Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart | Review | The First Real Next-Gen Game

ERIK: Hey there and welcome to Geeks with Kids, the bi-weekly geeky podcast from a parenting point of view. I am your host Erik and joining me this week on this very special friday evening stream where we where we're going to talk about this amazing amazing game the recently released 16th installment of the ratchet and clank franchise "Ratchet and Clank A Rift Apart" I don't think it's a rift apart it's just "Rift Apart." It was created by insomniac games, the latest iteration was released on june 11th 2021 for the Playstation 5 and just the Playstation 5. Just a warning that we are going to touch on story elements and stuff, nothing too heavy, but we're going to probably get a couple of light spoilers especially if we talk about weapons.

Erik: Oh yeah if you're watching live on Twitch or on Youtube you'll be able to watch all the shiny video game chaos captured on my PS5. It's me playing unfortunately so you're gonna see some bad gameplay. I'm watching right now and it's a boss battle right now that's happening on screen and i'm like oh i'm doing bad. I am playing in performance ray tracing mode and I don't think i have any footage that is um from any of the other graphical modes but we'll talk about them when we get to it. Joining me on this review is Marcus as always, and let's welcome back Everything is Permitted and Strange New Pod's Brittany Tomes. Also new to the show and joining us is long-time geek and occasional playwright... Is it occasional play play right if it's one play?

BRENT: Is it occasional if it was one and it was almost 20 years ago?

BRITTANY: It was one occasion...

i still talk about i think i still have a copy of it somewhere in my house i just found a car i thought i'd lost it forever and i found an old email chain with it in it yeah i have it as well very happy so that that mysterious voice is brent uh normally for a new guest we asked them for their geek cred what you know what qualifies you as a geek but since we're doing a review here and i'm going to ask these guys these questions anyway i'm going to ask you brent first uh since ratchet and clank is a beloved franchise for the playstation system do you remember how you're introduced to the series i do i'm actually late to the game when it comes to ratchet and clank um i didn't even get my my first ps4 until i think 2017 and and i was not into gaming that much before then uh and but i remembered a lot of the old like ps1 games that i loved and a friend of mine marcel and i would talk about him at work and our love of spyro and crash and conker's bad fur day medieval and whatnot and he's told me he said well if you ever played ratchet and clank this no came in to work the next day handed me a copy of the ps4 remaster and just instant love like i think i got through that game in less than 24 hours i had a ps now account at the time jumped on found all of the old games sat down pretty much finished the entire series within a month and i just i absolutely adore it also ps now damn you're like one of two people i know that's something i have it still because i accidentally bought the account but i still like it it's gonna say you you almost convinced me to do it right now just to get all the ratchet and clanking i don't know if they nope sorry i said i don't know if they still have all of them but i know that they at least have the uh the future saga series on there nice britney how about you how are you introduced to the franchise well i had the playstation 2 obviously back in the day like 90 percent of the world um and i surprisingly didn't play ratchet and clank but my brother did over his best friend's house we were a jack and daxter household apparently um so i'd grown up hearing about my brother loving those games but uh we never actually played them and after i was done college i got a ps4 i was once again late to the game like towards the end of you know that light cycle um and yeah i played ratchet and clank this past year but on the ps5 but it was the ps4 remaster yeah so that was a fun stream i'm in love with it yeah it was fun it was a great stream i was like i love this game why haven't i played any of these like it's just a franchise i missed out on and then when i heard this one was happening i was like well i've got to play this because i just played the last like the remaster and it was awesome for sure and you know you are a naughty dog stan so i'm not surprised that um

extra was my life jack and dexter is why i'm a naughty dog stan yes yes what about you marcus then the last of us happened and i was like i was like wait is anyone criticizing naughty dog here no no no no no no i didn't think so they said and special thanks to naughty they can do no wrong naughty dog is pretty much one of the best companies out there right now naughty dog is the christopher nolan of ps4 series insomniac is also like a good oh awesome stuff oh my god what would they be if christopher nolan was uh who was naughty dog i'd have to think of that oh like i don't don't say kevin smith i was gonna say i'd go right right no and you're right very fitting it would work with the comedic aspect so yeah i would say yes all in the editing mm-hmm anyway

marcus how about you how are you introduced uh well i mean i had uh play i had playstations from the very get-go like playstation one all the way to play station five now um and while i had a stint with xbox for a little bit i pretty much have been a playstation person my entire gaming career um so uh i was also into like the platforming's like i loved jack and daxter um i loved sly cooper i loved like all these games they were so good and then i remember when this came out when the first um ratchet and client came out i was like oh that just looks like another fun cool little platforming game and i just absolutely it blew my mind i loved it it was so simple but it was like adorable and amazing and challenging but fun and crazy um but i do remember i think in playing on my ps2 um i ended up having the norwalk virus at one time and i was very very sick and this is like just when the whole virus was kind of starting to take hold so i didn't know about it i was at home it was late at night and i was playing ratchet and clank until like 3 30 in the morning and i remember i was in a level where everything was like spinning around like you're in outer space and everything was just like kind of revolving over and over again and i remember just feeling so unbelievably sick and i thought it was the game i thought the game was making me sick and like oh why would you betray me but it was the norwalk virus and yeah i got that out of my system it was terrible but yeah i still love the game yeah that ratchet and clank will actually cure you of disease it will yes let it be known audience we should put that on the on the next box covered disclaimer when you started playing this still get vaccinated but when you started playing rift apart did you start getting a little tickle in your throat like little ptsd you know what actually the the moments when you're i think rivet and you're in that uh when you're i don't know walking a spacewalking kind of thing yeah i was just like oh no

