Ratchet and Clank is a wonder in all aspects.
First off the story of the game:
You play as Ratchet (a lombax from the planet Veldin) for most of the game with a few moments when you will take comand of his robot sidekick buddy, Clank! One day as Ratchet was working on his ship when another ship crashed into his planet. When he went to investigate that crash he found Clank and that is the start of your adventure through this game. You fight through hordes of enemies until you eventually uncover the master plot of the game. Executive Chairman Drek plans to destroy many... I don't want to give too much of it away. To play the game you use the X button to jump, the circle button to use your weapon, triangle button to access the quick-select menu (a way to select weapons faster and without having to go to the pause menu), and square will attack using Ratchet's Omniwrench. You can aim with the L1 button and crouch down with the R1 button. Crouching allows for you to do a high jump or a long jump with the Heli-Pack or the Thruster-Pack once you get them.
The graphics in this game are solid. They have a nice chartoony look to them and all of the expressions are really well done on their faces often overdoing them to make the game look even better. Also you can have some screens going with many many effects going on in unison with no slowdown in the frame rate which really helps you get into the action that this game has to offer.
The gameplay is very nicely executed! It plays like a platformer and a third person shooter in one! It is also quite simple but not too simple. You are given objectives for each level and after you complete those objectives you go onto the next level. The difference in this game from all of the other games who use this same concept is how they executed it in this game. The levels are like planets that you go to and each planet will have a certain spot that you have to go to and something that you have to do there. In order to get between these 'Planets' (levels) you watch a few slides of Ratchet flying the ship to the world. This is when the game is loading the level so watching the spaceship fly three times before getting to your destination beats staring at a stationary screen with the word "Loading" on it. For the most part of the game you will play as Ratchet with Clank on his back. But there are those times when Ratchet just can't do the job and for those times you have Clank, Ratchet's new robotic side kick in crime. You get to play as Clank on his feet with Gadgebots (little robot helpers who do all the nasty stuff for Clank, at your disposal to use. Also you can control a Giant Clank! Clank turns into Giant Clank and fight with your hands, use rockets, or use a bomb. This helps to add variety to the game.
The weapons in the game are very unique, unusual, and very cool to look at. Each one looks different from the other and each one fires different. You of course get your flame thrower weapon (duh who could forget the flame thrower), your pistol/blaster weapon (gotta have that), your rocket launcher (what would a game be without rockets?), your sniper (for those of you who like to kill the enemy before they know what's hit them), you got your bombs, and... I will leave the rest to you. Just know that the ones I didn't say are the cooler ones in the game.
The gadgets in the game are also very fun to use and each one looks different. You have head gear (such as the O2 mask), there's foot gear (such as the grind boots), and there's just gadgets that you would use with your hands like a weapon (such as the swingshot). Not to mention the three gadgets that Clank has (such as the Heli-Pack and the Thruster-Pack). The humor is great! They do not use too much of it nor do they use too little. One of the main characters in this area of the game is Captain Qwark. He is in the game mostly to make it a lot funnier and to help tie the story together... in a funny way.
The sound in this game is very nice. Each of the weapons sound different and the music is very well mixed with the tone of the environment that you are in. The voice acting is perfect and dialogue is perfect and the voice actors really did a great job of bringing the personallity and charm of the game out through the speaking.
As far a value goes if you do not have this game already you should go to the nearest game store and buy it.
Replay value is high because the second time through there are far more unlockable to discover than the first time through, new gold weapons (upgraded versions of the original) to buy, and at the end of each play through you get to choose between either teleporting back to before you beat the boss or restart with all of your current weapons and bolts.
In the end when it all comes down to it this is a game that you should definately get especially if you are considering playing the sequels. This is the one that started it all. A lot of the characters from the sequels first appeared here so it wouldn't make much sense to you and all the game would be is an awsome platformer/third person shooter. I highly recommend this game to anyone interested in platformers, third person shooters, humor, cruel humor, or a fan of previous Insomniac games.