Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando



The second game in the Ratchet and Clank series. (Also known as Ratchet and Clank 2: Locked and Loaded)

Ratchet and Clank are summoned to the neighboring Bogon Galaxy by one Abercrombie Fizzwidget, the Malaproper head of Megacorp who seeks Ratchet's help in retrieving an experimental "protopet" from a terrorist. Unfortunately, after they return the critter, the two learn the protopet is actually a hostile and easily provoked predator, and they must retrieve it again before Mr. Fizzwidget releases it on the market and dooms the galaxy. .

Not to be confused with the trope Going Commando.

"Ratchet: "It's payback time.""
 * Action Girl: Angela Cross
 * And Your Little Robot Too: One of the Thug Leader's in-battle taunts.
 * Though during the fight played as Giant Clank, it's inverted with "and your furry backpack". He also threatens to "take care of your little girlfriend" in the last fight.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Amusingly, the final two bosses can both be taken down before the fight even begins, due to them both appearing on the map before the battle and still being damagable in this state. See here and here.
 * Baa Bomb: The Black Sheepinator.
 * Censor Bar: "All right... JUST WHAT THE -boop- IS GOING ON?!"
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * City of Canals: The aptly named Canal City from Going Commando
 * Cool Old Guy: Abercrombie Fizzwidget . The New Age Mystic might count as well.
 * Convection Shmonvection: The Jobian arena is surrounded by lava, though the closest this game gets to this trope is Grelbin, where one underground passage leads into a cave and a facility very close to a large pit of lava.
 * Cute Clumsy Girl: Angela has some aspects of this.
 * Cutscene Incompetence:
 * Near the beginning aboard the flying lab where Ratchet panics and jumps off the base hovering high above the surface... because two robot Mooks no different from the ones he spent the whole level massacring snuck up on him.
 * Happens again
 * Cutting the Knot: Ratchet skips a Solve the Soup Cans puzzle by just using a tool he already has.
 * Demonic Spiders: The Y.E.T.I.s. They were coded on a rush and objectively break some of the enemy guidelines (short attack telegraphing, constantly attacking from behind, etc.). This actually got a Medal of Dishonor made for the studio, called the "Snowbeast Award" for whoever made the worst thing in a game made the previous year.
 * DVD Commentary: Some former Insomniac developers have a commentary in the form of a bunch of Let's Play videos. Enjoy!
 * Disc One Final Boss: The Thief.
 * Dumb Muscle: The Thug Leader.
 * Too Dumb to Live: In a late-game cutscene, he taunts the heroes about never being able to find him... while standing in front of a computer monitor displaying the exact coordinates of his location. Naturally this was lampshaded.
 * Early Bird Boss: The B2 Brawler is optional, but fits this to a T if attempted at the earliest possible time. See the trope page for more details.
 * Eccentric Mentor: The New Age Mystic.
 * Fartillery: Possibly averted with the Horrible Sulphur Beast, a monster that was mentioned but never appeared in the game. Both the Mutant Muckdweller and Horrible Sulphur Beast expel a poisonous gas as their attack. The former spits it out from its mouth. The latter... Well, judging by the name, the beast probably expels the gas "out the back door"...
 * Foreshadowing: As left-field as the big ending twist seems on a first playthrough, there's actually a lot leading up to it if you look back.  And there's the   password Mr Fizzwidget gives you for the Disposal Facility:
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: The Mothership battle on Damosel's moon. You're thrust into the boss battle the moment you land, with no explaination, and it's never mentioned again. You do get a useful item out of it though.
 * Hypno Ray: It only works on robots though.
 * Magikarp Power: A very odd example, since it doesn't come around until a New Game+. The Gravity Bomb is an okay crowd control weapon early on. Its upgraded form, the Mini-Nuke is great, but kinda loses out to other weapons later in the game. Then, in a New Game+, you notice its Mega version costs a whopping 1,500,000 bolts, the same as the game's Infinity+1 Sword. There is a good reason for this: let's just say that, once you buy it, the 'mini' in its name deserves to be dropped. It has more than twice as much ammo (20 as opposed to 8) and one shots nearly everything in the game (including Y.E.T.Is). And this is before it upgrades to Ultra.
 * Malaproper: Mr Fizzwidget, quite frequently.
 * Mega Corp: The company is the Trope Namer, which has a major competitor in Gadgetron and Grummel Net.
 * My Friends and Zoidberg: The second arena announcer reffers to the titular duo as "Ratchet... and some metal guy." It's still a big step up from the first announcer, who always referred to Ratchet as "This...guy."
 * Power-Up Letdown: The Meteor Gun does more damage than the Lava Gun it replaces, but it loses all the stream properties that made the Lava Gun special.
 * Fixed in Up Your Arsenal, where the Lava Gun upgrades to the Liquid Nitrogen Gun instead.
 * Psycho for Hire: The Thug Leader
 * Recurring Boss: The Thug Leader
 * Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Implied with the Thug fleet battle on planet Gorm.

""It works! My invention works!""
 * Samus Is a Girl:.
 * Shout-Out: When you pick up the Hypnomatic part in Allgon City, Clank does one of the Item Get dances from Jak and Daxter The Precursor Legacy.
 * Show Within A Game: Many of the video screens, which take the place of the Infobots from the first game, show cutscenes that are advertisements for TV Shows, such as Channel 64 News and The Galactic Gladiators. The biggest example, however, is the Behind the Hero segments, which not only serve as the opening cutscene, but subsequently hosts an entire series on Fallen Hero Captain Qwark, of which episodes are seen during the game's course.
 * Un Paused: The frozen Gadgetron scientist. When broken free from his ice block he's still celebrating the success of his Thermanator (which froze him in the first place).


 * A Worldwide Punomenon - Allgon City on the Planet Damosel.
 * Video Game Flight: You gain access to the Levitator which allows you to fly anywhere... but you can only take off from special pads, and your fuel decreases rapidly every time you ascend.
 * A lesser example would also be the Glider which allows you full flight control, but your speed sharply decreases the more altitude you have. Go past your maximum height (which has no indication) and you'll be sent careening towards the ground (or lava, on certain occasions).