Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to season 11 of the Gaming Backlog book club. We just wrapped up season 10 last week about Prince of the Lost crown. Alex, what have you been playing since finishing that?

[00:00:11] Speaker B: Since I have. Since we finished Prince of Persia, I have been playing Hades. I got back into Hades.

[00:00:19] Speaker A: Thank you.

[00:00:19] Speaker B: We’ve been doing it. So I have got back into Hades.

[00:00:22] Speaker A: We need to finish our side quest season one day.

[00:00:24] Speaker B: Yes. I finally got to the fourth biome.

[00:00:29] Speaker A: Sweet.

[00:00:29] Speaker B: I made it about halfway through it and then died. But yeah, I’m gonna keep going.

[00:00:35] Speaker A: That’s the next stage of the learning process. That’s quite all right.

[00:00:38] Speaker B: I will beat the game.

So, yeah, so mainly that’s really. Since I’ve also been moving the Switch 2 has kind of been. Everything else is packed away. I haven’t sorted out yet. So it’s just been Switch two and just Hades. So.

[00:00:51] Speaker A: Great. And you’re about to bust out your PlayStation, I’m assuming for this season.

[00:00:55] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:00:56] Speaker A: But yeah, I’ve also been playing continuing with had.

I’ve cleared four times and I’m hoping to get the other six for that true ending at some point.

But it’s been a lot of fun. I also started Control, which I know a lot of people in our Discord server are obsessed with, and I’m really enjoying it, despite only putting an hour a couple hours into it. But it’s great. I knew I was gonna love it. I don’t know why I waited so long. Oh, the backlog.

[00:01:22] Speaker B: I don’t know either. Told you many times.

[00:01:24] Speaker C: But.

[00:01:25] Speaker B: But it’s so good.

[00:01:26] Speaker A: Here we are.

[00:01:28] Speaker C: It’s a game I cannot stand.

[00:01:31] Speaker B: Really?

[00:01:32] Speaker C: Yeah. I hated it.

[00:01:33] Speaker A: That’s. That’s all right. Everyone enjoys their own game.

All right, well, I. You know, maybe that’s a conversation for another time to hear a bit more about that, but.

And your specific opinions about it. Maybe I’ll wait until I finish it to ask you that, though.

Anyway, to segue there, this season we will be playing Ratchet and Rift Apart. And we are very excited to have Leva from the High Scorers High Stakes Podcast joining us today to talk about Rift Apart. Welcome, Leva.

[00:02:02] Speaker C: Thank you very much for having me. I’m excited to be here to talk some Ratchet and Clank, a game I love.

A franchise I love, actually.

[00:02:11] Speaker A: Excellent. Would you like to give us a bit of an introduction to high scores, high stakes, and what your podcast entails?

[00:02:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, of course you can. High scores, High Stakes is we. We like to call the Internet’s only competitive PlayStation podcast it’s myself and my two other co hosts, Cardinal Smith and Tomahawk. And every week we pick a game on the PlayStation plus library and we create a challenge in that game and then compete against one another in a 12 week long season. And whoever wins the league wins the coveted high scores, high stakes cup.

[00:02:45] Speaker A: That is genius.

[00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it is genius. It’s such a.

[00:02:49] Speaker A: And a very good way to save money considering you’re already invested into the PlayStation Classics catalog. However, as you mentioned to me, you know, you spend money on the podcast, so there you go.

[00:03:01] Speaker C: Yeah, where you save it with one hand, the other hand does tend to take it away. And you buy too many cameras and microphones that one man could ever possibly need.

[00:03:11] Speaker A: Hey, but at the very least you have a lot of games to play along with that subscription.

[00:03:15] Speaker C: Oh yeah, that’s it. It’s paid for itself many times over. So it has. If not for content and just general. What shall I play today? I’ll play this random game I’ve never heard of and see what it’s like.

[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it introduces you to new games or new genres that you might not have expected.

And yeah, you do definitely have a very unique concept here that I love following along with. I listened to an episode you did about lonely mountains downhill.

[00:03:43] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah.

[00:03:44] Speaker A: Which I tried a little bit of. I just was kind of scrolling through and saw that and I had played a bit of it and you know, it’s equally infuriating and kind of mesmerizing to go through, but I haven’t finished it by any means either.

[00:03:56] Speaker C: Yeah, it’s one of those games.

When I first started playing it, I was like, what is going on with this control scheme? And once you get your head wrapped around it’s tank controls effectively. So right is always right and left is always left regardless of where you’re looking. Once you get your head wrapped around that, it becomes almost flow state.

It’s a really good game.

[00:04:18] Speaker A: It’s a lot of fun. I haven’t tried yet, but I’m glad that they made a sequel in skiing because I’m a huge fan of snow sports. So I want to try that one day. But we’ll see.

[00:04:28] Speaker C: Yeah, that one looks real good to have multiplayer modes and stuff on that one as well where you can free up and the race finishes when the slowest player, your team, finishes the line rather than the fastest. It’s a really interesting series.

[00:04:43] Speaker A: Could be an interesting challenge for you guys one day.

[00:04:45] Speaker C: Maybe one. Maybe one day. I think we’ll need a breather.

That was one of the numerous Tomahawk controversies, that episode where you’d clearly watched a speedrunner and then tried to emulate it and beat us.

[00:05:04] Speaker A: I do also especially love your Game of the Month episodes that I’ve listened to a number of, including my favorite one on Metal Gear Solid.

[00:05:12] Speaker C: Yes, yes. That’s kind of. That was one of those things where we just kind of wanted to diversify a little bit rather than just continuously competing against one other in games. Because the amount of prep that goes into the challenges is crazy. Where you have to pick a game, you have to create a challenge, and then someone has to test it to make sure it’s going to be a viable challenge. And then there’s the playing the game, the recording of the game, the editing of the gameplay, and then the podcast inside of things. So you’re just like, you know, what would be an nice, sweet thing to do if we reviewed games. And our original idea for Game of the Month Club was kind of like what you guys do do like a. Like a book club for video games and sort of talk through.