thank god there's no disease going around right now oh my god um on our twitch uh marcy the video said that was me i'm not sure which comment she's saying that too and turf burner 45 says hi brent marcy davidia that would be the marcel that i mentioned earlier who turned me on to uh ratchet clank nice yeah for me let's see what did i do i played one of the last ones on ps3 i didn't i i had a ps2 in my household i was in university at the time but it wasn't mine so the only time i could get it was to steal it for um final fantasy 10. and i was like guys this is my time i was gonna say final fantasy 10 was like probably the game i played the most yeah blitzball and all of that fun um but then i like my nephew was born in 2010 so when he was like five or six the the ps4 version came out and he was super excited for the movie so i was like well [ __ ] i gotta get this game play it and i just like oh my god that game was so good like i played that one from the ps3 one and i was like oh yeah that's cool i'm paying no mind but the ps4 one just blew me away like just perfect it was like um it was like you were playing a movie and speaking of that this is pretty much the same thing especially since there's no time to pause so let's go into a little bit of the history and the story we'll talk about the story uh points um so this is an action platformer and a third person shooter which as i said earlier was created by insomniac games who also created spyro the dragon which i also love uh the resistance fall of man games and the spider-man miles morales games which you know it's so good damn so good so good um and the first game in the ration and clank franchise was released in 2002 so almost 20 years ago wow that's crazy um right these games follow the adventures of a long backs named ratchet and a defective robot named clank alongside many of their friends like captain quark rusty pete et cetera et cetera in this most recent game rift apart our heroes traverse across different worlds and multiple realities to stop their arch enemy dr nefarious from exploiting a catastrophic dimensional collapse caused by a malfunctioning dimensionator i should have put commas and periods in this to finally achieve his dream of completely eradicating organic life in all universes along the way they meet another lombax named rivet and an apprentice robot name kit um without going into heavy spoilers what did you guys think of the story of rift apart gilbert i loved the story and multiple times while playing the game and streaming it out loud whether or not people were watching me stream or not i even said wow the story is so good in this game and i was like who wrote this who worked on it in the credits i saw and i was like that's why it's good it was like mary kenny wrote it and i was like oh this is why yeah but they were so like they they handle a lot of like deeper themes and i know this is like an e for everyone game you know like 10 and up so we as adults you know we we like certain elements of games and then like you still want to be able to like can i play this in front of my kids could they play could they enjoy it and it's one of those things where you're like wow like this is really well done like you feel for these characters and like this is the first time you're seeing rivet and kit and you love them just as much as ratchet and clank who you might have played all their games this far and you're just like i feel so compelled to love these characters too like every character this was the this was the closest thing to playing a pixar movie i've i've very experienced you know it's visual style and the gameplay is like it's geared towards kids but when you actually like follow the storyline and and see the themes that they're throwing out there like it's very much an adult game as well like it's meant for everyone like it's it's so heartwarming like um i was playing this game with my eldest my six-year-old and she was like loving it laughing are there times where they're trying to they're talking about how insecurities like they're going through their insecurities and how people have um they're different because they don't necessarily have the same parts or are a little bit different than a regular person and they're like that's okay and you know what that doesn't mean you're broken i'm sitting there's like yeah i was like i was like don't cry brittany don't cry this is the kids game but like i just i let

kind of mirroring everything that you guys said like i i loved the storyline i was so there for it like right off the bat i was like oh this is kind of corky it's kind of fun and then as soon as like rivets started getting in there and kit i loved kit i immediately loved kit and i was just so there for it and i just knew that there was going to be this beautiful meshing of the stories and i'd be like i can't wait for this and it's it's so well executed so well like oh i love it um there's a big main story where um this has been happening in the whole franchise where uh ratchet feels alone because he's the last lombax at least in his dimension and he finally meets up with rivet and in this beautiful moment what did you think of them meeting for the first time oh my god i loved the meeting i liked how you had those parallel moments before they met like when they first communicate with each other and they say the same things at the same time and the camera splits and you see them both do the same thing as they're sitting down and you realize like oh this is the same person basically but between two different dimensions i also like that element because when you first saw things for the game you were like there's gonna be a female on box and him like are they gonna is this gonna be a love interest like what sort of thing are they gonna do but i really liked the way they did it and it's all about like finding that found family and the fact that they're both looking for the other lawn boxes because they're like well i'm the last one in my dimension not the last one of mine i was just like oh this is so brilliant i like that so i yeah sorry go ahead good no but i i love to the way that the game's set up where you get to play as rivet for a little while first and you get to know all the characters before they meet so it's not even so much like uh you know oh my god ratchet finally met another longback so you're at the same time going rivet found another one too like exactly you're excited for both of them like this game's just so well crafted that character like and introduce us to new characters in an ongoing series like we've known them our whole lives it was wonderful yeah um on our twitch turf burners45 says it's chris actually so brent um i don't know if you know chris i'm aware he's he's he's one of my yeah he's one of my gaming buddies nice uh and marcy says this is torture for us without a ps5 i i feel like no i'm so sorry i get why they only do this for ps5 because like it's it's gorgeous there's no way usually this oh my god it would break a ps4

yeah i was surprised when i played like ghost tsushima and that i was and the last of us part two and i was like how is this even how is my ps4 running to keep up with this and then this game happened and i was just like this is your your ps4 would look at it and it would explode that's what happened until mine started to do with ghost tsushima and i was like okay i get it i'm getting a ps5 i can't wait till we talk about the actual mechanics of this game because this game is magic and i think i said that when i first loaded i think i messaged everyone i knew and i was like this game is magic i don't know how this is possible i the way you phrased it to me and i couldn't agree with you more is when you said this is the first real ps5 game yeah like this is 100 the first next generation game and i couldn't agree more like it it was unbelievable i'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it because i want to play it again um so what did we think of the new characters of riveting kid we we touched upon them but we haven't really gone into them i will go and i will be the one antithesis here to say that i was not a big fan of kit uh not at the beginning not at first uh i'm not gonna spoil everything or um but i do love the the story arc the kit goes through and the like the backstory that's eventually developed between rivet and kit um but at first know i just i kind of found kit to be an annoying little emo robot it was just very whiny and uh is just it's it was not what i wanted to see as the mirror image of clank as or as the alternate dimension version of plank i grew i yeah i grew to love kit like but as the story progressed i grew to love kit like she was a little too insecure for you yes okay and we've done the understanding the reluctant heroes so much so i can i can't see yeah see either i just i i loved it kind of reminded me of like uh what what you would have gotten if the iron giant was a little bit more self-aware you know that's kind of how i i was there and like i i loved i loved kit and then we got a giant uh iron giant later i know that part i think my favorite sequence yeah we'll talk about mine a bit i never got to tell you about it brittany um i wasn't on the stream when you went through the planet are we gonna talk about our love for rivet because i just want to say i love her i'm here for it i hope she's in more games and i love that she is more bold like as opposed to ratchet like they didn't make them the exact same kind of character and she's a little more impulsive but because she like has to be to survive you know what i mean especially growing up in that world

