After saving the universe once again and finally spending some time resting up, our lovable heroes end up right in the middle of another interplanetary drama. Blaming the entire Lombax race (of which Ratchet is supposedly the last of) for the mysterious disappearance of his insect-like Cragmite civilization, the tyrant Emperor Percival Tachyon is hell-bent on locating and eradicating Ratchet as revenge. After just barely surviving an attack on their home planet, the heroes slip by the Emperor's guards and craft-jack the imperial warship just in the nick of time. From there, R&C travel from planet to planet while searching for clues on what may have happened to the Lombax race as well as the real whereabouts of the Cragmites.

Insomniac is the type of developer that you can tell really enjoys making games, whether it be something dark and serious such as Resistance or more light-hearted like Ratchet and Clank. There's just something about the level of polish, timely releases, and the level of community interaction which you still rarely see these days. It's also pretty obvious why they have been the first and only videogame company to make the "Top Ten Best Small & Medium Sized Companies to Work for in America" list. As with their previous releases, Tools of Destruction is right up there with their best and it's a game that feels like they really had a lot of fun creating. That enjoyment seems to also directly carry over to how fun the game is to play.

To be more concise, R&CF is not a traditional "platformer" in the Mario or Sonic sense - it's more of a shooter/platformer hybrid. Past games in the series have had different mixes of those characteristics, with a few fans not particularly happy when they strayed too far into the shooter category. Well this time around the roughly 50/50 ratio feels absolutely perfect, and the Future provides plenty of well-paced opportunities for both types of gameplay throughout. Insomniac has followed their typical R&C formula when developing the control-scheme, and even those not familiar with the series should feel right at home. They've totally nailed the controls, and more importantly the camera, and there's not a single time throughout the entire game where I felt like I was fighting either of them. For a 3D platformer, that's a pretty huge accomplishment.

The game primarily plays out in the 3rd person perspective, although in R&CF Insomniac has provided the ability to free-look, move (albeit slowly), and shoot from an over-the-shoulder view (as opposed to a static first person view like in previous games) by holding one of the left shoulder buttons. Ratchet can also lock-strafe with all weapons, perform defensive side and backflips, double jump and glide/super-jump with the help of Clank's built in helipods. Quite a few of the abilities which were required to be unlocked or found in previous R&C titles, Ratchet is already equipped with. Of course there are more than a few newly created ones waiting to be discovered in Future. Besides controlling Ratchet, there are a few times where you'll need to take control of Clank, or play various mini-games for a number of reasons, as well as pilot the ship and it's guns while traveling between planets. The game never goes overboard with any of the other segments, and it's just enough to break up the usual gameplay and provide variety. As you play through the stages and planets and move onto the next, there is always a reason to revisit them to either find hidden bolts/gadgets or upgrade weapons and obtain skill points, most of which are used to unlock stuff within the game. There is not much backtracking actually required, so it's really just optional (but usually worth it).

Interesting and inventive weapons and gadgets is an Insomniac staple in all of their games, and they certainly do not disappoint in Tools of Destruction. Whether it is a (optionally) motion control-enabled tornado launcher, a kick ass electric whip, or viscous little plasma beast capsules, nearly all the weapons are fun to use and required to be utilized throughout the game. By required, I mean that certain enemies are weak against certain types of weapons in addition to the fact that ammo for each weapon is sometimes sparse, which forces you to use others in your cache. Along the way you can purchase new weapons by exchanging collected bolts, upgrade existing weapons with Raritanium, and also level each of them up just by using them. The many ways to improve your weaponry gives the game a nice little RPG element and actually rewards you for using them all. New to R&CF are the consumable devices such as the Disco Ball launcher which temporarily paralyzes your on-screen foes by forcing them to dance to 70's style music, or smart-bomb like energy absorbing creatures. As with the weapons, there's quite a few actually, and part of the fun is obtaining and playing around with them. This is by far Insomniac's best selection of weapons and gadgets yet, although I have to say they are probably a little too good. By spending a few extra minutes exploring the stages and collecting raritanium and bolts, weapons can be upgraded to ridiculously powerful levels, even early on in the game. This throws off the difficulty curve somewhat and makes most swarms of enemies, and even bosses, a little too easy to take care of. You'll likely lose more lives plummeting into a pit than by being attacked. Those looking for real hardcore difficulty may not quite find what they are looking for.

Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is probably the closest we have been to "playing a Pixar movie" (to once again abuse that cliché). The statement is true, in certain respects at least. Ratchet, Clank and all of the other notable characters look incredibly close to cartoon-style CG, especially in the way they animate. When Ratchet is running, jumping and generally maneuvering his way among the environments, the attention to detail is remarkable. His furry ears and tail bounce to and fro in reaction to every step or move, and all of the cinematic and transitional animations are smoothly rendered and properly exaggerated. While obviously not the most realistic, the game has some of the best character animation yet. To show off the goods, Insomniac has tuned the game to run at a nearly solid 60 fps. There are a few sections of a few planets that seem to affect the framerate (the first one in particular), and even then, it's usually smoother running than most other next-gen titles. I'd estimate that 90% of the game runs solidly, even with an unbelievable amount of stuff going on at the same time. The upgraded weapons usually send out a flurry of particles and effects which obliterates anything and everything in your way and sends busted up crates, bolts, explosions, shrapnel and pieces of the enemy all around, without as much as a stutter. The various themed planets and environments are gorgeous, and usually just as impressive with dramatic lighting, some type of weather effect, good quality textures and a variety of outdoor and indoor platforming elements. A few of the larger, more wide-open spaces are a little more subdued looking with some lower resolution textures and less organic looking structures, but in sticking with the cartoon-style, they don't look entirely out of place. There's a moderate amount of interaction within the environments as well, with most of it being the various piles of bolt/weapon/energy crates being scattered about, as well as things like destructible lampposts or bendable foliage. To be honest I was expecting just a little more environmental interaction and detail for some reason. There are a few obvious, minor touches missing like footprints on certain surfaces, or splashes and ripples when walking through water/liquids. Regardless, there are still certainly a lot of "wow" moments within the game and for a number of reasons (framerate/animation for example) it's one of the best looking games released so far on any platform.

Voice work and the script are once again hilarious, in that Saturday-morning cartoon kind of way. I'm one of the people who have always loved both Ratchet and Clank's personalities and the way in which they play off one another, so I found the voiceovers enjoyable and well done. The supporting characters like the ever-cocky Captain Quark and the cranky, old "console war"-themed Cronk and Zephyr battle 'bots always seem to elicit a chuckle. Ratchet & Clank Future's soundtrack is pretty typical; with a variety of dramatic movie-style stuff, or simple tribal beats when needed. The planets are fairly well stocked with ambient sound effects and such, and the game whips up some great 5.1 Dolby Digital effects for those with suitable surround sound setups.

R&CF is one of the few recent Ratchet and Clank games (Size Matters for the PSP included) which does not have any type of online or offline multiplayer modes. On one hand, I've never really bothered to play much online in past titles. On the other, if it wouldn't have taken away from the development of single player experience, it wouldn't have hurt. The game has a number of statistical things that I think could have made for perfect leaderboard or online-aware functionality, so something like that would have been a really nice addition. Neither are worthy of lowering the score for, especially since most of those feature aren't usually a standard part of the genre. But next time... hopefully.

The game may be on the easy side, but it's not "short". Even with just a little exploration, playing through should take 10+ hours, making it the perfect length. It's definitely longer than Halo 3, Heavenly Sword and Lair, to be sure. My only other real complaint regarding the game is that it's very by-the-numbers installment in the series. It has the beautiful next-gen visuals, new weapons and gadgets and even some well-implemented motion controlled segments, though overall it does nothing out of the ordinary or unexpected. It's an enjoyable, beautiful ride that just seems kind of familiar in the end. As long as you aren't expecting anything more than that, you'll be highly entertained and totally glued to your PlayStation 3 until the game is complete and you've saved the universe once again.