Review a game whilst talking through the narrative of the game.

But we did Spider Man 2 maybe a year, two years ago maybe, and some of the comments were, I haven’t played this and it’s ruined for me. So we’ve kind of.

[00:06:09] Speaker A: Oh, okay, we’re.

[00:06:10] Speaker C: Yeah, we changed that. Now where we don’t do spoilers, we just review the game.

[00:06:15] Speaker A: Sure, sure.

[00:06:16] Speaker C: But there’s some of my favorite episodes we’ve ever done have been Game of the Month Club episodes. I love talking about video games, especially good video games. Video games that I’ve enjoyed. I would talk about them all day long.

[00:06:29] Speaker B: Right.

[00:06:29] Speaker A: Same. Same here.

I think the first episode of yours that I ever listened to, and I don’t recall which of the three of you was the one that recorded this one was the episode on Bloodborne, which is the game that if you listen to our podcast, more than two episodes at a time, you’ll hear me reference Bloodborne, which is very probably annoying, but I accept that because it’s a great game.

[00:06:52] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:06:54] Speaker A: When did you all get started with the podcast?

[00:06:57] Speaker C: Oh, well, this is the thing. We come up with the idea like a lot of people did during COVID but we hemmed and hemmed an awful lot, you know, yourselves, you know that the fear of really putting something out there for people to watch and judge you on. So we saw. We. Our first ever challenge was Crash Bandicoot, just the speedrun of the first level, Insanity Beach. And I Think we recorded that. That went live on Spotify and all the other podcast platforms on February 2023.

But the actual gameplay you saw on that episode was recorded early 2022 and was in planning from 2021. I think it was Tomahawk. One day was like, listen, lads, are we doing this or what? And he kind of pushed us into, let’s. Let’s record this. Let’s see what happens. And then. Yes. We’ve been going now pretty much every single week for three and a half years now, I think.

[00:07:58] Speaker A: Hey, congrats. We’re about to hit a year and a week.

[00:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Next week. Yeah. Right. I was about to say, I know it’s coming up.

[00:08:05] Speaker C: Yeah, it’s a huge milestone. The first year. Most podcasts will never see a year, so keep it up.

[00:08:11] Speaker A: Crazy. Yeah, don’t do anything crazy, Alex, or.

[00:08:14] Speaker B: Nope. No, I love doing this. This is like.

It’s a fun hobby to do. It’s just something to help get out of the mindset of work. I love it.

I’m not stopping.

Get to play lots of fun games

[00:08:32] Speaker A: now, lovey. You guys played Rift Apart for one of your Game of the Month episodes this year. If I’m not Mist in January. I think it was.

[00:08:38] Speaker C: It was. I think it was January. Yeah. I think you’re absolutely sponsored. We did Astrobot and then instantly. Yeah, it was January this year.

[00:08:44] Speaker A: Sweet. Okay, I haven’t listened beyond the intro of that episode yet to avoid spoilers, but have it queued up for once we finish this playthrough without going too far into details and ideally avoiding spoilers, where did Rift Apart stack up with all of your other Game of the Month games that you’ve played?

[00:09:01] Speaker C: Okay, I’m trying to think what I give it. We rank our games not with a numerical score, but we use a S tier to D tier on Discourse. High stakes. So the way we work it is S tier is a masterpiece. A tier is a great game. B tier is a good game. C tiers, mid D tier is a game probably best avoided.

And if memory serves me correctly, I think I personally give it an S tier game.

I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed this camp.

[00:09:33] Speaker A: Okay, I’ve got a couple more ranking questions for you then. Yep. It sounds like, based on your introduction here, that you are a longtime fan of the Ratchet and Clank series. It sounds about right, more or less.

[00:09:46] Speaker C: My history with Ratchet and Clank is a really funny one. Before I ever podcast it, I used to do a gaming blog and someone, one of my commentators on it was like, do you know what you should do? You should play a game you wouldn’t normally play.

And I was like, that’s a really good idea for a series of. Yeah, we’ll do that. And, yeah, Ratchet and Clank was one of those games that I never would have played unless someone gave me that idea. And then that’s when I get into Ratchet and Clank. I haven’t played them all. It’s a huge franchise. I think it’s Sony’s second or third franchise with the most amount of titles in it, but I’ve played a fair few of them. I think I’ve played five or six of them.

So I have. But, yeah. Which is about half of them.

[00:10:28] Speaker A: Where does Rift Apart rank for you? Within the one. The games of the series that you have played?

[00:10:32] Speaker C: Second.

[00:10:34] Speaker A: Okay, what’s number one?

[00:10:35] Speaker C: Second. The original Ratchet and Clank in 2002’s top. So my top. I’ll give you my top five.

Ratchet and Clank 2002 is number one. Rift Apart’s number two. Oh, sorry. No, I’m ringing this backwards. Number one is Ratchet 3 up your arsenal.

And then number two is Rift Apart. Number three is the original Ratchet and Clank.

Number four is Going Commando. And then number five is Ratchet and Clank 2016.

[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yep. Okay.

[00:11:04] Speaker B: That was the one with the movie, right?

[00:11:06] Speaker C: That was the one with the movie. That one was a really interesting idea on paper, and I can see why Sony did it.

But what it did is they left stuff out of the movie because it was in the game, and they left some stuff out the game because it’s in the movie.

And basically what it does is it just creates plot holes in a game that never had plot holes before.

I can see why they went that route. They’re just trying to merge cinema and video game narrative and doing asymmetric storytelling. And it made a lot of sense, but no one went to the cinema to see that movie apart from me, I think.

And the game, as a result of this joint enterprise between Sony, between Insomniac and Sony, you know, animation studios, it created, like, a really kind of hollow. It kind of, like, got it a little bit of the original game. It’s still 2016, still a really great game, but it lost a lot of what made the 2002 original so good.