if there's not some kind of like rivet uh spin-off game like miles morales i will be absolutely shocked i don't think they're going to separate these two anymore i feel like i could see them i could see them keeping them together for the main series but i could also see them doing some kind of like a miles morales offshoot of like you know like a four hour dlc kind of thing with rivet speaking of miles maybe going back into more backstory for that yeah that would be pretty cool actually speaking of miles morales they did that game and this game in less than a year like release window that's crazy insomniac yeah there's some witchcraft involved and didn't they do this with no crunch this one yeah insomnic doesn't do crunchy i don't believe yeah they're one of those companies the good so just ones look at how a game this game is gorgeous didn't need crunch no loading times you're not killing your employees so there you go this is what can happen when you don't kill your employees exactly you get back you get this beautiful you get magic masterpiece i will say this is masterpieces for gaming um yeah we also got alternate versions of the characters we grew up with uh what'd you think of meeting each of those um without spoiling them okay i was so excited through the entire game as you started meeting all the alternate dimensions because my absolute favorite character in the series is commander car hands down and so i was so excited to like oh my god what is his alternate dimension give me that was my biggest let down in the game

the circumstances of meeting him yes but the character itself i was just kind of like oh i wanted something that was right yeah like yeah you know cork isn't in the game much this this character isn't in the game much that's because it's more they want to try to introduce alternate versions of as many characters as possible so i that's my one pitfalls i would have liked more cork and more more of a difference between the two of them i found them too similar i i preferred the alternate version to quark so when it happened i was just like oh my god can we keep him around this is amazing i'm a cork stan all day long

realized i was gonna say it i was like nope yeah it's so it's so hard to like talk about this without like just blurting out everything because gush about all these awesome moments and it's mostly because i want people to experience them and this game is like yeah good enough that you don't want to spoil these things but one thing we will spoil is that there is two nefarious in this game a emperor nefarious and a um dr nefarious and they get to play off each other actually you can see it in the gameplay right now

look at that um but um oh man this is later in the game anyway i love their they sort of rapport against each other and how emperor nefarious was built up more and he was bigger and more like sort of uh imposing but doctor

i acquainted the two of them watching like playing this game is like this is like the vader palpatine relationship if this was

spaceballs

the best explanation without spoiling the game yeah i i love the dialogue and the the fact that they were sort of at each other's throats whenever they were together i thought was great um and i think going into sort of this end part of this story or at least talking about the stories um i don't think like we said earlier that this story could have happened on any other system just because of how the game mechanics going through all the riffs uh work well even just it's just like load times there are no load times it's just it was you can't there's no way that would be able to be possible on a ps4 or something like it was so smooth it was like watching a movie but that you could continue i legitimately thought how are they going to do how are they going to do low no low time i thought every time you switched between a riff there was going to be like a little bit of a lull and you'd see them flying around and everything it's not it's just literally instantaneous every time whole new world i'm like how are they doing this is perfect yeah uh the first time you open up a uh miniature rift and you just load up a whole new level inside of another level we're just saying there's like what because you could walk behind that and it's not that level i didn't understand it it blows my my mind um so let's let's talk about i i know in the outline i said we're doing graphics and sounds first but let's go into the gameplay this is the third person uh shooter and then there's there's platforming elements what did you think of the gameplay did it feel in line with um the previous games how did you get honestly i was i was able to just go right into it like i hadn't i haven't played a ratchet and clank game for a long time and then i it instantly came back to me um there's some nice like new little nuances um the haptic feedback oh man for anybody who doesn't have a ps5 uh yet i'm so sorry but the haptic feedback on a controller is one of the greatest things that you can have on your ps5 and this game takes such such a great opportunity for using that like every step you take you feel it in the controller and you can feel like where it's coming from and it's one of the coolest things like it's nice to finally see it being used the best thing when i got my ps5 the first time was sitting down and playing astros playroom and yeah and discovering what the controller can do like what this what the this new console's capabilities are and then sitting down playing this game and all i can say is asterisk playroom is checkers and this game is chess yes like it's just perfect yeah i remember when i first played miles morales and i thought it was amazing that just you can feel the tension of the web as you're swinging in the controller and you knew exactly what moment to let it go to do the highest flips like how to do it the fastest like you could feel it in the controller and then this game was a complete other level every weapon feels different like the ship's landing moving gliding around on your like little hoverboard boots yeah you go faster than the jet boots i also just love that like the the two stage weapon things like with the trigger like you halfway the trigger put full trigger like that kind of thing was so unbelievably cool

i hold it straight down i'm just like just i got so good at it especially with the shield weapon oh that's so good the shield weapon is my worst that's that was my worst honestly if you if you if you learn how to do it like it's so it's weapon i'm with you i i hated it until i had to level it up to five for the platinum and then i fell in love with it when i realized just how powerful it was especially like i that became one of my favorite weapons it was my last trophy for my platinum and it made me so angry and as soon as i finished like turning off my playstation like i'm never touching this trigger again i love it um i i will say that this gameplay is actually so good like enough that my my kid my six-year-old was able to play the first couple levels without it being too too hard like the the difficulty ramps up obviously like every single ratchet game but it's enough that she played and she loved it when it got harder she just wanted to watch because the gameplay and the the story was still good enough that she just wanted to sit there and be like this is fun fun show eating popcorn exactly yeah exactly um

