Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Sure, the opening scenes of this game are meant to blow players away. The colors are flying around you, something is happening everywhere and yet the action continues to run smoothly. But even after that, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart manages to conjure up memorable scenes on the screen, where the amount of action on the screen always remains an important element. The game shows a high level of detail, especially in the development and animation of the characters. They are of the level that the best cartoon makers in the world achieve and that is a very good achievement. The gameplay is also excellent. A wide range of wacky weapons is something we’ve come to expect from Ratchet & Clank and this game certainly doesn’t disappoint. Added to this is the high level of dynamics, where you can combine stunts with the lightning-fast hoover boots with grinds and wall runs at the best moments. The battles become less interesting after a while, partly because there is a lot of repetition in the enemies you encounter. Every now and then the camera that doesn’t rotate very well means that you don’t see some enemies, but that is hardly an obstacle to the fun. Gamers who are lucky enough to already be able to buy a PS5 can take home the new adventure of the lombax Ratchet and the robot Clank with peace of mind.
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Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a busy game. In the run-up to the release of the PlayStation 5, Sony obviously showed several games, but many of them will not appear for the time being. A number of other games have already appeared, but also turned out to be on the market for the PlayStation 4. A game that needs to run on both PS generations will always have limitations because everything needs to be runable on older hardware as well. However, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the first really big exclusive game for the PlayStation 5, if you don’t include the recently released Returnal. Returnal certainly took a step forward in its own way thanks to the new hardware, but many mainstream gamers will not have had that title in their sights. So it’s up to the lombax Ratchet and the robot Clank to show gamers around the world what the PlayStation 5 is capable of.
In fact, we didn’t have to play Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart at all to know what this adventure platformer is all about. After all, the game has already been extensively shown several times and it has always been striking how much action can be seen on the screen at the same time. Without any effort, the PlayStation 5 conjures up tight 4k images at 60fps during the State of Play presentation and there is more happening in the picture than you can see at a glance. It is therefore not surprising that many gamers are looking forward to this title and just to get straight to the point: they are not necessarily disappointed. The action is good, the image tight, the designs beautiful and there is indeed a lot happening. Unfortunately, it is still the case that as a player you have to make a choice between optimal graphics and optimal performance. The default ‘fidelity’ mode delivers 4k images with ray tracing, but runs at 30 frames per second. In addition, there are two performance modes that both run in a lower resolution and where ‘performance rt’ selects an even lower resolution to keep ray tracing active. We chose the best graphics ourselves and settled for 30fps.
You notice that the game runs at 30 frames per second, but you can get used to it pretty quickly. Once that’s done, you can fully enjoy the graphical splendor that the game entails. Literally, because the story opens with a holiday when Ratchet and Clank are honored for all the exploits they have done in the past. To spice up the occasion, a beautiful parade with flying floats has been organised. The colorful whole looks cheerful and while the confetti is flying around your ears, you immediately notice that the game wants to make something clear to you. The capacity that exists to make many things happen at once is fully utilized from the very first minute. It’s overwhelming, it’s fun to watch and the action doesn’t turn a frame less stable.
High level
As this opening scene unfolds, you can also zoom in on some other graphic details. Aside from having a lot going on, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a wonderful game in other ways too. The use of color is beautiful and very varied, with various color schemes for the different worlds in which the player ends up. Even more impressive is the level of graphics the game holds in gameplay when you’re just coming out of a cutscene. In live gameplay, the graphical level is obviously not the same as in a nicely animated cutscene, but the step is small. The movements remain smooth, the environments beautiful and varied and there is an incredible amount to see. Yet the level of detail is nowhere stronger than with the main characters. Rarely has a cartoon character’s fur in a game looked more beautiful and believable than that of Ratchet and Rivet in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
The level is so high that at times you get the idea that you are dealing with some kind of interactive Pixar movie. The game also owes that compliment to a number of strongly written dialogues and well-placed comments. The main characters, but certainly also the many other characters in the game world, regularly score with a lot of humor. Actually, the only thing that we can blame the game in the audiovisual field is that the camera does not quite turn along with the action every now and then. Enemies tend to trap Ratchet or Rivet. Then of course some enemies fall out of the picture and you run the risk of losing the overview a bit. That is certainly not a problem, but sometimes a bit annoying.
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