Really good.

[00:12:08] Speaker A: That’s. Yeah. That, you know, I knew that they were connected. I didn’t realize that pieces were left out of each. It almost sounds like a really odd way to implement The Pokemon format of 2. Two copies of the same thing, but with the elements missing. But that doesn’t work this way.

[00:12:24] Speaker C: Yeah, they didn’t leave out anything like mega, but there was just wee bits and pieces here. You’re going, well, hold on a minute. How have we gotten here? You know, that sort of way? And then it’s like, oh, if you watch the film, then it fills in that gap.

[00:12:35] Speaker A: It’s like, no, I’m not.

[00:12:36] Speaker C: I’m not. No one’s doing that. No one’s doing that.

[00:12:41] Speaker A: Compared to other 3D mascot platformers, would you say RIP? The part’s pretty high up in that list, too, for you?

[00:12:49] Speaker C: For me, absolutely. Yeah.

There’s mascot platformers I prefer over this one, for sure. Like Astrobot, for example, is an absolute masterpiece.

And when it comes to Ratchet and Clank, I have a real soft spot. I don’t know how people are going to feel about this. I have a real soft spot for Sly Cooper, and I think. I think pound for pound, I would. I definitely like the original Sly Cooper more than Rift Apart, but it is close. Very close.

[00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah, Sly Cooper is one of those ones that merges a bit of stealth into it as well, doesn’t it? I really want to play those, but haven’t any touched any of them yet.

[00:13:32] Speaker B: Same. Yep, same.

[00:13:34] Speaker C: The original Sly Cooper is very much a 3D platformer. It’s unforgiving. It is a case of if you get hit once, then you lose your life and you go back to the most recent checkpoint.

But the second one is more Mario 64 in sort of design where you have hub worlds and you go on two levels, you know, via the hub world. And the hub world is all very. Yeah, there’s a lot of stealth in it. I really love psychopro, and I think what makes me like Sly Cooper just that little bit more than Ratchet and Clank is because there’s so few games in Sly Cooper’s franchise there, the franchise quality is higher because Ratchet and Clank does have a few. We stinkers in there.

But generally speaking, yeah, Rift Apart’s really high up on my list, certainly of PlayStation, like Mass Co Op for. I prefer Ratchet and Clank massively over like Jak and Daxter. And that might be controversial, but I think Ratchet and Clank as a franchise is just far more enjoyable than Jak and Daxter, but not quite as enjoyable as Sly Cooper.

[00:14:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s hard, you know, hard to stack them all, but.

[00:14:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:14:46] Speaker A: And I was. It’s funny that you Mentioned Crash Bandicoot being your first ever episode. I was just listening to your Deep Dive episode on the original Crash Bandicoot. Not the competition one.

[00:14:56] Speaker C: Yep.

[00:14:57] Speaker A: And it’s funny because I have access to the Insane trilogy on both PS plus and actually had before that was an option. Had a physical copy for Switch, but due to the backlog I haven’t actually played any crash game except for the level that’s included in the early hours of Uncharted 4.

Okay.

[00:15:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. The Boulder chase. Yeah.

[00:15:15] Speaker A: Which I played over and over again. And I don’t know, is that the first level of the first crash game or. No, somewhere.

[00:15:21] Speaker C: Oh, no, no, no, no. It’s. I think that’s about three or four levels in. So the first level in Crash Bandicoot is Insanity beach. And it is. You’re running into the level rather than running into the camera. I think it’s about three or four levels. De.

Because every sort of world, every. Well, it’s islands in Crash Bandica, but I think every island has a one.

A chase, a chase level, a vehicle level. And then the other ones are made up of side scrolling and then into the. The screen platform and Crash Bandicoot. Don’t know what. Growing up, I loved Crash Bandicoot on the original PlayStation, but it’s a franchise I haven’t really thought about until the Insane Trilogy came out. And I played all three of those.

I have no idea how many hours I put in them, but a lot.

The Insane trilogy is fantastic. It’s a value for money proposition. Is crazy with it. There’s a lot of games there, right.

[00:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I really need to go and play those. I suppose they chose that particular Boulder Chase level because it’s the most like what Nathan Drake would be engaged in real. In his real story anyway.

But yeah, I mean, we’re eating well. It’s a really good time to be a lover of these 3D platformers, especially considering all the remakes, remasters and legacy sequels coming out. So I will get to it.

[00:16:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I recommend it. I recommend it a lot, I think. Yeah. Crash Bandicoots under appreciated. I think it’s fair to say A lot of people hate Crash Bandicoots because it’s difficult and the first one is really difficult, but it’s perseverance and it’s memorization. As long as you have those two things, you’ll see the end of it.

[00:17:06] Speaker A: Solid. Alex, before we jump into the details of Rift Apart, specifically, when did you play Ratchet and Clank? 2016. Because I know you played it before. I did.

[00:17:14] Speaker B: I did.

That is a good question. Let’s see. So it came out 2016, 10 years ago. Once again, it’s crazy.

[00:17:22] Speaker C: Which is crazy.

[00:17:23] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:17:27] Speaker B: Probably 20.

I. I want to say it was before. Before COVID It’s probably 2019 and 2019. Because I played it and I want. The movie came out the same time. Correct. Because I saw the movie as well. I’ve watched.

[00:17:44] Speaker A: I have not seen the movie.

[00:17:45] Speaker B: Huh? Yeah, I’ve seen the movie.

[00:17:46] Speaker A: It must have been right around then.

[00:17:48] Speaker B: I played the game and then I went and watched the movie.

[00:17:51] Speaker C: Yeah, the movie’s fine. The movie is fine. It’s nothing special, but it’s fine.

