Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
Developer(s)	Insomniac Games Idol Minds (HD edition)
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Composer(s)	David Bergeaud Niels Bye Nielsen (additional music)
Series	Ratchet & Clank
Engine	Insomniac Engine v.1.0
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2 PlayStation 3 (HD)
Release	November 11, 2003 Going Commando PlayStation 2 NA: November 11, 2003 EU: November 21, 2003 AU: 2003 JP: December 11, 2003 HD Collection PlayStation 3 AU: June 28, 2012 EU: June 29, 2012 NA: August 28, 2012 JP: September 6, 2012
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (known as Ratchet & Clank 2: Locked and Loaded in Europe and Ratchet & Clank 2 in Japan) is a 3D platformer developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony. Released for the PlayStation 2 in 2003, it is the second game in the Ratchet & Clank series, following Ratchet & Clank and preceding Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal.

The game begins with Ratchet and Clank being hired by the company Megacorp to find a small creature that was stolen from the company's labs. Ratchet finds the thief and returns the creature to Megacorp before learning that the creature, called a "protopet", is a dangerous monster which reproduces at amazing speed and that Megacorp is planning to market it to unknowing customers across the Galaxy. The duo must stop the protopet menace and save the galaxy.

The gameplay of Going Commando is similar to that of the original Ratchet & Clank. The player explores planets in the "Bogon" Galaxy and undertakes missions. It contains more mini-games than were present in the previous game. The game also introduces role-playing game (RPG) elements, such as upgradeable weapons. Going Commando was released roughly a year after its predecessor, and received very positive reviews. Critics noted the game's improved graphics, longer gameplay, and added role-playing elements as being major improvements over the original, but also criticized the game for its very high difficulty.

Gameplay

Further information: Gameplay in the Ratchet & Clank series

The player controls Ratchet from a third-person perspective, and uses weapons to defeat enemies. The player can also use gadgets to explore new areas. The player travels to planets in the "Bogon" Galaxy and completes main objectives and optional side quests. "Bolts", the game world's currency, are obtained by defeating enemies and breaking crates located throughout the game's levels. Going Commando also includes four types of "maxi-games", mini-games in which the player can participate to earn bolts . These games including arena battles, hover bike races, spherical worlds, and space combat. After completing the game, the player may also enter "challenge mode", which is more difficult but allows the player to start with the weapons and health that they had when they finished the game the first time.

File:R&CGCscreen.jpg

Ratchet uses the Blitz Gun in a combat arena. Also visible is the game's head-up display, which displays weapon and health information, and the progress towards upgrades.

Going Commando introduces eighteen new weapons, such as the Blitz Gun, Seeker and Lava Gun. Each weapon has a "growth bar", which increases when the weapon is used to defeat enemies. The weapon is upgraded once the bar is filled, doubling its power and changing the design of its shot. Certain devices from the original Ratchet & Clank make a return, such as the Swingshot, while others are new to Going Commando. The player can use a save file from the original Ratchet & Clank to access a selection of "retro" weapons from that game, bringing the total number of available weapons to twenty-four.

As with weapons, Ratchet gains experience with each enemy destroyed. When Ratchet's experience bar fills, he gains a new level of nanotech. This awards him with additional health bubbles, up to a maximum of 80. Ratchet's health can also be increased by collecting nanotech upgrade items. The game introduces armor vendors, which are able to provide up to five additional levels of protection.

Plot

Further information: List of Ratchet & Clank characters

After defeating Drek in the first game, Ratchet and Clank become heroes. Meanwhile, Abercrombie Fizzwidget, the president of Megacorp, is searching for "the right man" to do a job. They are teleported to an unknown space fleet, where they find a holographic Fizzwidget, that instructs Ratchet to complete a job of retrieving a stolen "experiment", a small blue furry creature, which is currently in the hands of a thief. Ratchet accepts the offer, but Clank was reluctant to partake in another adventure; instead he heads off to his Megacorp RestQuarters on Megapolis to be a chief accountant.

Two weeks later, Ratchet is given new MegaCorp armour to infiltrate the Aranos base, where the "experiment" was last seen. Ratchet infiltrates the base only to find that the thief is already present before him. Ratchet covers up by lying that he is fixing the "transfelxor coil". Instead, the thief, who later escapes, does not buy the idea. Ratchet escapes the base, without any details where the thief went. Instead Fizzwidget sends coordinates to Ratchet, to Oozla.