we talked about no load times but i don't think we gave it enough justice hold on yeah can we just talk about rifting for a moment oh yeah there wasn't a single time in the game that i rifted that i didn't go like i told you i told you still at the end of the game like it didn't i felt so like weird i was streaming it and i kept being like guys you don't unders if you're playing the game you'll understand but like even by the end i was still rifting to like you know fight all the bosses do all these other things even if it's just to maneuver around and you just get so excited you're like i feel like there should be a rift where's the rift and then it happens like like it's so rewarding especially during battle when you're like getting overwhelmed oh when you when you whip around and you're just like i love it i don't know if i can curse right now yeah you can you're just like okay that's right [ __ ] i rifted those multi-stage boss battles where you go through different riffs and you're just like oh my god yes i'm imagine i'm a magician the robot part alone was like you break it down it's so basic right it's like rail grinding wall running rifting right and the premise seems so simple it's gorgeous amazing i know the exact part you're talking about and Erik and i had this discussion off stream where like that brought me back to the first time playing uncharted yeah uh and just the like feeling an action sequence like i'm in a movie and it's like the first time in a long time or like i'm sitting on the edge of my seat like just like staring at the screen like oh my god this is incredible like i can't believe like and then you get like using the screen and you're like oh something i forgot but like i'm so intently like i don't want to make a mistake this whole time i want to get through this flop she's like the rail's gone and you're like wait she said what oh my god it gives me so much like hope for what naughty dog does next like if they do an uncharted game i'm just gonna be like it will be it'll be another movie it'll be like i don't know how they could top uncharted four because i think that's their best uncharted game maybe two but um oh man the stuff that these companies do with ps5 is like like this is super utilizing the hardware perfectly like not not only that like let's talk about the sound design because they did a home theater mix they also did a tv mix and then they did the pulse audio like brent's wearing the pulse audio headset did you guys get to try out the 3d headset uh feature i don't know i pretty much play exclusively with the headset on yeah for almost all my games so yes for this game specifically like there's there's no option for me other than with the pulse 3ds like it's this game has to be played with a 3d surround when you hear that sound coming from behind you it's the coolest thing or hearing something whiz past you feeling like you're just like holy [ __ ] like it's like that too mixed with like the haptics where like when you hear an enemy behind you and then you almost feel the haptic controller of like someone walking up behind you and everything like the mixture of it is just it's i can't describe it like that's how i understand this i'm sure that it's going to get even better like because this it wasn't perfect there were there you know there are flaws in the system itself but nothing that you could actually complain about like it's just you just know that oh it's it it's probably going to get better from this point and exactly i can't can't wait like i only had minor frustrations at like some things but overall like i was just like yeah it was just one part of the game and i just move on because it's too good the first time i really noticed a 3d audio was when you're trying to find the club at the beginning of the game oh yes you're just spinning around you can perfectly hear it in space with the headset you can hear it in the like in surround sound as well but it seemed more accurate at the headset which i don't understand again magic insomniac yes magic is just magic um yeah i i loved it i what was also great was i also played in um surround sound you know i was playing with my kids you could listen to it but they would also use the audio from the controllers perfectly so that you could hear things coming towards you i don't know out of really like people walking by and talking or you're passing people yeah and then weapons would also go through your yeah your controller and i was just like what

the one on the 3d audio that blew me away the most was probably the the bar when you're walking around there and you can literally hear every conversation going on around you like in every direction and you can hear them all individually you can point them all out and i have this issue where um because of my random musical training um i can hear like random things all around me and i have to focus or i'm not or i'm going to listen to everything i have like you're superman yeah no i get it it happens that's that's superman hearings that's what you're describing i wish but like sometimes megan will be we'll be me and meg will be take the glasses off um but we'll be at a bar and megan will be like why are you laughing i'm like oh i'm listening to like that conversation over there he's like oh i'm listening yeah yeah it's funny it's random but like having that that bar scene really made me feel like i was there in real life because i'd be like oh god i'm focusing on the wrong thing right now i kept wanting to stop and like focus on people's like discussion stuff i'm like why is this mort eating with this other guy like you know yeah why is mr fungus hanging out over here oh i love that bar i don't even like i don't even drink alcohol in in real life and i still was like i wish this bar was a real place because i would go here all the time this looks amazing um let's see um what did you think of the different planets um i know there are a number of them we we don't have to go through all of them but like just in general there there are a lot of different plans different locales like if i you know when um okay this is gonna be a terrible example um but uh no man's sky you went to thousands of different planets if you want to but they all felt the same still the same yes this game is the opposite right opposite so opposite like so you very i loved it i just the fact that you're it's a platforming game you think to yourself okay it's all going to be kind of the same it's gonna be like eight different level designs yeah different textures and it'll be fine no this is like so different so vastly different and then you then you add the rifts in there and like shortcut to here to there like it's just so so amazing and the creatures planets when you could actually use the dimension to travel in certain planets you were just like this oh yeah super awesome yeah and like not even just like visually the the style of the planets varying and like the creatures on the varying but like every single planet had its own mechanic for you to learn that was like required for navigating through it like and i love that even like once you get to the end of it and you're on like the eighth nine tenth planet you're still learning something new exactly just the mesa like it felt almost like it was an open world part of the game and you know it's not you're like i know this level is only so big but you're just like i can speed up these jet boots and just yeah i could be here for hours i don't even care i might have collected everything already i just want to do like sick flips i want to jump off of things once i got those jet boots it was on like that that was just it for me the rest of the game i stopped walking at that point yeah oh yeah i forgot how to fail that's how excited i was about the boots oh my god oh gosh

was was awesome when it first got there but then as soon as those boots got there i think who what's fantastic i got to the point where i got stuck at one point in the game because i was like there's this door with like a blue thing and i'm like how am i supposed to how do i get through and i'm wandering all over the place and realizing oh yeah it's the thing i don't use anymore