[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It was just like I played the game and I like retro Clank. And I wanna. Sure. I was like. Yeah, I just want. Yeah. So I probably wanna say. Yeah, probably around 2019 is when I played that one. I know I played the original one, but I don’t know if I ever beat it back on the PS2 way back in the day.

And then same with.

There was another one. Not. I’ve never played up your arsenal, but I’ve hear from a lot of people that that’s like their top one.

[00:18:25] Speaker C: Yeah, for me, that’s it.

[00:18:27] Speaker B: That was on the PS3, right?

[00:18:28] Speaker C: PS2.04. PS2.

[00:18:31] Speaker B: Oh, that was. Oh, two. Okay.

Yeah, there’s some. One other one I played.

I think I may have played and didn’t beat it, but I did play, I think, a bit on the psp. The one just.

[00:18:42] Speaker A: Clank.

[00:18:42] Speaker C: Secret Agent Clank.

[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:18:45] Speaker C: That’s a really good game. That is stealth platform. It’s a really good game. So it is. It’s like the.

[00:18:52] Speaker B: That would have been way back though, on when I originally had a psp.

[00:18:56] Speaker C: I still have my psp. I’ve got two of them in fact.

Great console.

[00:19:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So I don’t. I haven’t. This is. 2016, is the only Ratchet and Clank game that I’ve played despite, you know, knowing about them for a long time, especially because of their great TV commercials, at least in the U.S.

but I don’t know if you guys do this too, but occasionally a game will come along and not the game itself, but it’ll kind of just latch on to another specific point of your life or a specific memory.

So I played ratchet and clank 2016 in 2024, kind of leading into 2025. So in the fall of 24, I had just wrapped up the second half of my super long playthrough of Divinity Original Sin 2. Phenomenal game, by the way.

A few weeks before the end of paternity leave and one night at about 1am I decided to try out the first 30 minutes to an hour of a handful of games, looking for my next game to play while I was on one of my night shift rotations with my wife taking care of a newborn. So, you know, you’re delirious and don’t have a lot of energy, but you know you can still use a controller. So I ended up playing a bit of Outer Wilds, Guardians of the Galaxy and ratchet and clank 2016.

I didn’t continue any of them right then and there, but picked Ratchet and Clank back up towards the end of the year. And it was basically the first game I played on my PlayStation portal.

[00:20:25] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:20:26] Speaker A: And finish it off in about a week and had a blast. And it was just, it was a perfect moment to just be like lying in bed, baby on the side of sleep, and then, you know, in the complete darkness with just this portal screen illuminating myself. So definitely fun. I think what got me super interested was the goofy and heavily sarcastic humor, which had me chuckling a lot more than I thought. And the gameplay was, you know, entertaining. It wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but it was a lot of fun. I don’t think outside of the titles of the PS2 and PS3 era, games didn’t know how kind of sarcastic and goofy they were.

[00:21:06] Speaker C: The original trilogy, this was what, this is. One of my issues I had with the remake was the original trilogy are Saturday morning cartoons where every character is just.

It’s just so insanely dry with it.

So obviously Ratchet is very much a cut and cut and dry sort of hero archetype. And then you have Clank, who’s a little know it all. Do you have like Dr. Nefarious? Captain, you know, Dr. Nefarious for me is one of the all time great platform villains. He’s just so over the top evil. He’s just evil and doesn’t know why he’s so evil.

[00:21:52] Speaker A: Right.

[00:21:52] Speaker C: But I, I thought. And you have the other side characters like Captain Quark, who always reminded me. And I, I think he must have been inspired by Zapp Brannigan from Futurama because they’re essentially the same character.

[00:22:03] Speaker B: They’re essentially so much sense. Yeah.

[00:22:06] Speaker C: And then you have. One of my favorite side characters is Skid McMarks. The like extreme sports guy.

[00:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, okay.

[00:22:14] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:22:14] Speaker A: The hoverboard guy.

[00:22:15] Speaker C: And they’re all just stereotypes of you Know, stereotypes of stereotypes. The original trilogy is really, really, really funny. And that was one of the things that kind of the. The cutscenes for the original trilogy are really well animated. You know, the characters are very emotive with their hands. And that’s probably a symptom of the times where we lacked the facial animations and stuff that came in with the PlayStation 3 and all that sort of good stuff. But I thought that the.

That was one of the things that they really dialed back for the remake. And I think it was because they had like the facial animations and all that sort of stuff in and had to sort of tie it in looks wise. It had to look exactly like the movie.

And I feel like that kind of took away a little bit of the comedy. The remake is still very, very, very funny, but the voice work does a lot of the heavy lifting. Whereas in the original one it’s the opposite. The voice acting was very good, but it was what you were seeing play out in the screen in front of you was the really funny part. I always say that Ratchet and Clank to me is a hyper violent Saturday morning cartoon, effectively.

[00:23:26] Speaker A: Oh, well. And that just makes it all the more entertaining.

[00:23:30] Speaker C: 100%. Yeah. I don’t think I’ve laughed as much as what I have in some of the Ratchet and Clank games. They’re extremely well written, all of them.

[00:23:37] Speaker A: Well, I definitely have to go back to those old ones.

I mean, I found myself actually laughing, which rarely happens in games, I guess. So it’s nice to see that there’s some comedic writers out there.

So, listeners, for background, if you aren’t yet familiar with Rift Apart or the Ratchet and Clank series, and love, I would love you to fill in any blanks you think are important here. Yeah, no problem.

So Ratchet and Rift Apart was released in 2021 as an almost, but not quite PlayStation 5 launch title, developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. While I thought Rift Apart was a sequel to Ratchet and clank from 2016, which itself was actually a combined soft reboot along with of that original 2002 game along with the movie tie in we were just talking about, since the 2016 game was a reboot of the first part of the story, Rift Apart isn’t a direct sequel to that, but it’s more of like a branching timeline actually, because it’s a sequel to 2013’s Ratchet and Clank into the Nexus. Yeah, this all sounds correct.

