PSP World

Secret Agent Clank Review

One part adventure, one part stealth, and one part spy movie, Secret Agent Clank mixes up an unusual gameplay cocktail in the latest PSP outing from High Impact Games. Whether or not fans find this mixture appealing will depend largely on how invested they are in the classic history of the franchise and how much they enjoy each of the ingredients listed above.

One area where Secret Agent Clank remains true to form is in the imaginative story line. Like that other adventure franchise on PSP, this game has players taking the role of sidekick, rather than the usual hero. Ratchet won’t be of much help here, since he has been imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit – set up in the heist of a jewel called the Eye of Infinity. Seizing on the opportunity for heroism, Clank sets off to recover both the gem and Ratchet’s reputation. The humor and tone of the previous games is captured well in portable form, and this will likely please fans of the original games.

Secret Agent Clank begins to diverge from its predecessors once we gat away from the initial story and onto actual gameplay. Unlike the previous games, including Size Matters, Secret Agent Clank takes a much more stealthy approach to gameplay, rewarding patience and strategy rather than bravado and straightforward shooting. Rather than the arsenal of awesome weaponry the series is known for, the developers expect players to adopt the role of -- well -- a secret agent. In order to accomplish this, the game gives players a bevy of super-secret gadgets to move around the world and dispatch enemies, but these tend to veer towards brain, rather than brawn.

The game also relies quite heavily on the timed button-press mechanic, a gameplay holdover that we wish would just die, already.

For fans of the series who are willing to try something new, however, there is lots of good stuff here. The game features a variety of different missions types, from stealth to action to old-school platforming, so it is unlikely that gamers will get bored during the 20 hours or so that it will take to complete everything. Some genuinely inspired level design (particularly the stealth sequences in the Boltaire museum) shows that the designers went beyond what is usually expected from a handheld game. With more than a dozen substantial main storyline missions and a good selection of side-missions to keep players busy, the game offers a good amount of single-player content.

In terms of production, the developers have delivered an exceptionally high-quality game. The 3D graphics lack texture detail, but they are colorful and capture the cartoon sensibilities of the story quite well. Everything also runs at a very smooth 30 fps, and the rear camera manages to cooperate most of the time, although a wider view of the action would have been welcome in some spots. The musical score is great and recalls old spy shows from the 1960s.

Not all of the elements work as well as they have in previous Ratchet and Clank titles. Some players will balk at the change in direction taken by this installment. On the other hand, the story is well written and some of the added gameplay elements are genuinely fun.