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To Insomniac Games, Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty must have sounded perfect on paper. Take your excellent Tools of Destruction game, which polished the series’ shoot-and-jump mechanics to an HD sheen, and produce a PSN sequel using that game’s great pirate-themed levels as a starting point. Toss in a couple of new gameplay mechanics to make sure the now well-worn formula doesn’t get too stale, and serve. What could go wrong?

Quest for Booty begins right where Tools left off. Ratchet’s robotic companion has been kidnapped by a mysterious race of creatures called the Zoni, and it is up to you as Ratchet to track him down. Unfortunately for Ratchet, Clank has taken his various helicopter and jetpack moves with him, so the wisecracking Lombax is left to traverse the game’s pirate ships, dank caves, and tropical islands with only his own two legs to guide him. The developers haven’t left him completely helpless, however. He still has his trusty wrench which now lets him manipulate platforms as well as pick up items to toss at barricades and enemies. And he has been given a female buddy (Alwyn, who we met in Tools) who does a good job of telling Ratchet what to do without ever really doing anything of value herself.

The game does at least one thing right: platforming. In the early going, there is a lot of running and jumping as Ratchet is tasked with reactivating some wind thingamajigs that are at the top of some scalable towers. At times, a platform might be too far to reach and this is where one of the wrench’s new abilities, or Kinetic Tether, comes into play. By attaching this tether to grip points on the platform, you can move it closer to provide you an escape from the hazardous steam, goo, and other assorted bits of nastiness. Although the tether is a bit cumbersome to pull off and doesn’t always go where you tell it to, the platforming segments are easily this game’s strong suit. We only wish there were more of them.

Combat is once again the main focus of Quest for Booty, and here, for the first time in the series’ history, it is sadly lacking. The game starts you off with a bunch of weapons and then – yes, you guessed it – takes them all away in an inspired homage to every action-adventure game ever made. This isn’t a problem, since at this point the game becomes more about platforming, which is a very good thing. But then Ratchet starts to get his weapons back little by little and you realize that they are woefully underpowered and, well, boring, compared to what the series usually throws at you. No Groovitrons or Transmorphers (better known as the Penguin Gun) here, just bombs and guns and missiles. And you will use them a lot, as at times the game design boils down to the developers just throwing wave after wave of baddies at you in an attempt to see what sticks. None of this is particularly frustrating, mind you, but it’s not particularly fun either.

This laziness extends to the setting and story, which never really goes anywhere. In Tools of Destruction, the pirate-themed levels stood out amongst all the futuristic cityscapes. Here that light touch has been replaced by a veritable bombardment of pirate jokes, pirate songs, and pirate imagery that would wear out the biggest Gore Verbinski fan. There is a late series of puzzle segments that get the pirate milieu just right, where, for instance, Ratchet has to mix a pirate cocktail in order to advance. And the side character Rusty Pete is good for a few chuckles, but the overall effect is exhausting.

However, Quest for Booty’s biggest flaw, and the reason why we can’t really recommend it to anyone but the most fanatic of Ratchet fans, is the game’s replay value. Quite simply, there is none. Most gamers will blow through this game in about half an afternoon. Unlike other Ratchet games, this one provides no incentive to go back. The weapons that you have accumulated and powered up over the course of the adventure do not carry over to a second play-through. Everything is reset. This is odd to say the least, as replayability has always been one of the hallmarks of the franchise.

For the diehards, Quest for Booty provides just enough of the platforming and shooting goodness that they have come to expect from the series to be worth a look. It’s hands down the most gorgeous looking downloadable game yet, and the voices and sound effects are of a typically high quality. However, we have come to expect more from Insomniac Games. The game is painfully short, shallow, and lacking much of the Ratchet charm. With so many other PSN games offering a better value at a fraction of the price, we think that even the biggest fans would be wise to wait for the full-fledged Ratchet adventure due next year.

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