Ratchet & Clank Comic-Con Recap (with Videos!)

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Comic-Con was huge for Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. On Wednesday night, we revealed the winner of the Captain Qwark’s My Blaster Runs Hot contest, the Spiral of Death, and showed footage of the weapon in the game. We also let the press try their hand at the new time puzzles that Clank will have to complete.

Throughout the course of the show, attendees could check out the Krell Canyon demo at the PlayStation booth. There were also photo opportunities with Ratchet himself, as well as swag: an inflatable replica of Ratchet’s Omniwrench 2000.

All of this built up to Sunday, when we revealed all of this and much more to the public in our panel session. Creative Director Brian Allgeier, Project Manager Bryan Bernal, and Writer Todd Fixman were joined by voice actors James Arnold Taylor (Ratchet), Armin Shimerman (Dr. Nefarious), and Joey D’Auria (Allister Azimuth). The panel was moderated by Gamespot Editor-In-Chief Ricardo Torres.

We led off with some exclusive videos that those of you playing at home won’t be able to see until the final game releases, one involving Captain Qwark, and the other an unlockable video about the Agorian Warriors. Allgeier and company then discussed the story, and its theme of “throwing caution to the wind,” especially relating to the effect of Ratchet being with an older Lombax for the first time. One of the early highlights involved a verbal spar between Taylor and Shimerman, using the voices of Ratchet and Dr. Nefarious, respectively, as they sat together on stage talk about Nefarious’s temperament issues.

Discussion then turned to Clank and his whereabouts after being kidnapped at the end of Tools of Destruction. Bernal revealed that Clank is being held at the center of the universe (give or take fifty feet), in a secret facility known as the Great Clock. Clank gains new time abilities and has some brand new indie-inspired time gameplay.

For more about Clank and the first footage of his gameplay, check out this video:



Next came a topic that is a series standby: weapons. The beginning of the discussion centered on the Weapons Contest event that occurred on Wednesday evening. The Spiral of Death was revisited and shown in case attendees hadn’t seen it. Winning fan designer Jackson Finley was recognized by Bernal, and the crowd gave him a huge round of applause. If you haven’t seen the Spiral of Death in action, check this video out:

Torres then moved onto the world reveal of a brand new line of weapons for A Crack in Time, The Constructo weapons. Brian Allgeier discussed how fans really enjoyed the ability to specifically tailor weapons to their own playing-style with modifications in Deadlocked and Up Your Arsenal. He announced two new weapons, the Constructo Pistol and Constructo Bomb Glove, and revealed some mods that longtime series fans will love – the video below shows and explains more.

The voice actors discussed their work on the game and how much fun they have had working with these characters over the years. James Arnold Taylor discussed how Ratchet’s voice is really his voice, and as such it’s really one of his easiest characters to jump into (which he did repeatedly throughout the panel). He also mentioned that it was only during this past year that he met David Kaye, the actor who voices Clank, as game voice actors typically record their sessions separately.

Armin Shimerman told attendees he generally has to take the next day off after recording Nefarious due to the amount of screaming a session involves, especially due to his perception of Nefarious screaming a lot more in this game. However, this didn’t dissuade him from screaming for the audience, including the classic yelling at his butler, “LAAAAAAAAWREEEEEENCE.” Newcomer to the franchise Joey D’Auria discussed voicing the first new male Lombax in the series, and how much he’s learned from the other voice actors, particularly Taylor. He also discussed how Azimuth’s character arc and how impressed he has been with the evolution of gaming as a storytelling medium.

We recently announced that we were partnering with DC Direct to bring fans the first Ratchet & Clank action figures. These long-awaited figures, including Ratchet, Clank, Nefarious and Qwark, were brought on stage to give fans a chance to see them before their release on December 2nd.

Before the Q&A, attendees were treated to the world premiere of the brand new trailer for the game, which you can watch below. The trailer includes the first glimpse at a new level in the game, Axiom City.