yeah i remember during like the final boss battle that like because i get kept getting hit by something i like i should have easily dodged and like put my boots and i was like i was like no wonder yeah your boots you can only go side to side in this part of the level you can't really dodge so it's just like yeah that's amazing any favorite sequences we can go into without spoiling i'm gonna do i'll go first mine is without spoiling it it's a small

world

anybody who plays this game after watching this you will understand immediately um that's awesome anyone else mine i touched on it already is like without spoiling it the the the rail ride in in that one i don't want to i don't want to name the character for spoilers purposes but one

like that's the best gaming experience i've ever had i was literally like i'm trying to think of like a smaller like other moments that i really enjoyed there's so many i was mad i could hit it on the first try because i wanted to do it again i liked uh the water level the fact that there was that twist oh you know like you knew it was coming but it was also just nice because you're so used to like you know platformer you're going to do this you're going to get this you're going to learn something new and then you're going to fight a big dad like that sort of thing over and over again and then this was like the right after the the big set piece of like the robot previously then it's it was interesting i enjoyed the the racing and gaining up speed while jumping through multiple rifts after rift after rift after ref after up like that kind of thing is just like it makes it it feels like what's the oh my god oh that's are you talking are you talking about hail on a snail because the first time the first time i got on a snail in the game i was like oh my god i'm jennifer hill as rivet on a snail i'm here on a

and i was like his name doesn't work but yeah um so let's go into the the sounds and graphics um we're good with story and and gamepl and hell yes does it utilize its um hardware there were three graphic modes for the game there were fidelity performance and performance ray tracing performance ray tracing is the default field mode is the highest quality mode with a native 4k and ray tracing but it runs at a slower 30 fps performance mode would be the the highest quality for playing um it ran the smoothest at 60fps pretty much constant with some lower resolution generally around 1800 p performance ray tracing was sort of the in between of both of them you'd get 60 fps but you'd also get some ray tracing elements as well but that would mean the resolution came down a bit it was generally around 1440p um what were your game modes that you picked i personally as you can see on the stream the performance ray tracing and i think it is probably the best uh what'd you guys do um i did uh performance ray tracing as well and uh i just didn't i just wanted to make sure that everything ran perfectly and i i wasn't disappointed like everything worked great still looked absolutely incredible like the game looked beautiful so i have no no regrets there i'll do i do want to try the fidelity uh at some point oh i'll talk about that in a second uh i i did play on the fidelity mode you played the whole thing in federality not the whole thing i i played half fidelity and then i switched to performance rate racing uh part way through pretty much um yeah no i i like the fidelity mode for the most part of the game and everything i think that it was probably my favorite for all the high action sequences um because i kind of felt uh like in the arena battles especially the ones where you're getting swarmed by about 50 60 enemies at the time i found the performance mode was a little sluggish for me really uh yeah i found it a little i found it a little bit i don't know what it is about it like i don't know if it was like struggling with the 60 fps but i did find it to be a little bit it could be i figure it might have also just been like an issue you know within a new game that's going to have bugs in it and stuff like that but for the most part i found that fidelity mode was like the the strongest for me through through the majority of the game interesting what about you britney i'll say that i have no clue what mode i did because i just defaulted performance ray tracing okay so you had performance ray tracing and it was i mean the game is gorgeous so yeah i mean i i every time i would hop to a new location or a new planet sometimes i would go to start like you know move on with the story but sometimes i just turn around and be like look at this like i want to just sit in photo mode for like five hours but people aren't going to want to watch me stream that i would watch a stream when i was doing when i was um doing uh ghost of sushima i would jump in the photo mode for such a long time and i'd be like you would be like what are you doing i'm like making the perfect photo for my instagram no dude i loved i loved your instagram your ghost tsushima instagram was amazing that was one of my favorite instagram accounts ever yeah i should do it again maybe i'll just change it to more video game because i think yeah you should just call it like some photo mode yeah photo mode i could just call phone um i definitely spent a lot of time with photo mode in this game because i'll send you all my last of us ones because i have a problem yes no you don't i think that's a good problem to have um i played performance ray tracing and uh the the highest quality fidelity in the challenge mode afterwards um i think performance ray tracing and phil d are pretty much pretty much identical i couldn't really tell the difference there were a little bit it was a little bit higher quality visually for fidelity but the 30 fps like once you hit 60fps and you play that way you go back like 30 you're just like oh why is it so different yeah i was like no i can't do this and even megan when she was watching me play she was like you don't seem to be enjoying this as much as you know it's like when you go back and watch a movie where you know they throw in one of those scenes where it's like a knife flies past them you're like oh because they filmed this in 3-d oh yeah everybody's wearing 3d glasses in the movies and you're just like i hate it like we've passed that now it's great um yeah we talked about the sound design so we already sort of went into that man we've gone through it sounds amazing it looks amazing like we're all gushing about it guys just go i don't care who you have to kill for a ps actually i do disclaimer don't probably just don't kill don't kill don't kill anybody for a ps5 but if you can get it make sure this is the first game you get for a ps5 yes i don't know um yeah so uh are were there any like downsides i know no game is perfect let's just say that although there's class um were there any issues you guys had while playing the game oh yeah go ahead go ahead i had so i played this game across the last three days like whenever i could when i wasn't working and uh the first day and then today you know i didn't have any issues but day number two for some reason the game crashed on me like three times in a row over the course of like an hour and i was streaming so i had to keep breaking it into segments you know and at first i was like it did my internet go out like what's going on um so i don't really know for sure i think the game was probably just mad that i i fell to my death for no reason because it did happen one time after i like i had it one of those stupid deaths and i think it was just like seriously an enemy wasn't even firing at you just you just jumped and fell off of something we pressed f for you in the in the chat yeah i saw it when i would come back i would see the previous like chat when i was switching over my twitch to the new stream and it would be like f in the chat for brittany she disappeared um that was a bit of issue i only ran into a few um small things in the game where like i saw some like floating sticks in sargosa and i was like ooh let's go investigate which i probably shouldn't have but i really thought you'd be able to climb up those dinosaurs like horizon zero dawn style i was wrong you cannot but i got stuck and it was just like a weird like wall in the top and it was like all invisible so i was like was this a building at one point and i just once again got stuck and then fell to my desk um so don't go exploring when you see stuff floating in the air randomly i think that's a good life lesson in general um marcus sierra you're exciting uh yeah i mean god i loved so much about this game that i think the only thing that i i loved a lot of the mini games that they put into this we didn't but the one the the one that i just didn't love was was uh clank's little thing like you know with the balls the uh the puzzles the the lemmings that's actually very accurate lemmings yeah it's it's just i it was it was fine for the first two and then you're just like okay i don't it's kind of like when i play when i play the old assassin creed games and it's like this is a follow mission where you have to listen to somebody from a farm like [ __ ] oh no i'm not this [ __ ] again no it's not it's not no no no no it is definitely not that bad you just got it where you were tired of it in the realm of this amazing game with so much to offer i was just like okay i'm already done with this i am so done with this kind of level but it wasn't bad it's not like it was terrible um but out of everything i think that was the thing i i disliked the most um but i mean really that's not even it's not even that bad well i like those parts yeah it reminded me of final fantasy 10 when you go to the various temples like you know like makalania temple and stuff yeah you have to change out the spheres to do things right in my mind i was like britney change out the correct sphere so you can get to the end and you can get that a on yeah there was never an a on us but that's all it like it's just one of those things where it's like this is annoying i gotta do it all right i can deal with it i i like that the mini game that i eventually kind of started getting a little uh tired of was the pocket lifts actually oh because the first the first few they're great because like you're learning new mechanics and stuff i just found that by the time you get to like the the eighth or ninth one it's just a lot of it was just redoing the same thing over and over and over again that's true like at least they're all very quick so it's like outfits and stuff right yeah yeah oh my god i love the art the outfits are so good the armor is so good so cool have pockets in it because then technically you got pockets from a pocket dimension

