Ratchet: Deadlocked for PlayStation 2 Reviews & Ratings by IGN

Sporting "events" such as football, basketball and other forms of primitive human competition fail to deliver the three principal components of reality entertainment every sentient being has a right to. Those are:

1) Stuff that explodes (intentionally).

2) Sentient beings that explode (intentionally).

3) A wacky bipedal animal with an unfortunate penchant for exploding stuff and sentient beings (intentionally).

Three unacceptable omissions. Tsk. And in an age that claims to be civilized. But no! If we were truly civilized, damn it all, we'd not gawk at padded cretins tossing stuffed pigs through the air, we'd be shooting grenades at some helpless sap's face. That's what a legitimately civilized man would do. He'd be the one advanced enough to know better than football -- to know that only civilized men would have full control over advanced weaponry and the means to broadcast the effects of said guns to other civilized men. And they would be the ones civilized enough to adore the sight of a far less civilized person getting vaporized. It's all perfectly logical!

There's just one problem...goodness.

Life could be so grand if we'd just shut down the backward moral impulses 90% of our brains keep throwing at us. Why bother saving ant farms? Let's light 'em up by harnessing the power of the sun already! "No, that's naughty. Blah to the blah-blah." Seems like all the goody-goody whining inside our heads is preventing some real progress from being made. Think about it scientifically.

Intergalactic media mogul Gleeman Vox either has no such moral impulses or no such brain to create them. So thankfully, finally, civilized men might actually discover real entertainment... BY DREADZONE!

If you haven't yet watched Dreadzone, do so now, for things are heating up ever since Gleeman swept his person stealing transporter ray across the galaxy and snatched the universe's greatest Lombax champion to fight for the televised pleasure of billions. And fight he will, for Dreadzone requires nothing if not the use of bullets and other bad things to keep oneself from exploding (unintentionally).

And so we find Ratchet -- stuffed into a suit of mechanized armor with tail savagely jammed into some inner recess by a band of bulletin board using goat-monkeys -- ready to fight for the intactness of his furry little body. But believe it or not, life for the little Lombax actually isn't so bad. He gets his own posh containment resort and legions of fans. Ratchet, in fact, digs the idea of finally being idolized, even if carelessly passing away months aboard his advanced cruiser before being kidnapped was also a diggable idea.

Immediately following the opening chitchat that usually occurs after being kidnapped, Ratchet picks up a couple Viper pistols and holds quite a bit more than his own against some unruly bots designed to test his skill and tutor where needed. They're Gleeman's welcoming committee.

The basic idea of shooting compulsively comes so naturally to this Lombax, especially after being on three previous adventures, Ratchet struggles very little with the initial waves of probing warriors intent on measuring his skill. Even brief leaps over electrified platforms and across thickly swirling pools of future-lava don't stop the heroic Lombax...from dying a few times and eventually finding his jumping legs.

After being weighed, measured and found feisty, Ratchet is allowed first crack at the robot-zombie wasteland of Catacrom IV. It must be sad to exist as a robot, live a fruitless life of toil, and then perish in some horrible way as to require being eternally damned to stalk the putrid wastes of a desolate cesspool. It's some kind of messed up existence -- some kind of messed up existence a compassionate Lombax would be remiss not to stop with his weapons (intentionally).

Since Vipers alone can't cut through the continually spawning waves of sauntering undead (nor are they enough to handle Gleeman's own deposited detail of droids), Ratchet stops long enough at a local service station to equip the appropriately named Magma Cannon and even more aptly dubbed Obliterator. These equivalents of shotguns and grenade launchers, along with an ample supply of jerky, might have been sufficient to deal death out to the helpless zombified natives of Catacrom, but the enemies soon thickened and toughened. This forced the Lombax Champ to attach acid, shock and lava modifications to weapons already amplified with speed, impact and ammunition expanders.

The modification combos proved most effective. But not every one of Vox's rating-grabbing missions entailed leaping about and dispensing Magma-justice via some sort of cannon. Ratchet was also asked at times to board vehicles and perform titillating objectives that would doubtlessly be cut into riveting Dreadzone cliffhangers.

The Hoverbike checkpoint seemed challenging at first, but no tried Lombax would ever submit to a few oddly placed rings and conveniently unstable explosive barrels. After that Ratchet took a quick ride in Gleeman's devastating Landstalker to round off his exploits on the robot zombie world. Next up? Some kind of swamp planet. Apparently a leviathan has been provided. Ooh! Sounds like a delightful fellow.

Stay tuned for that and other wonders of Dreadzone. But for now, please enjoy Ratchet's early adventures in Deadlocked via the above linked video. Expect the game exclusively on PlayStation 2 this October.

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