Advertisement 1

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart review: The prettiest PlayStation 5 game yet (no, really!)

Insomniac Games' latest entry in the Sony-exclusive action-adventure series is a blast to play and even more fun to look at

Article content

Score: 9.0/10 
Platform: PlayStation 5
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: SIE
Release Date: June 11, 2021
ESRB: E10+

Advertisement 2
Story continues below
Article content

So it turns out the most graphically sumptuous PlayStation 5 game yet made is the kid-friendly action-platformer Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

If you didn’t see that coming, don’t fret; neither did I.

Article content

Not that the 19-year-old PlayStation-exclusive series hasn’t always been both fun and pretty. Its titular pair — a cute, fuzzy Lombax named Ratchet and his little green-eyed robot sidekick Clank — have a history of visiting exotic planets and using an enormous arsenal of imaginative and upgradable weapons to blow up all sorts of stuff in spectacular ways. Rift Apart just kicks things up a notch or three.

The duo’s debut outing on PlayStation 5 sees them thrust into a new dimension where they meet alternate versions of themselves in the form of Rivet, a female Lombax with blue and white fur, and Kit, a golden robot. Rivet is a rebel hero in her dimension, where she fights against the evil Emperor Nefarious — a juiced up version of Ratchet’s long-time nemesis Dr. Nefarious. We get to play as both her and Ratchet throughout the game.

Advertisement 3
Story continues below
Article content

The action is par for the course for a Ratchet & Clank adventure, which means it’s polished, pretty much non-stop, and all about the pure joy of play.

Rift Apart provides seemingly endless opportunity to traverse the environment in fun ways as we double-jump, grind rails, swing and slingshot over gaps, zap through dimensional portals, ride beasts, and speedily hover across the ground like a rollerblader minus the wheels. Some particularly clever and satisfying bits of choreographed action involve doing several of these things back-to-back in just a few seconds.

Recommended from Editorial
  1. Returnal for PlayStation 5 tests players' tenacity by forcing a progress-resetting restart after each death.
    Returnal review: Live, die, repeat
  2. New Pokemon Snap for Nintendo Switch plops players on an archipelago filled with magical monsters that need to be captured on film.
    New Pokemon Snap review: Pikachu is here to help us power through the end of the pandemic
  3. Enthusiast Gaming Chief Executive Adrian Montgomery.
    This Canadian company is taking aim at the $150-billion-plus global video-game industry
Advertisement 4
Story continues below
Article content

It also gives us ample reason to frequently swap between all the weapons at our disposal, whether to better tackle a new threat or simply to upgrade them through use to see how they evolve and change. Indeed, part of the fun is simply experimenting with all the weird boom-booms we’ve been given. A topiary-themed gun, for example, sets up pods that sprinkle flora juice on enemies to temporarily transform them into vulnerable shrubberies, while a fungus blaster creates animated mushrooms that briefly pull nogoodniks’ attention away from the heroes — handy when you’re being rushed by a horde.

Granted, some guns aren’t as creative as in previous games. There are a lot of lightly disguised analogues for familiar weapons such as shotguns, gatling guns, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers, and others are essentially just carryovers of old fan favourites — like the Glove of Doom, which spits out little robots that automatically run around attacking baddies for you. But they’re all highly effective, finely tuned, and feel great, making it loads of fun to just run around and shoot stuff — again, we’re talking about that pure joy of play thing.

Advertisement 5
Story continues below
Article content

But all of this takes a backseat to the game’s visual presentation. Developer Insomniac Games has gleefully put the PlayStation 5 through its graphical paces, making the most of all its ray-tracing, HDR, high-speed frame rendering, 4K magic.

Ratchet and Rivet’s fur coats appear feather soft, with thousands of individual moving fibres. Lighting and reflection effects create a sense of depth and there-ness nearly on par with Hollywood animation. Hyper-quick load times allow our heroes to travel between planets and walk through dimensional rifts into new worlds without the slightest of pauses. And the set piece battles, which often combine all of this and more, are simply jaw-dropping.

It’s an absolute treat for the eyes, the sort of game that friends and family can sit down to watch and have nearly as much fun as you while you play.

Advertisement 6
Story continues below
Article content

Rift Apart also does its best to make use of some of the console’s other features, though with varying results.

It uses Sony’s new DualSense controller’s advanced haptic feedback and onboard speaker to laudable effect, doing a great job of making it feel like we’re really holding a weapon in our hands. However, it tries to leverage the gamepad’s adaptive triggers to create a kind of alternate-firing mechanism without as much success. The idea is that if you press the trigger halfway the weapon will do one thing, and if you press all the way it will do something slightly different. But in the heat of battle I tended to just jam it down as hard as I could without even thinking about a half-press. Old habits are hard to break.

Advertisement 7
Story continues below
Article content

I was also a little disappointed with the game’s use of PlayStation 5’s Activity Cards. These get called up when you press the PS button while playing a game, and can be used to both track tasks currently in progress and to instantly jump to various places in a game to continue working on them. Unfortunately, Rift Apart only makes use of the first half of this feature, showing us activities but offering no instant-transport options. This is a bummer once you’ve reached the end of the game and want to quickly jump to specific areas to, say, clean up any lingering collectibles or undertake little side quests you may have left hanging.

All in all, though, Rift Apart makes for an exceptionally easy recommendation. It’s fun for gamers of all ages and genders, absolutely crammed with action, laugh-out-loud funny in parts, and — I can’t stress this enough — looks the way we all imagined the next generation of console games should.

I think I speak for PlayStation 5 gamers everywhere when I say we’ll happily take a few more like this.

Article content
Comments
You must be logged in to join the discussion or read more comments.
Join the Conversation

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.

Latest National Stories
    News Near Tillsonburg
      This Week in Flyers