On Oozla, there is a Megacorp supermarket, where the thief was last seen, looking for galactic maps and visiting the Inventor. Ratchet obtains the Tractor Beam, capable of moving stationery machinery and equipment depicted by a glowing orange target. Ratchet also obtains the Dynamo which activates machinery marked with a nearby dynamo node. After exploring the supermarket, Ratchet finds no one in there. Fizzwidget later sends confirmation of a Jamming Array orchestrated by Thug-4-Less (an army owned by the thief) on Maktar Nebula. Elsewhere, on Megapolis, the thief kidnaps Clank, unbeknownst to Ratchet.

Travelling to Maktar Nebula, Ratchet finds himself trapped in the Wupash Nebula, where small firefighters are assigned to attack Ratchet's ship, who in turn, destroys 40 firefighters to bypass access to Maktar Nebula. Ratchet manages to capitalise on the Jamming Array and finally destroys it. Fizzwidget rewards Ratchet for his efforts, with coordinates to Barlow, home of the Desert-Riders, which is also owned by Thugs-4-Less. Ratchet also partakes in the Megacorp Games, in which he wins an Electrolyzer. Later, he finds out the thief kidnapped Clank on Megapolis.

Ratchet heads to Megapolis and rescues Clank. The duo also pays visit to Clank's apartment, in which Ratchet fights the Thugs-4-Less leader (whose name is never revealed) along the way, where he obtains the Swingshot and Grind boots. The heroic duo travel to Barlow in search for the Desert-Riders. On Barlow is some ruins of an old Gadgetron facility. Still residing on the planet is a small vendor, where they can buy some weapons from the first game. They meet a rider, who allows them to participate in a race for a Desert-Riders Helmet and coordinates to a Thug Rendezvous. The pair also pick up a Thermanator gadget, which allows them to freeze or thaw certain bodies of water.

Upon arriving at the meet-up zone, they are attacked again by Thug ships. After a brief skirmish, they pick up a transmission that the Thugs-4-Less leader left which leads them to Notak. When they arrive, they find themselves a second late as the thief already left. They venture into the ice factory and find coordinates to Siberus. On Siberius, Ratchet and Clank defeat the thief and retrieves the Protopet back. Fizzwidget announces a rendezvous on Tabora, where the hand-off of the "experiment" will take place.

On Tabora, Fizzwidget crash lands on Ratchet's ship which infuriates him. To keep a low profile, Ratchet and Clank hitch a ride on Fizzwidget's aircraft. While flying in Fizzwidget's aircraft, He "accidentally" ejects Ratchet and Clank out of the aircraft, landing them in a treacherous underground volcano crater inhabited by toxic mutants. With no witty choice left, they venture in the volcanic crater to find a way out, in the process Ratchet receives a new OmniWrench.

At the end of the volcanic crater, the duo encounters the thief yet again, but to their astonishment, they discover that the thief is a "she". "She" reveals herself as Angela, whose looks resemble a Lombax. Admitting she was moonlighting as the thief, Angela reveals she wanted the Protopet permanently destroyed before it lands in the wrong hands. She urges Ratchet and Clank to pay a visit to the Dobbo pumping station and then leaves, leaving it unclear as to why. After leaving the volcanic crater the duo encounter a gypsy, who, in exchange for 10 Crystals which can be found on the blazing sand, fixes their ship for them.

On Dobbo, they find a computer terminal, which reveals that the "experiment" is an incredibly dangerous creature which experts strongly recommend to be destroyed. Ratchet and Clank call to warn Fizzwidget, and he announces another rendezvous on Hrugis Cloud and gives them a password to gain access. Ratchet and Clank also fight the thug leader on a moon orbiting Dobbo. For the fight, the player plays as giant clank. After they defeat the Thugs-4-Less leader, they get the coordinates for Joba, which has the Megacorp Games running.

When entering Hrugis Cloud, Clank keys in the password which appears erroneous, irking Ratchet. With no back-up, they fend of the six defence turrets that turns on them. After a small fight, Fizzwidget gets through to them. Fizzwidget shows a commercial he was in, showing off a weapons facility on planet Todano. Fizzwidget then goes away, ignoring their pleas to destroy the "experiment".

