Insomniac divulges some Ratchet development stories

Insomniac just delivered their second high-profile PS3 title, Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction — it's been getting pretty rave reviews across the board, so MTV sought out an interview with the dev team to unearth how and why Insomniac kicks so much ass. So to speak. After gushing over the awesomeness that is the Groovitron, Insomniac mentioned their ambitious claim: "We've bandied the Pixar name around a lot, in terms of our visual goals," and many say they have achieved these goals.

To boast the increase in graphics on the PS3, Insomniac divulged that on the PS2, Ratchet had 112 joints in his entire polygonal body — the PS3 has given Ratchet 90 joints in his face alone. But of course, graphics aren't everything: "My game-designer side wants to say graphics don't matter and it's all about what the player is doing. But the other side is that it really immerses you in a world. ... Our burden is to create a world that is very convincing. So the fact that we can improve the visuals and the graphics adds to that."

The online options were dropped for this title not because Insomniac couldn't have done it (just look at Resistance), but "we were kind of disappointed to find that less than 5 percent of players actually played it who actually played the game for both Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal and Deadlocked." If any reviewers detracted points for lack of online, well, there's always a reason. There's plenty of details in the full story, so check it out if you want to learn about how graphical detail was approached and the possibility of future titles.