a pocket within a pocket within a pocket uh did you um do you have any issues other than that the the only other issue that i had uh is and like i have a feeling i might get some groans on this one but uh the weapons the weapons in the game

okay i found that unlike other games there i i don't know if it was there was more of them in this game than in some of the others but i just found jerusalem there was too many ones that were just too similar to other ones like there wasn't oh there wasn't a large variety and i found that by the end of the game i really was just using about four or five of them on standard and the rest was like i only used them because i ran out of ammo for everything wait let me guess let me guess mr fungi yes topiary no no i prefer i i like the freeze better than the topiary okay that's fair i like freeze as well yeah they're all control uh i really i really love lightning warmonger like i like lightning later on and i i really like to upgrade it if you upgrade if you upgrade lightning so that you get like huge chain reactions it's fantastic light lightning was the standard and like i wanted to switch to buzz saws and i d they just didn't have the same effect because i liked how the lightning stunned them was better last game yeah they're more powerful asking i think i did a lot of weapons where it was like throw this [ __ ] down so that they can all attack people and then i'd be like running around doing stuff i would even use like the doom glove just to be like send out my base troops

well sometimes it was great because you know that your ground troops can handle everything i'm like i let out fungi topiary and my little like doombots yeah so i was like i'm just gonna zip around and hit every single crate and raritanium around like this area if i get back and enemies are still alive then i'm gonna whop them exactly exactly we didn't talk about one of my favorite new characters and i i can't believe i i missed her glitch glitch yeah english yeah i was just gonna say gl glitch was actually i loved glitch i loved her missions i loved her it was gross it was her personality she actually had a personality that was the thing that was surprised me yeah she was so gung-ho and she knew yeah oh there there was a little bit at that last that last level for her it was a little confusing like to navigate there's a lot of upside down in there there there is some obscenities some obscenities came out of my mouth on that last one like where's this god damn last thing you need to stand on the worst is when you flip upside down and then you start walking and you're like yeah i'm definitely going this way and then you realize you went all the way back to the yeah you look and you're like oh i'm at the starting line again i'm sure yeah um i i think for for issues with the game i only had one real thing and i think it happened before um so we we were given a code for the game by sony canada to review thank you sony and for that um and like i had a weird after playing it for four or five hours i don't know um i would get random black spots like big sections of the oh you just need sleep no that's fair i mean it was a reality he's trying he's trying to be a real insomniac yes yeah oh yeah uh there was a level where whenever i saw the face of rivet her mask was like black and i'd be like that's weird i'm pretty sure i didn't put on that helmet and then i'd switch the helmet and it would still be there like just be like he's like you know i always default to pink it's true purple that was the one this looked really good in this game that's what i did the the only visual glitch i had like that in the entire game was every time i entered the arena i would get a bar at the bottom of the screen that would raise up about halfway and then just disappear that seemed to happen every single time i entered in i like how all of our glitches we've suffered have been different because like i had no visual glitches but i had like yeah i only had one crash and it was like it was while i was playing well in my second playthrough i had no crashes and i had no like things like Erik's little black mask thing but what i did have was i had a few camera um hiccups where suddenly the the camera would kind of be moving and it would jump and suddenly it would be like that kind of like under the ground camera angle you know what i mean just that kind of thing uh just a few camera issues but nothing major messing with you they still had access they were in their remote play could you imagine that he was like he's doing too well he hasn't died in a while and that is when i fall down a [ __ ] cliff and i'm like yeah yeah yeah what was that one world i can't remember and forgive me for not knowing the names of any of them but uh i just know it as the one where i kept falling in the goddamn pits that i didn't see i'd be walking forward and all of a sudden there's a hole in the ground and i just follow through and die is that the mesa one where it was like the desert yes yeah and i just remember because there was all those craters in the ground and you had where you were supposed to jump over them and i just kept constantly like there would i it would respawn me and and i would forget that it was right in front of me and i'd walk into it again that's that's that's not a game issue that's a knee issue i got to the point where i was using the boots so much that when like it was towards the end of the game and it was just easy things like jump on this thing it'll bounce you up like i kept like boost leaping and i would over jump it and die like three times in a row can i just jump and not even double jump like britney just press like just press jump i had to walk myself through it i was like stop boosting normal jumping becomes really hard when you have rocket boots just like i just want to rocket boost wall run and then like phantom glider um i think we pretty much touched upon everything i was gonna say trudy was the only issue i had with an actual like thing in the game like a mechanic not working um and that was just like at first when you go to rider around like i knew where a lot of these plants were and i was like cool there's like ones that are up really high so she's flying so we just gotta grab those right but with trudy you gotta get things in stages so you collect a certain amount then he lets you know oh now you can do this with trudy and i can do that so at first i couldn't even land as her i could tell where to land but then the button wouldn't appear for her to land so i would just crash and die it happened like two or three times before it let me do it and i was just like this is embarrassing as a streamer oh yeah and then when she finally got fire i was like thank god because i couldn't figure out i was like is there a button to grab and they just haven't told me yet and i kept flying yeah and i was just like i hate this like if there would have been a little more explanation there we've been fine but other than that like the rest of the game i was so glad they had teleports back to your ship and stuff yeah you can tell like the qa testers like who went through like when they're like well when you have to go back to get this bolt later on you're not going to want to reach your steps all the way back so put a [ __ ] teleport there like absolutely thank you thank you thank you for not making me kill myself oh qa what a thankless job i thank them all the time i sit through the credits for you i sat through the credits for this as well because that the game was amazing enough and then they had that song the credits which i don't want to ruin i know right i just said that it's like i don't want to spoil it but the credits are amazing watch it all yeah um any final thoughts on the game final thoughts wait here we go final thoughts and then a rating out of five gold bolts oh yeah i i don't know that there's anything more that i can really say that i haven't already like gushed about in the game i mean like i i won't go so far as to give him five bolts i will give it four and a half just because there are a few little technical issues here and there a few things in the game that i wasn't really a big fan of um but i mean like i'm never gonna find a game that i consider perfect and this is as damn close as one is going to come