[00:24:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that’s absolutely spot on. Yeah, it’s a sequel to Enter the Nexus.

[00:24:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s very confusing, but I suppose all Multiverse stories are, so it’s on brand.

Anyway, Ratchet and Clank as a series follows an anthropomorphic fictional animal called a Lombax, which is kind of like a cat with a lion’s tail, sort of. Maybe a raccoon tail. Yeah, he’s named Ratchet because he’s a mechanic and there’s an Android partner named Clank who is a defective robot created by the bad guys who joins you.

Rift Apart was released to positive reviews and praise for his visuals, combat variety and yes, the technical achievements they were able to pull off with the new PS5 hardware.

The story set up of Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart is that a while after the events of into the Nexus? Spoiler alert if you want to play that spoiler free.

So our heroes Ratchet and Clank are being celebrated as heroes of the galaxy. And Clank mentions that he repaired a device called the Dimensionator which is able to open rifts to other dimensions.

This is a gift he plans to give to Ratchet so he can go look for the Lombax race and his missing family. But Dr. Nefarious, who’s the right, that long time villain of the franchise, attacks the parade, tries to steal the Dimensionator because yes, of course he knows that it exists immediately after it’s completed somehow.

And in the struggle to defend the area, the Dimensionator explodes and well, I guess we have a tear in the Multiverse now where dimensions start popping up all over the place.

This launches everyone in different directions. Clank ends up with another Lombax named Rivet, who becomes his new, presumably temporary partner.

And Ratchet is obviously going on his search for Clank and Dr. Nefarious is somewhere else entirely.

Safe to say we’re going to see all these characters as we move through the story.

The gameplay involves run and gun style combat with strafing shooting and an arsenal of very unique and creative weapons. This is not a cover shooter, and doesn’t need to be because jumping and dodging while shooting is plenty of fun on its own. There’s a bit of platforming involved of course, considering its heritage as a PlayStation platformer of sorts. And most importantly, the new mechanic and display of the PS5’s technical prowess is heavily featured, where you can pretty much instantly portal between different areas, planets, dimensions, worlds by using an item called a Rift Tether, which looks like a plasma grappling hook.

Should be a good time.

At least that’s what they portrayed in the trailers that I saw way back then around launch was that you could pretty quickly transfer between worlds. Does that. That makes sense, huh?

[00:27:33] Speaker C: Yep. It’s extremely impressive from a technical standpoint. It’s incredible.

[00:27:41] Speaker A: And I believe you guys even named your episode on this.

Is Ratchet and Clank just a tech demo? Hopefully it’s more than that. It sounds like it is based on your review.

[00:27:49] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it was one of those ones.

It’s the same as any sort of like launch game, launch window game where they’re.

The marketing especially over here was all about the power of the SSD and you know, load times are gone. And I’ve lived through enough consoles that made promises of X, Y and Z and never followed up on any of them.

So I was a bit skeptical of Rift Apart, especially with the promises Sony were making.

Then when I played it I was like, I have no idea why. I doubt it insomniac at all. Because they.

Yeah. The technological jump in Ratchet and Clank, Rift Apart is bigger than loads of other games that I’ve played. It’s probably one. It’s probably the single biggest leap in technology that I’ve played in the PlayStation 5.

[00:28:44] Speaker A: Okay, that’s. Which is kind of wild that it’s still, you know, it’s a launch game really.

[00:28:48] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:28:50] Speaker A: But I do feel like actually the early after or the soon after launch games tend to do the most with the.

The tech in many cases because I think about and I obviously playing through a backlog here for the most part and playing a lot of PS4 games on the PS5 don’t necessarily. I’m not totally up to date but so far of the PS5 games I have played, I think the one that still best exemplifies is that pack in sort of tech demo Astrobot game.

As far as like the thing that I would really like to see is a lot more use of the haptics because in that you could run in sand and it feels a lot more realistic when you feel the kind of patter and same with like rain and things like that, which I don’t think I’ve seen in a lot of other PS5 games since.

[00:29:35] Speaker C: Yeah, the haptics are incredible.

You were saying there about, you know, launch titles are usually the ones that take the advantage of all this stuff, especially first party games like this where I’ve no doubt Sony gives them a brief. You must use this, must use this, must use this.

The haptic feedback in Astro Bot, all The Astrobots, the 2024 and Astros playrooms. That what it’s called, the demo that comes with your PlayStation 5.

[00:30:08] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:30:09] Speaker C: Yeah. The haptic feedback in Astro Bot is the best haptics I’ve ever felt in any video game ever.

And you’re absolutely spot on. You run on grass and in Sweden, you. You feel the squelch in your hands. And we’ve talked about this constantly on high scores, high stakes of is it a trick? Is the controller just vibrating in gradients and then it’s the, you know, the speaker and the controller doing a lot of the heavy lifting and it’s your brain just combining the two to make these sensations real.

I don’t know. But Ratchet and Clank, Rift Apart has a lot of really great use of the haptics.

Every.

Without spoiling too much, you will feel the difference of every gun in Ratchet and Clank.

[00:30:57] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:30:58] Speaker C: And it does a lot of the same stuff as Astro Bot. Not to the level of Astro Bot. I will say that you will feel materials as you’re walking on them. Glass feels like glass, metal feels like metal.

But there’s. They do an awful. The do things differently than what Astro Bot did.

Obviously. Ratchet and Clank’s always been a series about guns, so a lot of their time with the haptics as went into the weaponry.

But no, it is a technological marvel. And I don’t know about you guys, but when I buy a new console, the first question I’m always ask myself when I play a new game on that console is, could I have played this on PlayStation 4 or whatever console you’re coming from?

And when I played God of War, Ragnarok, I was like, could I have played this in PlayStation 4? I could have, because it’s technically available. Yeah, it’s on it. But it’s not a huge technological. It is, but it’s not a huge technological leap from 2018. God of War, when I got my PlayStation 5, I played Hogwarts Legacy and Ratchet and Clank and Astros Play:1 were the three games that I played on the PlayStation 5.