Finally, the group then took some fan questions. Highlights included a young fan who asked about the RYNO. Before anyone on the panel could answer, the fan proceeded to remind the panel of what each RYNO from each game did to crowd laughter and applause. Allgeier confirmed the RYNO as well as the Tools of Destruction fan-favorite, the Groovitron, will return in A Crack in Time. A fan asked if multiplayer would be included, to which Allgeier said the team was focused on closing the story arc started in Tools of Destruction and Quest For Booty while creating an epic single-player experience (also bringing applause). Another fan asked if The Plumber would return, to which Fixman revealed that he indeed would.

Everyone on the panel had a fantastic time. We here at Insomniac want to send a big thank you to all of our fans who came to see us and asked questions and came up afterwards to chat with us, ask for autographs, and take photos. We also want to send out a big thank you to James, Armin and Joey for taking the time to participate and see their fans. A huge thank you goes out to Ricardo Torres for moderating the panel, as well. We also are grateful to everyone at Comic-Con for giving us the opportunity and space to present new features and video directly to our fans. Finally, we want to thank everyone at Sony Computer Entertainment who helped put this together, including all of our PR/Marketing folks as well as all of the event folks who helped us out on the floor when trying to hand out thousands of inflatable wrenches.

That’s all for now – we hope you enjoyed this recap of the panel and the videos. Next up for us is GamesCom in Cologne, Germany, where we will reveal a bunch more new stuff, including the first look at our Space gameplay.

We’ll try to answer your questions in the comments – but as I’m writing this from a plane, Bryan Intihar may chime in as well.

Thanks for all your support! It was great to see so many of you at Comic-Con!
JS

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149 Comments

  • Awesome, shame my gun didnt make the cut but congrats to the winner i look forward to useing your tool of destruction against Nefarious :D

  • Thanks James.

  • Ratchet & Clank = best franchise on the Playstation.

    Can’t wait for it to come out. Thanks for the recap James. :]

  • thanks!!

  • So there. All of you guys + gals can stop commenting on other blog posts that have nothing to do with R&C asking for the R&C video. So incredibly annoying…

  • looks amazing, better than TOD.

    But if there is no MP for this one, at least make it longer than TOD. make is last about 20 hours – like the PS2 R&C games.

  • Can we have some new Ratchet and Clank avatar please?

    Oh and a release date for this game would be nice. day one purchase for sure.

    About how much longer is this game over R&C Future?

    • We\’ve only announced a Fall 2009 release, but a firmer date will be announced very soon.

      It\’s hard to talk # of hours when the game is still in development, but I can say that this game will have a lot of replay value in comparison to ToD and Q4B.

  • What the hell is up with the video player? I have to keep my mouse over it or it will restart? Anyone else having trouble with this?

  • The trailer mention Ratchet Father. Will be find out who he is and why he and Ratchet is separated?

    • This game will reveal more about Ratchet and Clank\’s past than any other game in the franchise.

  • that last trailer was so awesome! and the new way of customizing weapons looks very fresh.

    First year I’ll get to play Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and Sucker Punch games in the same year since Ratchet Jak and Sly on PS2!

  • wow tons of vids. Havent watch them yet. But I wanted to say that they actually picked the winner of the gun contest for the same gun that was my favorite out of the ones they picked!

  • Sweet!

  • Damn that’s a HEFTY HEFTY HEFTY post. Loads of great info and I can’t wait for this game.

    P.S. What do I have to do to get that Spyro the dragon figure in the back?

  • BEST. BLOG. POST. EVER.

    I’ve been waiting for that trailer! Will we be able to see it on PSN this Thursday?

    • Not sure if it\’s going up on the PS Store this Thursday, but hopefully it\’ll be available sooner than later.

  • Wow I loved all the videos Constructo Bomb was the best, especially the ones that bounce.

    I love how high quality the cutscenes look and the gameplay. Awesome!