oh we have a question on wait befresher has a question on on twitch well i'll get to them once uh you guys keep going sorry i thought the question was gonna come faster i uh i i went too fast sorry uh marcus go uh i i loved the game i loved this was such a visually beautiful game um and i was surprised at how beautiful it actually was you know like i even upon seeing some of the released footage i didn't expect it to actually look as good as it did when it popped up on my screen and uh i have a 65-inch tv right now and like it just looked so beautiful and i just loved seeing like i was i kept getting closer because i'm like there's no way that looks that good and it it does it looks so good so i mean just visually this is incredible gameplay-wise this game was just so much fun and it just instantly brought me back into that nostalgic uh world of platforming and uh for all the tiniest tiniest of flaws this game has um i couldn't be happier with it i think this is like a huge home run for insomniac and for the ps5 going forward i think this is a great game that gets people excited about what could possibly be happening in the future because this is just the beginning we are we are just at the cusp of what is about to actually be possible on this system i i'm so excited you're like uh yeah the future is the future is bright and it is full of uh gold bolts and i give this five gold bolts because i'm just very happy with it for sure uh yeah brittany awesome so i feel like the lady gaga meme slash gif where she's like talented brilliant incredible amazing show stopping spectacular never the same totally unique right that is literally like how i feel like you know the moment she's wearing the sunglasses and she's like that is how i feel about this game uh i was blown away i had just recently played the the remaster so i already like knew what to kind of expect out of ratchet and clank and then this i felt like improved upon that game on every level and i'll just say what i said what i when i tweeted when i finished the game because i just wanted to scream about it so this goes down as one of my favorite games it's by far my favorite game that's quote for the ps5 era i think that's like really like this was made for the ps5 and this is how we're going um it's got a gorgeous design gorgeous animation like just the hair just the hair guys um fantastic characters and story which sometimes can fall flat in games like this but the vo cast who's already really good in these games like yes nobody fell flat like didn't matter if you're playing a side character random person in the background like everybody was amazing the alternate versions it was fantastic and uh the environments were stunning sometimes when there were storms happening on the one planet i just turned and i watched the lightning flash i was just like oh my god like i would stop the game multiple times while streaming just to tell people i'm like you don't understand but oh my god just look at this i was like it's gorgeous isn't it i want to screenshot it and i would just like move on and i'd fall and die but like it was at least the sky looked amazing while i fell to my desk um so before the reason to own a ps5 oh wait how out of how many bolts brittany oh five out of five i'm out of five out of five all right before i do my my my little thing uh brusher's question was is this game on pc and unfortunately this game is a ps5 exclusive um sony has been releasing some of their games onto the pc platform uh in the most recent years but they haven't announced if this game is going to go out there and usually when they do these exclusive games it's generally a number of years before they pop this on pc i think uncharted 4 is coming on pc just now and that game's like five years old i believe anyway for for myself um with rift apart i think insomniac definitely knocked this one out of the park um they're able to implement and improve upon so many graphical sound and gameplay elements that they introduced with their last release miles morales on the ps5 last year um but they were they were able to utilize the hardware even more like like everything is sort of pitch perfect like the loading times which are gone no load times um the sound design and the the 3d spatial sound design was incredible the graphic fidelity the just the frames per second like everything was perfectly done for this game and it was done with love not only that um they made you feel like you're playing a movie a pixar movie like brent said earlier um and you get that joy and warmth that you get with a ration and clanking and you know right now you sort of need that even jeff lemire who wrote uh sweet tooth said we need a little bit so like lighter things and that's why sweet tooth is a lot lighter um it's definitely a game for all ages this being a sometimes talking about parenting stuff podcasts um i played this with my six-year-old and my two-year-old and they loved this so much like that sometimes we wouldn't even watch me play and we just watch britney on our stream like and we can just you know be like oh this is a fun i love this part it's so much fun i i truly believe that this is a must buy for anyone who owns a ps5 and it's the reason why you should buy it to be honest this is this is truly mexican next-gen gaming and you won't get this experience on anything else five out of five out of five ping ping ping again great i lowered the curve so excited to review the game you know like i love feeling the energy of just being like i want to tell everybody the last time i felt this way was for um goes to sushima like i felt excited about this game that um it i just had to tell everyone to play it i'm just gonna say i felt sorry about last of us part two but i also was like it will destroy you i know a lot of people oh my god yeah well that's why i didn't tell like everybody you have to play it i was just like if you love the first one prepare to be heard again all i know is that after three years of patiently waiting for biomutant to come out like thank god for this game yeah oh just it's that uh sorry but it just washed that taste out of my mouth uh of that disappointment but thank god like is this ratchet and playing some of those series that i'm never like i'm not one of those people that's like you know i can't wait to the next one like it's gonna be so amazing and everything like that but it's it's one that'll always play when it comes out and and i will sit down and i will absolutely love every second of it and this is one of those games just because of the the the quality of it and where we're going with video games is going to stay with me forever like this is going to be one of those games that i always remember as like this is a milestone game like this is where this is where we made a turning point yes exactly this is where we made our stand right here no further it wasn't milestone morales um well yeah i just i just think of like uh like kind of on what brent said like thank god this game like Erik we played uh what was it uh uh phoenix rising you know like it was a great game it was so good and i was like yeah i wanted something bright and more colorful and fun and everything but that game had flaws it was great it was a fun game it was humongous the humor is good but it had its flaws it was kind of repetitive you know like there was there's a lot of things that were kind of like wouldn't it be better right and it did yes it absolutely did this was finally like what i really wanted it to be and this was just so much better this was just like this was that next-gen game to start us off and you know what i feel like this is still one of those kind of games that in 10 years from now we'll we can call this one back and be like ratchet and clank drift rift apart is still one of the best like i feel like it's gonna like stick around yeah for sure um again big shout out to playstation canada insomnic games for providing us a copy of the game to review we super appreciate it we love reviewing this game obviously we had gushing gushing reviews for this i would also like to thank brit and brent for coming on the show i had a hard time saying those names right after each other right right yeah sometimes i thought you were talking to me and then i realized i was talking over him so i was like oh our names are too close i should just say brittany bam next time next time um so i'll just stay down here oh well brittany let's go with you where can we find you online if you have stuff online i know you have stuff online where can we find you i was gonna say you can if you like watching people stream games you can follow me on twitch.tv vocal tomes um all of my social media handles are vocal tones um tomes is my last name vocal because i'm pursuing a vo career um so yeah you can follow me on twitter instagram wherever you can find me i'm sure you can google i don't know and i also do the podcast everything is permitted which is like film game gaming pop culture and then a strange new pod which is star trek themed and i do that with Erik so you can just follow either of those on social media or check those out uh as well on twitch facebook instagram things like that hey brad britt oh britney britney britney yeah where can we find you on tuesdays oh yeah sorry sorry and on tuesdays i'm on beats with kids for it's funny because like literally when i'm streaming i say everything i do and i include the d and then i like forgot right now because my brain is like podcast what do i do yeah because i'm like Erik knows what i do um but yeah i also do our weekly uh dnd campaign stream which is on Geeks with Kids so if you go to twitch.tv geeks4kids or where you are now look it up on youtube yep we do uh our dnd campaign it's amazing yeah we we just recently started uh putting it on youtube and in podcast form so if you haven't heard it um we had a pre-campaign like uh sort of a prologue but we hit a certain point in the campaign we're like you know what i think this is the time this is the time when we should start releasing it plus a bunch of people were like you know what i'd really like to watch your game but it's on tuesday nights exactly thursday nights like uh like where can i find it and i was like well we'll youtube we will put it somewhere that's good so that way people my puns will be solidified for all of the tournaments that's true we need more puns we lost a lot of good ones i was like i thought we were recording the whole time now no pun will be wasted all right brent

