I admit, when Sunday night rolled around and I knew it was streaming day, I wasn’t sure what I was going to play. Seeing Ratchet: Deadlocked on my shelf, the thought occurred to me to see if it was working, and much to my delight it was.
So let’s play my perfectly functional copy of Ratchet: Deadlocked.
Though the Ratchet and Clank fandom has rallied around this game in recent years as the underrated gem it truly was, at the time it was quite controversial because of how much it changed the formula we had all come to expect from the franchise.
In hindsight, Deadlocked should not have been so surprising, because this was the logical continuation of the trend that started with Going Commando. Over time, the series has slowly moved further away from platforming and more towards third-person shooter gameplay. Naturally, it would only be a matter of time until they made one that was almost pure combat.
To that end, this was the game that made lock-strafe the default, standard control scheme in step with the increased focus on combat. Though later games would incorporate a healthier dose of platforming, we owe Deadlocked for its role in making crafting the buttery smooth controls that we know today. Having just gone through the original trilogy, my trigger finger is happy that it no longer has to hold down one of the shoulder buttons to strafe manually. And I’m especially happy that I’m not missing shots because of awkward platforming controls like in the first game.
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