  • I thought i heard something about you guys doing something with the blog and those big wrenches….

    • We gave away inflatable wrenches at Comic-Con. I\’m sure we\’ll have more to give out via the PS Blog and the Insomniac Twitter account (www.twitter.com/insomniacgames).

  • Pretty nice improvement on the engines.
    This graphics are terrifics.

  • Very excited! Not sure what to purchase first: Uncharted 2 or Crack in Time. @.@

  • PS Blog should have an R&CF:ACIT contest

  • Now we just need you guys to reveal the multiplayer. Yes. We know it’s there. :]

  • @2 If you’re serious, you’ve missed 2 already.

  • @23 Oops, I meant 21.

  • OMG that trailer is ace! *want*

    Amazing graphics, humour is great, gameplay looks awesome. :)

    Well done Insomniacs! =)

  • AMAZING

  • getting this day one! looks great, long time ratchet and clank fan. Where is fragile eagle?

  • wow i must say I was impressed with that bottom trailer!

    I love Ratchets voice now! It sounds younger and better. I love the voice actors and the cut scenes look really sweet too! I also think the new graphics are really good looking.

    Okay now for the bad.. Wtf is up with some of the character animations!?!? Seriously, Clank and his time robot buddy have the worst animations Ive seen in an Insomniac game.

    So please fix that.. thanks :)

  • From the videos it seems this game will kick ass, just like the others

  • I like the idea of having Clank with an indie-inspired time gameplay.

    I have to say you guys stole the day with these trailers, they’re AWESOME!

  • must buy game…

  • There isn’t a person on this planet I wouldn’t whack to get me one of those inflatable wrenches.

  • Woohoo! Thanks a lot and I can’t wait to play this game!!!!

  • Mr. Zurkon.

  • I can’t wait for this game! The Constructo weapons seem like an interesting concept that should be very fun to play around with. I hope we don’t have to wait too much longer for this game.

  • Modding weapons looks awesome.
    Day one buy.

  • We can’t compare you to the Pixar studios… You can make better ^^
    This is the best adventure game of all time, with all those possibilities we have during gameplay sequences… But I’m specially impressed by the blur you added in the background during the cut-scenes, which makes it a unique piece of art in graphics!

    Thanks for all your efforts, your have litterally blew our minds off ^^

    Ratchetlombax, Ratchet-Galaxy.com team member

  • Day one buy.

  • Those weapons look good, and the graphics too!

  • Looks sick but i really wished there was some co-op with that new lombax guy.

  • It did what all of the other Ratchet & Clank games have done for me, it made me smile. I was just so happy watching it. I have received a ton of bad news today, and this, and the movie, The Goonies have made my day so much easier. Thanks Insomniac!

  • So Clank levels = Blinx?

  • This game is shaping up beautifully, the time mechanics look great and will hopefully lead to some interesting puzzles.

  • CONSTRUCTO WEAPONS RULE
    but are they included for all the weapons??

  • now i don’t see why Columbia Pictures should make Ratchet & Clank a 3d movie. i would have did this before Uncharted.

  • When i saw the panel at comic con it was really cool they left out some other vids too.

  • I wish there was news about Resistance 2

  • Can we get the trailer, the last vid in the post on the PSN update this week?

  • Wow, just wow… Best trailer in the whole series. Amazing… the graphics, the animation and the music are the best I’ve ever witnessed in a R&C game, and in a cartoony game in general.

    However, I’m terribly disappointed by the confirmation there won’t be any multiplayer or coop mode :(

    Anyway, congratulations to the whole team at Insomniac !

  • the constructo weapons sound really cool & I’m glad the RYNO is coming back, I hope the Clank parts involving him making copies of himself don’t get too hectic

    • The team here has done A TON of work and playtesting to make sure the Clank gamplay is very intuitive. Some of the time puzzles will be challenging, but the last thing we want to do is frustrate players.

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