Ratchet & Clank Future Developer Diary #1

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With the official release of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction imminent (and the unofficial release date already passed), we’ve got a series of developer video diaries we’d like to share with you. For our first entry, we focus on one Brian Hastings, who is the Chief Creative Officer at Insomniac Games. Brian contributed to the overall story concept (along with TJ Fixman, who we’ll feature later in the series) in Ratchet & Clank Future: ToD and the fine tuning of several other critical elements such as gameplay and voice acting to help ensure RCF went from good to great. He’s also an accomplished programmer, serving as the lead gameplay programmer on the first two Ratchet & Clank games.

In this dev diary, Brian discusses what Insomniac wanted to accomplish with RCF, how the team decided what to keep in the game and what to cut, and shares his favorite joke in the game.


We’ll be posting a new RCF developer video diary every day between now and the game’s official launch date. And if that doesn’t get you excited to play Ratchet & Clank Future: ToD, the reviews are in – and they’re very, very, very good.

One last thing, we’ve started a new poll: Which new Ratchet & Clank Future Weapon/Combat Device are you most excited to try out? Vote on the right side of the page (you may have to scroll down a bit).

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65 Comments

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  • I was lucky enough to snag a copy late Monday night and have since reviewed it on my blogsite, which is heraled as the best independent blogsite around with a 98% approval raiitng form over 700 readers, and the concensus says … Gamespot are a bunch of SNORKS! I simply cannot believe they took points off for no multiplayer… Aaron Thomas should be pelted in the peter with paintballs. What a crotch stick. Anyways, amazing game, folks. I loved it! Best one ever and I really love R&C going commando. I mean, really. so this game is special to me.

  • Also, by the way… for those who don’t know why Gamespot gave it the coveted review of 7.5 —-https://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=145154342&blogID=321863865&Mytoken=40D36415-2ABB-4812-9A37085E45679C6F12579317

    That’s the simple answer right there.

  • I just finished my first four hours of play. It was hard to tear myself away but I’m supposed to try and sleep tonight so I can go to work tomorrow…

    The game is flat-out awesome.

  • I consider games that average 8 out of 10 or better to be worth thinking of buying, anything less and you may find a gem, but you’re playing with fire.

    So I have been looking at Metacritic.com and pulled up the following stats…

    PS3 :
    Games that got 8+ out of 10 : 31/90 (1 year period) ~34%
    Highest Score : 93 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
    Lowest Score : 34 Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire

    XBox 360 :
    Games that got 8+ out of 10 : 73/278 (2 year period) ~26%
    Highest Score : 96 The Orange Box
    Lowest Score : 34 Bomberman: Act Zero

    Wii :
    Games that got 8+ out of 10 : 9/96 (1 year period) ~10%
    Highest Score : 95 for Zelda
    Lowest Score : 26 for Chicken Shoot

    It will be interesting to revisit these stats a year from now to see if everyone’s average of well received games has gone up or down.

    Note : this list includes XBLA, PSN and Virtual Wii ( or whatever it’s called ) games as well.

    Make of these numbers what you will.

  • i have the game i just can’t get around to taking it out of the box to play it. ESIV: Oblivion owns me and won’t allow me to play anything else. Thanks Bethesda…seriously thank you. Insomniac i’ll just thank you in advance when it returns my soul

  • Elder Scolls had me hooked when it 1st hit for ps3, but I didn’t play it past 2 weeks time… Never went back to it, either. Good game, awesome in scope… just too expansive and not enough directions for me. I really do love the game, though. Just not R&C caliber with me.

  • I got the game yesturday and I have to say that I’m extremely impressed. I am neither a Ratchet fan or a graphics *****, but everything about the game has blown me away so far (about 3 hours in). The reason I mention that I’m not a graphics ***** is because even I find myself stopping and staring at the gorgeous visuals/environs every couple seconds. I seriously just want to take a high-res screenshot every few steps and set it as my PS3/computer background. Insomniac, you really outdid yourselves this time. By the way, to go along with the graphics compliment, I’d like to say that the animation is OUTSTANDING – too many developers overlook that – but it seems like Insomniac and Naughty Dog [with Uncharted] realize how important it is to the overall feel of a game. Kudos Greg and team.

  • I have to say this game is incredible — I picked it up for $58 at the local Walmart last night.

