Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time

Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a very entertaining third-person action-adventure game (or third-person shooter, both describe it fairly well), with heavy puzzle and platforming aspects. I enjoyed this game quite a bit. It was the second Ratchet and Clank game I have ever played (with the first being Ratchet: Deadlocked). The game was very clever, which I think is ultimately what I liked most about it.

First of all, I really like the guns. While I realize that most of them
are carryovers from previous Ratchet and Clank games, they nevertheless are very solid and fun. There are a wide variety of guns - ones that hit the major archetypes of guns, such as pistol, sniper rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher, as well as such additions as the gun that opens a portal to an alternate dimension, which tentacles come out of to attack your opponents, a sonic-powered frog with a strong aoe attack, and a gun which launches heat-seeking sawblades. While they are not perfectly balanced, each weapon has its niche, and each weapon is quite unique. Even the relatively generic weapons are customizable in addition to being able to be leveled up, making them unique while still being familiar.

Secondly, the puzzles were something that I really had never seen before. In them, you can set multiple versions of your character to accomplish different tasks, which would combine to solve the puzzle by activating various switches simultaneously. You do this by recording your actions, and then interacting with the recording. For example, in the simplest one, you record yourself standing on a button, then play that recording while standing on a different button. Since your past self is standing on the first button and you are presently standing on the second, both count as being pressed and the door opens. It is, again, very clever.

Those two things were my favorite parts of the game, though other things are fairly clever about it as well - I'm particularly a fan of the hoverboots, which affords you speed at the cost of exact control (and sadly, you automatically take them off when you equip a gun) Personally, I'd love to see a game where you constantly control like Ratchet with hoverboots, except with the ability to use guns as normal. The general level design, boss design, and other accessories are fairly clever as well.

Long story short:

-Be unique. Be inventive. For instance, put interesting twists on your most basic guns - but don't sacrifice usability to do so. Same with puzzles - it's fine to just make you hit the switch, but put a clever twist on it and it suddenly becomes fun and fresh.
-Moving fast is fun, particularly in an environment that seems to exist to primarily work for slow people. This goes back to an idea I touched on in regards to Geist - breaking the rules that a game seems like it should have (even if it doesn't) is fun. Platformers are about moving slowly and carefully - make the game fast instead. That's what Sonic did, and he did it well. Play with genre conventions.
-Time manipulation in puzzles is fun, if done right.