Hogwarts is on PlayStation 4. As far as I’m aware of Astro Bot, I played Astrobots rescue mission on PlayStation VR. This was the game that I thought to myself, this game is impossible on previous generations. And even if you look at the PC release of Rift Apart, you need an ssd. Your SSD has to have a certain classification for read and write speeds, and it’s unplayable on a lot of PC hardware. I have a Steam deck. My Steam deck gets Played for everything.

It is unplayable on Steam Deck which has an ssd.

But yeah, no, this is the of the first year certainly of the PlayStation 5. This is the one I thought this is why this console exists. Games like this.

[00:32:55] Speaker A: Okay, okay. And I mean that’s exactly the question a lot of people are going to have on their minds, I don’t think immediately. But in the next couple of years when the PS6 comes a little bit closer because you know, the way the world’s going, it seems like it’s gonna be a lot more expensive than it should be.

So I most likely will not dive into the upgrade anytime as quickly. Like I think I got PS5 on launch here and I will not be doing that again unless things change.

[00:33:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I’m the same.

Whenever I saw this Steam Deck rise in price from 629 to 929, I was like we’re in trouble here, we’re in trouble here. I would not be surprised to see a PlayStation 6 at 1200 pound to be quite honest. And that is not a price I am willing to pay for a games console. So I will stick with the PlayStation 5 until this PlayStation 6 price comes down. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see those next gen consoles in 2027.

[00:33:57] Speaker A: I will say that I also agree. I think because of the components required and all that. I think it’s not likely but maybe the following year possibly.

[00:34:05] Speaker C: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I think the only way we see a PlayStation 6 in 2027 is if Sony go. This price chart is just going to go up and up and up. Let’s get it at price.

[00:34:17] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, right, right.

[00:34:19] Speaker A: And it becomes more of an investment of hey, beat the price surge again.

[00:34:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s definitely.

I agree. I don’t think we’ll see them in 2027. I think we’ll get way more information next year. Maybe pictures and designs of PlayStation New Xbox.

[00:34:37] Speaker A: Like I have also prototype leaks.

[00:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I have like the Xbox, an Xbox as well. Xbox Series X and they talk about for that next one being Xbox two and like a PC combined. And I was like well the Steam just came out with their console and that’s over a thousand dollars. I was like if Xbox is thinking and combining it, there is no way in hell I’m buying that it’s going to be so expensive.

[00:35:01] Speaker C: Yeah, especially the talk that we’re giving is the most powerful games console that’s ever the word’s ever seen. I was like okay, that’s going to be eye watering. No, thank you.

[00:35:12] Speaker B: Yeah, no, thank you.

[00:35:14] Speaker A: Yeah. It has a small appeal base, I would say.

Alex, outside of that bit of an introduction of Rift Apart, what do you know about it going into the game and what do you expect out of the game?

[00:35:28] Speaker B: I don’t know too much other than just remember just watching the trailers when it was first announced and coming out

[00:35:33] Speaker A: and saying like those early PS5 reveal

[00:35:35] Speaker B: announcement trailers, like holy crap, this looks so good.

[00:35:39] Speaker A: It’s like a game.

[00:35:41] Speaker B: Like yeah. Showing the videos of like them just going through each Rift like seamlessly like so easily. I was like, I hope it’s all smooth. And by the sounds of it, it is. And so yeah, I’m very excited to play but otherwise I don’t know.

I knew of the female like Ratchet.

[00:35:58] Speaker A: Rivet.

[00:35:59] Speaker B: Yeah, Rivet.

But I don’t know honestly too much else about it. I’ve been wanting to just play the game for a while, so I’m excited for us to get started on it.

[00:36:09] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. I think for my end, obviously it introduces you to Rivet in those trailers, who you play with along with Clank for a while.

I suppose I’ll say let’s not hear about this level, but my guess is that there will have at least some degree of her own move sets and cool things to do that are a little different from Ratchet. Just to vary it up, you know, I’m kind of leading into it. It sounds like Rivet’s your main player character for at least part of it. I’m curious how much you’ll even play as Ratchet in this game. Overall, I don’t know if it’s 5050 or what have you but like the. A lot of the concept art and cover art seems to split the screen half way down. So who knows?

I think also yes, right, like this is still a PS5 launch title. I’m super stoked to kind of revisit that time a few years ago mentally at least by trying this out now and see what they’re experimenting with.

But I think the.

There are some other games that have come out since this that give it a run for its money. But the universe switching seems really smooth and visually interesting and it seems to have been replicated to an extent in Ghost of Yotei for example, because you can do like these history like well, I guess your own past memory things at your homestead at least I’m not super far into that, but kind of grabs that concept a little bit.

[00:37:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I don’t know. Ghost of Yotei is a game I haven’t even started, to be honest.

Which is strange because I love the Tsushima.

[00:37:45] Speaker A: It was great. I.

[00:37:45] Speaker C: Platinum Trophied Tsushima, same thing. The Legends mode and everything. It’s just one of those games I haven’t gotten around to. I think I’m kind of suffering from open world fatigue a little bit and.

[00:37:58] Speaker B: Totally understand.

[00:38:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:01] Speaker C: I’m just trying to think of another game on PlayStation that has the fast sort of travel system as this, which the only one I could think of is. Without spoiling it, because I don’t know if these guys played Spider Man 2.

[00:38:14] Speaker A: No, no. So I played. I played Spider Man 1. And I know that when you. Because in that you have the. And I see all over the Internet that people say you don’t need to fast travel at all in this because the swinging is so much fun, which I agree. But I did try it out for fun. And, you know, Spider man takes the subway and you see a little brief cut scene of him on his phone or just hanging out and saying hi to people and you load up in your next spot. And it’s when you jump from PS because I played it on PS4. When you jump from PS4 to PS5, it basically just cut it out to like a half second thing. Or you just instantly load, which makes sense based on the technology.

