This isn’t a long-overdue successor of any kind to the beloved PS2 classic, Ratchet & Clank, though it maye sound like it. To be fair, Journey to the Savage Planet has been compared to it a number of times, and that’s by far the greatest compliment developers Typhoon Studios could hope for. Recently the gaming world has been brimming with dark, dramatic and sometimes grotesque triple-A titles. Do we love them? Of course we do, but whenever we see a bright and quirky world to explore, filled with bubbly alien life, sprinkled with a pinch of hilarity, we realise we have been waiting for a game to brighten up our days.
Tagged as an upbeat co-op adventure, this first-person shooter is all about exploring a planet that seemingly has no intelligent life to see if it’s fit for future human habitation.
It turns out said planet is completely filled with hostile aliens in a bad mood. Now that’s bad intel. That’s what happens when space explorers sign up to Kindered Aerospace, which (strangely) boasts that it’s the fourth-best interstellar exploration company in the universe. We’ll proudly wear that as a badge. So the bosses at the company are clearly a bit useless – sending you to a planet with rubbish equipment and meagre supplies, plus no real knowledge of the mission at hand.
They proably weren’t expecting you to end up fighting off the native wildlife while cataloguing alien fauna, but it’s a blast. A literal blast, that is. Players are armed with upgradable energy pistol (which, at first, wasn’t supposed to be in the game), strategic grenades and other substances found around the planet. Use them to evade or defeat enemies, lure them to dangerous areas (like a goo grinder) or stick them to the ground. Combat aside, it’s more about the journey. Equipped with a jetpack and slingshot, gamers can discover the secrets of the planet and have fun doing it. And if anything has those Ratchet & Clank vibes, we’re definitely on board.
Available January 28 on PS4, Xbox One, PC.
