The PlayStation Network is been an aspect of the PlayStation 3 often seemingly overlooked by Sony - but in recent weeks they’ve laid down plans to bring the service more in line with its main competition, Xbox Live Arcade. Sony is bringing more homegrown games to the service, such as PixelJunk Eden, Siren Blood Curse, and now Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty.

Quest for Booty is a bite-sized version of a regular Ratchet & Clank effort, designed to bridge the gap between Tools of Destruction and an unnamed sequel, while trying out a few new game mechanics and pirate shenanigans. The game picks up where Tools of Destruction left off; Emperor Tachyon and Captain Slag have been defeated, but Clank was taken away by the Zoni. Ratchet joins up with deposed pirate Rusty Pete to find Captain Darkwater, who is said to know the location of the Fulcrum Star, an artefact which will help the Lombax find his missing friend.


Streamlined is the best way to describe the Quest for Booty experience. The game does away with the grand intergalactic travel of its predecessors, focusing all of the action in the one area. Elaborate cut-scenes have fallen by the wayside too, with all of the narrative unfolding in simple sequences that usually involve Rusty Pete and Captain Slag’s disembodied head bickering over the events that took place. Not too many characters feature in the game outside of the pirates and Ratchet. Beloved idiot Captain Qwark doesn’t even get a single mention. Regardless of the streamlining, Quest for Booty more or less retains the same structure as previous games. The entire Quest for Booty experience is about the equivalent of two planets in a regular Ratchet & Clank game, and you’ll go through the same process – arrive on planet, rescue settlement, reactivate massive structure in order to progress, find treasure and move on.

To its credit, Quest for Booty’s levels are pretty well designed, though it feels rather samey, due to its reliance on series staples like rail grinding and swinging. Most of Ratchet’s new trickery stems from his wrench, which has gained the ability to pick up objects and act as a tether for moving distant platforms. This allows for a bunch of new puzzles – flinging volatile objects at doors to blow them open, using lights to scare off enemies, and lots of jumping, but nothing really enthralling. There is very little in the way of new enemies, and the boss fights are less than satisfying.


A vital part of the Ratchet & Clank experience has been the wide array of weapons and crazy gadgets. Quest for Booty does away with most of this; there are no new weapons, and Ratchet spends the vast majority of the game armed only with his wrench. Players are still required to collect bolts, but they are not really necessary beyond the handful of moments you need to pay the bounty hunter off for equipment he has stolen. There is only one weapon to purchase in the game, but it does make the end boss a lot easier.

Quest for Booty’s status as a downloadable bridging title meant it was always destined to be pretty short. You’d be hard pressed taking more than four hours to reach the end sequence (this reviewer took less than three). The game has selectable difficulty levels, but is missing the extra material of other games in the series. There are no arena challenges, no challenge points and no golden bolts to collect. Challenge mode, the optional second playthrough, is also missing. Insomniac also left PSN Trophies out of the game, due to the system not being active while the game was being completed.


Tools of Destruction was one of the finest looking PlayStation 3 games when it was released last year, and Quest for Booty looks just as good. Plenty of vivid and vibrant colours make for a nice departure from the drudgery of next-gen brown, the characters are highly detailed and well animated, and there are some really nice lighting effects. The frame rate isn’t quite as stable as the previous game, but generally sits around the 60 frames per second benchmark. Voice acting is par for the course, but quality dialogue brings it up a notch.

Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty is a fine platforming effort, but omits a lot of vital elements that make the series what it is. Despite being enjoyable for the entirety of its extremely short duration, it accomplishes very little. With a couple of new weapons, more original level designs and requisite challenge modes and arena fights, Quest for Booty would have provided more bangs for its buck. Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty is a high quality production, but $24.95 for an absolute maximum of four hours of gameplay is a little tough to swallow.