On Joba, Ratchet heads towards the Megacorp Games while fighting off the natives. They then run into the shady character that sold them the R.Y.N.O in the first game. They buy a levitator to reach the entrance of the games. He succeeds at the games, and thus wins an Infiltrator gadget, and a pair of gravity boots. The duo also take part in the hoverbike tournament, winning a pair of charge boots.

While on Todano, Ratchet and Clank fight their way through the underground nuclear stronghold, looking for clues. They stumble across a screen which Angela talks to them with. She tells them that the "experiment" is actually a protopet which Megacorp intends to sell to the entire galaxy. The duo insist they must tell Fizzwidget, but Angela disagrees, saying he won't listen to them. Nonetheless, she tells them that he may be on planet Boldan.

On their way to Boldan, the Thugs-4-Less leader informs his elite thugs about Ratchet and Clank, and wants them to be exterminated. Once the heroes arrive at Boldan, they find the elite thugs waiting for them. They head across Silver City, looking for Fizzwidget. After many battles, they find him in a city dome. Unfortunately, it is a trap and the "Fizzwidget" they find turns out to be a robot. The Thugs-4-Less leader then imprisons them on the Aranos Flying Lab, where Ratchet performed his first mission.

While in the prison, they look for a way to escape. Clank manages to squeeze through a crevice and manoeuvre his way out. Clank then deactivates the prison bars, and Ratchet proceeds to escape. Along the way, he obtains another OmniWrench. After escaping, the duo enter a main hub, where they journey to the hub control room. In there, they find a transmission left by Angela, informing them that she has been captured on planet Gorn, where the thugs have their fleet.

Ratchet and Clank travel to Gorn to find out which fleet she is imprisoned in. After destroying all the fleet ships, they discover she is not on the planet, and is instead being held at the thug HQ.

On Snivelak, the duo disable a huge robot controlled by the leader and rescue Angela. Angela now has coordinates to Smolg which is a warehouse with stocks of Protopets. Because the Protopets are dangerous, Angela concludes that the stock must be disabled immediately or it will results in the demise of the galaxy.

With investigating the Distribution Facility on Smolg, they find a warehouse filled with hundreds of crates of protopets. After navigating the storage, they come across a message from Angela. She tells the pair that she has found a way to infiltrate Megacorp headquarters and destroy the protopets once and for all. They continue exploring the facility when they find a hypnomatic part. When exploring the transport ships, they find a creature who shows them a news transmission. On planet Damosel, Allgon city is being attacked by a wave of protopets.

On Greblin, the duo encounters the gypsy again (who was seen on the Tabora desert). He offers in exchange for 9 Moonstones, a mineral found on the icy tundra, to move a rock blocking the path to Angela's hideout. After collecting the moonstones, the gypsy offers them a hypnomatic part in exchange for 13 Moonstones. The heroes collect more of the stones, and get a second hypnomatic part.

On Damosel, the two ride the train-rails of the city, and find yet another hypnomatic part. Ratchet and Clank fight their way through the city, where protopets constantly attack them and the civilians. They soon come across a small greenhouse where a strange man turns their hypnomatic parts into a functioning hypnomatic.

Back on Grelbin, Ratchet and Clank use their hypnomatic to fight the robots in the nearby factory. After figuring out how to get to the other side, they find Angela. She tells them Megacorp are using a sole protopet to clone all of the others. The original is inside MegaCorp HQ on planet Yeedil, and it must be destroyed. Angela gives them her old Megacorp ID badge so they can access the facility.

On Yeedil, Ratchet and Clank have a hard-fought battle against the sentry robots and tanks in MegaCorp HQ. Once reaching the protopet, with Angela caught up with them, Fizzwidget tries to stop them. The trio find out Fizzwidget is actually Captain Qwark. He reveals he orchestrated this elaborate conspiracy to mend his reputation to become the greatest hero the galaxy's ever known. A small malfunction in the elixo-morph, which is used to clone the protopets, results in the protopet transforming into a Mutant that exhibits destructive powers. The Mutant eats Qwark and the Ratchet and Clank are forced to defeat it. After a long final battle, the mutant spits Qwark out and peace is restored. Angela fixes the elixo-morph and all is at peace again.

The game ends with Ratchet, Clank and Angela in MegaCorp garage enjoying chatting to each other while Qwark undergoes a Crotchizer Test for his misdeeds.