    I have a complaint and warning though — the inverted aim doesn’t work properly in the first space flight asteroid section — it works for flight as configured, but not for aiming with the other stick. I was quite annoyed. Grr.

  • @ #57 – the animations on the fish (aliens) especially when dancing to the disco ball are amazingly detailed. Knock a couple out of their space suits, and toss a groovinator in the air and watch the fishies dance.

    I can’t believe how smooth this game is. I can’t believe how detailed it is. I’m thoroughly impressed by how fun it is, but I’ve played every R&C title so far. Excellence (besides glitch on inverted aim!!!) lol.

    PS the game disc comes with the 1.94 system software update which I thought was nice since I didnt’ have to wait for it to download for once.

  • Folks who cares about GameSpot review?! They made clowns of them selfs for giving 7.5 to Ratchet & Clank:TOD same score as to Eye of the Judgment and Katamari(what ever the name is).

    Gametrairels and IGN did great reviews. I am not saying this because of the high scores, but about what they said/wrote. It sounds more legit then what gamespot(anti Sony for about 2 years) had to say.

  • Im excited about this game but bummed about the glitch – I hope it doesnt hurt sales with all the returns. I will say this is getting ridiculous all the problems. for instance: why are all PS3 games delayed and not as good as the Xbox version? I really hope Sony does something to help out these 3rd party devs.
    I feel like the systems hurting now more than ever and I dont like feeling like that Im a die hard PS3 fan. All these problems with delays, warhawk issue,R&C glitch, EA crap ports when will it stop? Im really getting tired of it all.

  • It is off putting when you pay a premium price (600) for a system and it can’t preform as well as the junk competition. I’m beside myself that it’s almost a year out from launch and the ps3 still hasn’t shown it’s dominance over the xbox 360… I’m starting to wonder if it even can or is capable of doing so. R&C goes a long way to help the cause, lets just hope it sells systems and lots of copies along with those systems and not a bunch of renters and used shoppers.

  • Luckily, I had no problems installing the firmware update and I have to say after playing the game for several hours I LOVE IT!!! I am so starved for some platform goodness! Thank You the game looks and plays great!

  • Oh and I forgot to add…thanks for getting it to us early!

  • To Everyone at SCEI……………

    Kaz, you are doing a good job trying to clean up Ken’s mistakes and mishaps for the company. Phil, you just keep doing your thing man and know that you represent SONY Computer Entertainment as a whole and the people of Europe. Kick Microsoft’s ass with Home and Little Big Planet. See, Microsoft has money, but they aren’t a quality manufacturer as is clearly indicated by all of their hardware disfunctions with 360. It’s pretty sad that Microsoft has all that money with no real quality behind it. They’re successful and lucrative because they ran the gammit of becoming a monopoly which is why they’re so rich today. If the SONY Corporation had the money that Microsoft had, I in no doubt cannot disbelieve that SONY would be at the forefront of the world, seriously. Jack Tretton, a little advice to you, being that you’re new to SONY, just be quiet and let the games do the talking. To all the studios and employees at SONY, don’t give up, this will pay back huge dividends in the long run. I absolutely support Blu-ray, it is the future. Kaz and everybody at SONY listen up…..The main reason you all are stuggling with sales is because you made the mistake of hyping the PS3 at E3 06 as the beginning of next-gen when it clearly at least got its start on 360. Microsoft is out to monopolize everything if possible, especially the gaming industry. People looked forward to your brand’s next-gen playstation and were led astray by some of the comments on the system. I’m not saying that you guys lied, what I am saying is that what you said gave people the wrong idea. They expected the PS3 as soon as it hit store shelves to display games that looked graphically superior to the competition. What is done is done and we can’t go back and change it, however we can change the outlook on the future. R&C is the start of the rise of the PS3. The game is utterly amazing and shows just slightly what the Cell processor is capable of doing. My advice, advertise this game as much as possible. Display it to the masses and let people know the truth about PS3. And with all that advertising and spreading the truth of the PS3, this should cause most developers to wonder just how to make the machine sustain 60 frames per second as well explore it’s overwhelming computing power. Again, just be who you are which is SONY, the very best in consumer electronics. What most people fail to realize is that you guys were successful upon entry into the gaming market was because your approach was not from a videogames standpoint but computer entertainment point of view; something that your competitors still don’t realize and probably never will.

    SONY…..Like. No. Other.

  • I voted for the Alpha Disruptor-just cause I don’t know what the hell it is and I’d like to find out! :P

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