But I imagine the PS, sorry, the Spider Man 2 does something similar to that.

[00:38:54] Speaker C: Yeah, the fast travel for Spider Man 2, the traditional fast travel, is seamless. It really is. It’s literally kind of think grand theft auto 5/2, and you’re talking second. It is seamless. But there is one section of Spider Man 2 in particular that won’t tell you what it is or who it involves or what it involves. There is one section of Spider Man 2 in particular that does something similar with Ratchet and Clank. And it’s extraordinarily impressive.

It blew my mind when I saw it. I was like, what?

Hi.

And I’m really struggling with another game. And that’s the thing about this Ratchet and Clank rift apart is people see it and go, it looks like a Pixar movie. Because it does.

And the technology behind it is incredible because it is.

It’s a far better game than just the way it looks.

[00:39:52] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[00:39:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:39:55] Speaker A: You know, an art style was by design. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad game by any means.

And to all accounts, it’s a great game. So.

[00:40:03] Speaker C: Yep.

[00:40:04] Speaker A: Yeah.

As far as expectations Go. I guess the last thing I can’t say I expect this, but I can say that I really, really hope that they brought over two of my favorite weapons from ratchet and clank 2016 into this, which are the Groovitron and the Pixelizer.

[00:40:22] Speaker C: No comment.

[00:40:23] Speaker A: No comment. Okay. Yeah. So for anyone who hasn’t played that or doesn’t remember, the Groovitron throws a disco ball into the sky and essentially is kind of a fun vers version of a stunt ability that makes enemies compulsively and uncontrollably start dancing.

Which is great because it actually works on some bosses too.

Yeah.

Just so hilarious the first time I used that. You know, you can’t beat a tank break dancing.

[00:40:51] Speaker C: This is what I love about the Ratchet and Clank games, is the Armory is just.

Yeah, it’s bonkers. Like, some of the weapons, you’re thinking, how did they come up with this Rift Apart? I won’t tell you anything about the weapons, but there’s a few weapons in Rift Apart and you’re like, high. Have someone. First of all, how did someone think this up?

Number two, how did that person convince everybody else that this is a, you know, this is going to make it into the game?

One thing I will say is, like, Rift Apart is the web. The Armory isn’t as inventive as previous ones. Okay. But when they get inventive, they get really, really inventive. And there’s a lot of guns in this game that I loved using. And there was certain points of the game where there was hard decisions of what guns I was going to bring with me.

[00:41:40] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Yeah.

[00:41:41] Speaker A: Okay. I’m excited. I’m excited. You just gave me more excited because I really enjoyed the arsenal in the last one.

Yeah. On top of the Groovitron, there’s the pix. I don’t know if it’s the pixel lies or the pixel later, but, you

[00:41:52] Speaker C: know, Pixelizer is what it was called.

[00:41:54] Speaker A: Pixelizer does what you might expect for a weapon with that name. It turns your enemies into pixelized versions or pixelated versions of themselves. And when they die, it’s the greatest because they just crumble into a bunch of pixels on the floor.

Not only funny, but strong.

And then there’s also. I didn’t really use it much because you unlock it so damn late, but the gun that turns the enemy into a sheep, and then if you. I think if you hit them again or if you hit a different. Like the alternate fire, the sheep explodes.

[00:42:21] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:42:24] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, that. That’s late game weapons are fun, but I, you know, I’m not a completionist in every single game, so it’s cool to unlock certain things a little bit earlier.

But anyway, you just made me very excited for what we have in store here.

[00:42:39] Speaker C: Yeah, the. The arsenal. I think the arsenal is strong in this game. I. I still think Ratchet and Clank remake has a better arsenal, but there’s not much in it. But when you go back to the original trilogy up youp arsenal is, for my money, the strongest lineup of weapons in any game ever made.

[00:42:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I still recall the funny TV commercials that. Especially for that one.

I mean, and you would have to expect it based on the title being including the word arsenal in it. Yeah. But just like, they would feature a specific weapon in these various commercials, and it was just like, that looks so cool. But like, I’m not interested in this right now. Just because of the moment in time where I was. Yeah.

[00:43:20] Speaker B: You know.

[00:43:21] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:43:21] Speaker C: Sam. Sam.

[00:43:24] Speaker A: Love it. Is there anything else you think is important for us to look forward to going in, or have we covered a majority of it without getting into spoilers?

[00:43:32] Speaker C: I’m trying to think if there’s anything that you should know without spoiling anything.

No, I. I really don’t think there is. You know, I think if we can. If I continue talking, I’m gonna spoil something. I don’t want to do that for you because.

[00:43:45] Speaker A: All right.

[00:43:46] Speaker C: It’s a game to be played blind, I think, because does things.

[00:43:54] Speaker A: Okay.

You’ve told us quite as much as

[00:43:57] Speaker B: we need to know. Yeah, definitely.

[00:44:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it was. It was one of those games that it just filled me with, like.

Do you know that feeling you had as a kid where every game was amazing because it was new to you?

[00:44:12] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:44:13] Speaker C: And as I’ve gotten older, that feeling has really dissipated completely. Especially. I don’t think it really helps now that games are so now, like, homogenous with one another. You know, they all use the same control schemes. This was a game that gave me that feeling of I am having the best time ever. And I played this game with a smile on my face the whole way through, and it was just. Yeah, yeah. But that’s. That’s all I’m gonna say on it. It’s a great game.

[00:44:42] Speaker A: That is a glowing bit of praise and definitely is exciting.

[00:44:47] Speaker B: So.

[00:44:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that’s one last thing. One last thing.

[00:44:51] Speaker B: Sure.

[00:44:51] Speaker C: It plays fantastically well in the portal.

[00:44:54] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Well, I enjoyed the first one on the portal. I will give this one a shot as well.