Development and release

Going Commando was approved for development five months before the first game's release, after highly positive reviews from the original's playtesters. In August 2002, Insomniac Games started designing the visual concepts for Going Commando, while still fixing bugs in the original game. Brian Hastings, Insomniac's Vice President of Programming, said in a 2003 interview that the first step in the game's design was to "try to come up with a few 'Big Ideas'. These are the things we think will really grab people's attention and give the game that Wow-Factor. In the case of Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando the big ideas were RPG elements (like weapon upgrades and health upgrades), spherical planets and space combat." Hastings said that the inspiration for the game's spherical worlds came in part from the cover of the 1943 novel The Little Prince. Designing the spherical worlds required changing about 50,000 lines of the game's code, to account for the different handling of gravity. Development took a total of ten months, during which time Insomniac's design team doubled from 40 to 80 members.

One common criticism of the original Ratchet & Clank was the design and personality of Ratchet. Ted Price, the game's producer, said that to fix this they made Ratchet "less cocky, he is much more friendly to Clank, and he's able to handle himself better in stressful situations without being impetuous, which is what he was in Ratchet 1." The character of Captain Qwark was a late addition to the game.

Going Commando was released in North America on November 11, 2003, Europe on November 21, 2003, and Japan on December 11, 2003. In 2004, Sony added Going Commando to their Greatest Hits series of games for the PlayStation 2, and it was similarly added to the Platinum Range used in the PAL region on August 13, 2004, and to the Japanese list of The Best games on July 8, 2004.

Reception

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	90.64%
Metacritic	90/100

Review scores

Publication	Score
1Up.com	A
Eurogamer	9/10
Game Informer	9.5/10
GamePro
GameSpot	8.8/10
GameSpy
GameZone	9.4/10
IGN	9.4/10

Awards

Publication	Award
IGN	Top 25 PS2 Games of All Time (11th)
IGN	Game of the Month (November 2003)

Going Commando was received with universal acclaim. 1UP.com said that "Everything that Ratchet & Clank did, Going Commando does better, and the tweaks and additions just push it further over the top." Game Informer's Andy McNamara said that the game has "the best and most compelling content [Insomniac] has put out to date."

The game's arena combat and racing levels were praised by Andrew Reiner of Game Informer, and Benjamin Turner of GameSpy similarly said that "it's surprising how fun it can be to play interstellar gladiator." GamePro praised the game's pacing, saying that the first game felt like it didn't "really show its true colors until about halfway through", but that Going Commando had the same feeling by the end of the second level. GameSpot mentioned that the "great sense of humor" of the original game is also noticeable in Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, a statement echoed by GameZone when they said that the game's cut-scenes "represent some of the most thought-out and gut-wrenchingly funny sequences ever witnessed in a platforming game."

Going Commando's graphics were praised by reviewers, who specifically mentioned Ratchet's improved character design. Game Informer said that "the graphical details will leave you speechless..." GameSpot considered the reuse of graphics for the menus and mission screens to be "a little lazy", but praised the graphics and sound effects of the game's weapons. GameSpy mentioned that "Going Commando is easily the most graphically impressive platformer on the market". GameZone reported that the game's sound was well-done, including the music, weapon effects, and dialogue.

Criticism of the game was aimed at its level of difficulty, which is higher than that of its predecessor; 1UP.com mentioned that this was most noticeable near the end of the game, where "there are levels that consist of nothing but wave after wave of difficult enemies thrown at you to deplete your ammo, and then more waves of enemies after that." GameSpy, however, praised this aspect of the game, saying that it made Going Commando more interesting than the original. Some reviewers also felt that the game's space combat was poorly done in comparison to the rest of the game, and that the "Giant Clank" levels were "brainless and boring".

The game was awarded 11th place on IGN's 2007 list of "The Top 25 PS2 Games of All Time". IGN also awarded both Going Commando and Final Fantasy X-2 their Game of the Month award for November 2003 in their first "Game of the Month" feature to cover two games.

While the first Ratchet and Clank suffered, in my opinion, because of its immensely generic homogenization of character and because of its relative ease, Ratchet and Clank Going Commando tries to solve these problems in typical Insomniac fashion. Ratchet too annoying? Let him grow up and take charge. Game too easy? Increase the quantity and kinds of weapons for Ratchet and for the enemies. But Insomniac didn't just fix problems. It looked at every detail of the first game and from the ground up improved everything wholesale. It upgraded everything, and then it added new stuff. [...] Throughout its core fabric, Going Commando is improved in every way.

— Douglass C. Perry

External links

• Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando at MobyGames.