online console game. Overall, this might be the most fun to be had on the Playstation 2 online.

If Up Your Arsenal had been just another installment in the series, it would feel like a continuation of what you’ve already seen. The single player game will be very familiar to those who played the first two games and that’s because there’s no new territory being explored. Even though it’s fun, it’s almost too familiar. But the inclusion of a fleshed-out and very entertaining online mode pushes this one over the top and into the territory of “must-have” for Playstation 2 owners that appreciate a good time online.