Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

This weekend I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours on Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters (shown, image from IGN) on the PSP to try and get it out of the way ahead of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and found out a few things about the title. First, the subtitle has multiple, plot-related meanings aside from the usual sexual innuendo, which fits with the PS2 titles that came before it.

Second, the game pits you up against some pretty hairy combat situations given the lack of a second analog nub. It reminded me of Adam Sessler’s X-Play video review of the game where he put up an on-screen equation showing the PSP plus the game was too much for the PSP’s controls, which made him angry, which scared little children, which made children cry, therefore (scribble scribble scribble) the PSP makes little children cry. He added a funny little roaring sound effect for him and a whimpering sound effect for the kid, which gave me a laugh.

Lastly, although I like the grind lock concept far more than the lock hacking concept of the last one or two Ratchet games on PS2, that’s not the only grinding in the game. Sometimes you end up in a tough fight where you need the next big weapon in the store to have a fighting chance and don’t have the bolts on hand to get it. It’s easy enough to fly back to previous levels and replay them to grind for bolts to buy the next big upgrade, and it gives you the opportunity to swap in some of the lesser-used weapons and level them up, but it is what it is — grinding for bolts.

I’m looking forward to finishing this one off, but the variety of gameplay in there is pretty surprising, as X-Play mentions in their review. I also haven’t taken it online yet. I was in the Size Matters online beta with James, so I’m looking forward to how they improved it, but it will be kind of weird playing a PSP Ratchet & Clank online and not having an online option on the first PS3 Ratchet & Clank game.