not really no i try to say no i you know like i'm i'm still trying to you know stay off the grid as much as possible we're gonna have to change that yeah you're gonna have to come no i'm no so now that i now that i have the cameras and i officially got the the hd camera for the ps5 today as well i'm gonna try my hand at streaming and start uh doing some of that so you can find me on twitch at raven37 um other than that the only other like real social media stuff that i have is just is to promote my business uh home renovation company so you can find me on facebook and instagram at uh comfort care rental hmm very nice marcus i'd ask you where you are but i have all your info in whenever we stream so people come there i'm here i'm here you're here you're there everywhere i'm all over the place i'm queer my puns will make you shed a tear i don't know i love your the tears of laughter they go now yeah that's what i mean so everybody needs some good puns in their lives right it's true was that raven37 just one word yes it might it might change unfortunately i couldn't get the username i actually wanted so it might change it i just followed you on twitch nice it's also in the chat so you can follow him now um so thank you guys for coming i know i know uh me and brent have been playing it takes two on uh on the ps5 so i think we're gonna jump back into those eventually now that we've platinum this game um yeah we gotta do that and i do want to do a review of returnal because that game is awesome and painful all at the same time which and i'm going to probably jump right into it as soon as we get off here nice i'm going to try out that new final fantasy demo that was released for e3

now that aesthetic of t-shirts and jeans so people are like oh my god they're swords and they're wearing chaos are you the warrior of life all i know is somebody somebody equated it to this is the dark souls version of final fantasy and as soon as you say dark souls you have me like i'm i'm i'm in oh dark souls thanks dark souls on it

good night everyone well marcus brent britt it has been a pleasure jumping through riffs with you online to talk about this amazing game thank you all out there for listening to us on twitch live or if you're catching us on youtube or on a podcast platform you know thank you we love having you here we love talking about all this stuff we love talking about games videos we're everywhere just come come back we will talk about anything you want just let us know all that info is in the post credits again thank you all for coming thank you guys for listening have a great one and

good bye

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