Because it annoys me so...

What annoys me? The fact that there is a large amount of inconsistancy in the information about lombaxes given out by Insomniac.

First of all, there were height discrepancies. Ratchet jumped from being 4' tall to being 5'. Now, although this has been cleared up by the use of the jump measurements in the Insomniac Museum in Going Commando, it shows a lack of planning and communication.

However, Going Commando brought to view another height problem: the height of female lombaxes. Now, although it is never stated that Angela is a lombax, it leads you to beleive so. She is the same color, of a similar build, and the only other character with five fingers. However, she is also a good deal taller, when it was previously stated in E-mail that Ratchet was tall for a male lombax, and that females were shorter.

Age is even more skewed than height, because there are no reliable measurements in the game, which is as canon as you can get. Insomniac says he's only three and a half in the American version, but that because of "lombax years", he's relative to a seventeen year old human. However, it's obvious that around a year has passed in "game time" between the first two titles, and he does not seem like a twelve-year-old boy in the origional (as would be quallified by the one year = five lombax years equation); he acts like a normal guy in his late teens. The Japanese site lists him as being twelve, but that's in Going Commando, not the first game.

Now, I'm not saying Insomniac is a bad company; nay, I love them and their games. However, it would be nice if the story and characters were as well-defined as the action and explosions. If no backstories were written, it would be better to simply state so, rather than to make up something on the spur of the moment and later contradict themselves. Admitting that there was no real planning shows bravery and honesty.

I beleive it is assumed that with a game of platformer/action decent, the story does not matter much. After all, Mario has little plot and less personality, yet he has been around and thriving since the beginning of gaming. However, with the addition of cutscenes and characters with developing - even endearing - personalities, it is nessessary to give them a reliable backstory. It does not have to be epic, but it does need to be consistant. Thank you.

Clink says I also need to point out that the Tetra(four)bomb Gun fires five bombs. That's really just a misnamed gun, not the sort of inconsistancy I was meaning, but I guess I can include that, too. ^_^