We really love the Ratchet and Clank series of games, with the gameplay, humor and general mayhem. Deadlocked is NOT an adventure game like the others - it's a gladiator combat game. You don't even have Clank with you for most of the game.

It's not that this game is "bad" - but it's different. I really did like the whole exploring-worlds theme of the previous games. The gladiator matches in those were interesting diversions but I was always happy when they were over. In this game, that's all that you get. You go from arena to arena, mindlessly bashing away at enemies and trying to stay alive.

There are all sorts of mini-games that you unlock along the way - hoverbike races involving traditional follow-the-circles, shooting games, flying games, and much more. The humor is still quite fun, although it's now a very odd mix of very adult humor and very kiddy humor. The game is rated Teen so the adult humor is reasonably OK I suppose, depending on how protective you are of younger teens.

The weapons upgrades are as usual amazingly fun - and you get to have "mods" to your weapons like acid and napalm to customise them to your liking. You can do all sorts of mixes and matches to get just the feel that you want.

The graphics are of good quality - I've always enjoyed the graphic style of the Ratchet and Clank games so this provides more of the same. The sound is reasonably good, although we do find some really repetitive, annoying tracks in there. We also had the game completely freeze up on us a few times. Maybe it needed just a little more QA before it was released.

The multiplayer modes are a really nice extension of the game. I really enjoy playing a game with a friend, so anything with co-op in it is great.

I suppose on the up side that if this had not come out, we would have just been sitting here twiddling our thumbs until the next "real" release of Ratchet and Clank came out. So in that sense, I'm really happy to have this out as filler, to keep us busy until then. We definitely ran out to grab this as soon as it was released, even though it wasn't (as far as we were concerned) a fully fledged Ratchet and Clank game to plow through.

Well Recommended!

Rating? 4/5

Buy Ratchet Deadlocked from Amazon.com