[00:45:01] Speaker C: So my second Playthrough was on Portal, so it was. And it was brilliant. Brilliant.

[00:45:06] Speaker A: Well, appreciate the tip.

Alex, what makes this a game you want to start up now at this point in our series of seasons?

[00:45:16] Speaker B: Some now, I think it’s just. It’s going to be like a fun action.

[00:45:22] Speaker A: Not terribly difficult.

[00:45:24] Speaker B: Not terribly. Yeah, well, I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know.

[00:45:27] Speaker A: I mean, that’s true. I mean, it doesn’t give off that vibe, but it very well could be.

[00:45:30] Speaker B: I don’t think. I don’t think the bosses in this potentially might be as difficult as some of the ones in Prince of Persia.

I’ll say that.

[00:45:39] Speaker C: If they assume.

[00:45:40] Speaker B: I think. Yeah.

But no, I just. I mean, I love these platforms, like these types of games. I have the platforming as well as.

Yeah. Like little bits of Run and Gun.

I enjoyed the 2016 one a lot. So yeah, I’m definitely excited to get into this one.

[00:45:58] Speaker A: Perfect. I agree with everything you just said also, I mean. So, for example, Spyro2 Ripto’s rage was one of the first games I had and played on PlayStation 1 and I loved it. Never finished it because I didn’t finish most games back then.

And by the time the PS2 rolled around, I was kind of off the console mascot platformer type games and went for other genres. So I missed the Ratchet and Clank series altogether when it came out, aside from those commercials I mentioned.

But after revisiting Spyro with the Reignited trilogy and getting that nostalgia going, and the fact that 2016 Ratchet Clank was included in the PS plus collection, I decided to give another Insomniac game a try and love Spider Man. And I have yet to play Miles Morales or Spider Man 2, but they’re doing a pretty consistently good job over there as a whole.

And Wolverine looks phenomenal, so I think I’m gonna give them this. I never had any doubts about Rift Apart, but I’ve heard everything I need to hear to get going.

[00:47:01] Speaker C: Yeah, I think Just Insomniac are Sony’s secret weapon.

They pump out consistently great games way faster than they have any right to, in my opinion. I think they’re just a phenomenal studio. I don’t know how to do it. I have honestly no idea how to do it.

[00:47:24] Speaker A: I’m right there with you. And while I haven’t played tons of their games, of the few that I have played, I don’t disagree at all.

[00:47:33] Speaker C: Yeah, they’re just technological wizards and honestly, I have no idea how they work at the pace they do, because I think PlayStation 5 Insomniac have released Rift Apart, Spider Man, Miles Morales, Spider man remastered, Spider Man 2 and Wolverine comes out in October.

And Sony, you know, we’ve had one God of war game and we’re still waiting on Naughty Dog.

[00:47:57] Speaker A: Yep,

[00:48:00] Speaker B: yep, yep, yep.

[00:48:02] Speaker A: No comment. There’s nothing else to add to that.

[00:48:05] Speaker B: They’re popping out games. Yeah. And they. They all seem to be really good games. So, yeah, I’d say I played Spider Man 1 and Miles Morales. I enjoyed both of those a lot and looking forward to getting into Spider Man 2 and future.

[00:48:19] Speaker A: Excellent. Well, Ratchet and Rift Apart is a fairly short game divided into chapters, but also split by the planets that you visit.

So for our purposes here, we’ll be going based on the chapters.

So to start this week, aim to finish the chapter on Sovali, which is the first visit to that planet.

And then we will catch up next time and join us to find out if Ratchet and Rift Apart is still worth playing in 2026. My money’s on yes.

And before you get started, let us know on Discord what your expectations are for Ratchet and Clank. Rift Apart. We’re curious to hear your thoughts and thank you so much, Leva, for joining us as well. Where can people listen to high scores, high stakes.

[00:49:03] Speaker C: We are absolutely everywhere. Where podcasts are so Spotify, Apple, Amazon, YouTube. We’re absolutely everywhere. Just search high scores, high stakes and we should pop up. If we don’t, send me a message on Twitter at scores hitstakes and I’ll fix that.

[00:49:22] Speaker A: Okay. And you do video as well?

[00:49:25] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we’re a video podcast. Because of the nature of it, of us competing in video games, we.

It make a lot more sense. People could see what we’re playing. So, yeah, we went the video route. Absolutely.

[00:49:40] Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, thanks again for joining us and we’ll be asking some questions along the way here this season.

[00:49:45] Speaker C: No, yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve had a blast talking about great games.

[00:49:51] Speaker A: Thank you, Pete.

[00:49:51] Speaker B: Thank you so much for Tony. Yep.

[00:49:54] Speaker C: Now I look forward to hearing how you guys feel about Rift Apart. I’m really excited to hear.

[00:50:00] Speaker B: Very excited to get started. I’m going to set that up. Set my PlayStation.

[00:50:04] Speaker A: Go plug in your PlayStation.

[00:50:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I’ll be playing on PS5 Pro. I don’t know if it’s actually one of the PS5 Pro enhanced games, if it got one of those.

[00:50:12] Speaker C: It is. Indeed it is.

[00:50:13] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Well, then I’m going to even look more forward to it.

[00:50:16] Speaker A: Well, lucky you.

[00:50:18] Speaker C: It is the PlayStation 5 enhanced game. It was the one Sony used for every conference. About the PlayStation Pro.

Yeah, it’s a, it’s not a huge jump, but it’s a, it’s the biggest of any of the games on PlayStation 5.

[00:50:32] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, okay, now I’m, now I’m even cranked up even more to get this started. So, yeah, I’m going to go plug that in and set that up and get started.

[00:50:44] Speaker A: Excellent. Thanks, guys.

[00:50:46] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you everyone for listening and I hope everyone else who is listening is excited to start the journey here through Ratchet and Clank Richard Park.

And we will talk to you next time. Thanks.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of naive games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram account under the same name. Thanks.