Sydney: Unknown 17ºC | 9ºC

or use

Ratchet and Clank All 4 One

Time In

Playstation 3, $99.95

First published on 5 Jan 2012. Updated on 9 Jan 2012.

Ratchet, Clank, Dr Nefarious and Captain Qwark are all well-established characters for long time Playstation owners, with over ten Ratchet & Clank titles to date in this venerable series of platformers. In this bout, the awesome foursome's fate has been (grudgingly) bound together and only through co-operation will they save the planet Magnus, themselves, and you from boredom.

And when we say co-operation, we mean co-operation: All 4 One is most definitely not a game you'd play by yourself. Designed from the ground up to accommodate the to and fro of up to four players, anything less than a duo feels like a chore. It's casual gaming to its very core, as players can drop in and drop out in an arcade style over online or offline.

It's one of those games that's almost better to share with non-gamers: the joy of watching a bemused player shriek at sudden drops of their characters and be awed by mortar explosions triggered by a slip of their finger will soften the hard core of most joystick jockeys. It also helps that it's a great looking game. The developers Insomniac have worked hard to help you quickly master the game controls and mechanics. Button prompts are built unobtrusively into the environment and are invaluable for getting friends started.

What soon becomes frustrating are the repetitive catch phrases from characters, while the radial menu which allows plays to switch between guns and tools was difficult to grasp at first, especially under the stress of combat. It also seemed odd that when character joined midway through a game they'd have a harder time gearing up – a result seemingly at odds with the games’ non-gamer intent.

In fact, the game mechanics could provided more competition between players, especially because the characters were previously feuding. The recent Portal 2 co-op showed how much fun it can be to sabotage and misdirect your trusting companions and would have worked nicely here – even though Portal’s antogonist GLaDOS would be flattered by an early section of the game.

If you had the challenge of entertaining a couple of young sprockets this would be the perfect title to accompany them through. The style of the characters, content and attempts at humour make this platform a reasonable romp, but be assured: there's no I in Ratchet and Clank All 4 One.

More television, DVDs, games and gadgets in Sydney? Sign up to our weekly newsletter

By Joshua Crowley