Ruff Trigger: The Vanocore Conspiracy review

Turns out you can teach a new dog Ratchet's old tricks

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While it's easy to dismiss Ruff as a poor man's Ratchet, there's more to it than that. While most games that sell for $20 new are almost without exception cheap junk, Ruff genuinely seems like a bunch of people got together to earnestly create something really cool. They were tripped up by cost and time concerns, but their intentions were good, and they even stuck in a bunch of motorcycle levels Piglot-themed minigames for players to unlock.

The design isn't too shabby, either. Stick with the game past its irksomely bland early levels, and the game comes into its own with more interesting weapons, levels, enemies and objectives. Even the useless Piglots get smarter, with a few of them able to clear debris (by exploding) or open doors that you couldn't otherwise get through.

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Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.