Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is the ninth R&C game in seven years. We're all more than happy to give Madden the raspberries for coming out every 12 months. Yet since 2002, R&C games, counting their forays onto the PSP, have been even more ubiquitous than Madden.

That's saying something.

I thought 2007's Tools of Destruction was the saturation point for the series. After finishing the game, I was ready to exile Ratchet the Lombax and Clank the robot to a sunny little vacation spot in the Pacific that I call Tony Hawk Island. It's where all series go to get some much-needed downtime. (I'm picturing Sandals crossed with a rehab center.)

Tools of Destruction wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't remarkable. Then along came the Clank-free Quest for Booty in 2008 -- a downloadable continuation of Tools. When I discovered that the game's big calling card was a new wrench for Ratchet -- oooooh! -- I was ready to send the entire Insomniac R&C team, including the terrific Ted Price (hi, Ted!) to Tony Hawk Island.

Which brings us to A Crack in Time.

The narrative picks up where Booty left off. Clank is still being held captive by a bunch of floating robots called the Zoni and Ratchet is still trying to figure out how to find him.

Feels like these two have been apart for ages now. And they kind of have been. A Crack in Time is their chance to Simon-and-Garfunkle up again. Which, I came to find out, I was looking forward to far more than I had thought.

The game opens with an eerie shot of the cosmos, coupled with a William Shatner-like voiceover: "Space. It's huuuuge." I laughed. If I'm laughing, things can't be all that bad, right? So far, so good.

Big scaly alien thing? Check. Bonfire in background? Check. Alien ship flying in through smoke cloud? Check.

The game splits time between Ratchet's levels and Clank's levels. Ratchet finds himself on the typical assortment of Ratchet & Clank-style planets. You know, weird alien vegetation; brightly colorful, vaguely bug-type enemies; the occasional series of moving platforms and/or lava canyons to navigate; etc. These are offset with cityscapes inhabited by colorful, vaguely bug-type robots; weird alien structures; the occasional series of moving platforms; bottomless canyons to explore; etc.

Everything feels very familiar. In the same way that Game Truster David Thomas slips into his pair of Crocs -- ahhhhh! -- I slipped back into the milieu of Ratchet & Clank. I was surprised by 1) how easy it was, and 2) how comfortable I felt in this world again. I was -- dare I say it? -- happy to be back. Maybe Insomniac knows what I need better than I know what I need. Who knows.

Early on in the game, Ratchet receives a pair of hover boots. These things are awesome. (More awesome than your Crocs, Dave, but only slightly so.) Press the d-pad right to equip the boots. Use R2 to give yourself a boost. The hover boots quicken the overall pace of the game: Levels feel more expansive than before, but with the boots on, they also feel smaller, because you can traverse them so quickly.

Also: Mr. Zurkon for president. Mr. Zurkon is a cute, tiny robot that you can summon. He will fly over your shoulder and target nearby enemies as he says things that make you laugh. Example: MR. ZURKON EATS FEAR FOR BREAKFAST.

Like I said, funny.

Clank, meanwhile, somehow winds up at a place called the Great Clock, which is located at the center of the universe (give or take 50 feet; a joke that's repeated one time too many). Clank begins his training as the Great Clock's caretaker. He's given a scepter, which he can use to bash enemies, or more interestingly, reconstitute broken machinery.

See something broken? Walk up to it, swing the scepter at it, and voil?, like a film being reversed, the busted object automatically begins reassembling itself. Sometimes you'll need to do this to solve puzzles, but there are many broken things scattered around the Great Clock in need of repair. For some reason, I never got tired of repairing things, not unlike the way that I never got bored with healing people in Infamous. Maybe I really am a good person after all. Who knows.

More importantly -- and pay attention here, because this is kind of tricky -- Clank learns how to record versions of himself to accomplish various tasks. Example: He can stand on a "record switch," hit the Start Recording button in his radial menu, walk over and stand on another switch to open a door at the far end of the room, then end the recording.

After that, he can stand on a second switch, press Start Recording, and when his recorded self opens the door, Clank can walk through.

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Rat farts. I'm really not describing it very well. I give my description a FRY. And frankly, the game doesn't do the greatest job of describing it, either. I was pretty confused for about half an hour. But once I deduced the proper way to use these recordings of Clank to solve puzzles -- yes, there's a "Eureka" moment during which you will feel very smart -- I learned that these puzzles, more than the pristine third-person action, more than the storyline, are the real reason to play this game.

They are ingenious. They are as challenging, and clever, and satisfying, as any puzzle in Portal. Yes, I said Portal. You will feel smart, then dumb, then very smart, then very dumb. It's really quite a rollercoaster for your ego. Put that on your damn game box, Insomniac: "A ROLLERCOASTER FOR YOUR EGO." -- Scott Jones, Crispy Gamer.

The scale of the action has really been ratcheted up this time. Get it? See what I did there? Yes? OK.

One complaint: I've had enough of Captain Quark. His faux-hero posturing hasn't felt fresh in a long time. As usual, he's the least-funny thing in the game. (Aside from his space-it's-huge opening, which is funny.) Yes, he looks like a hero, he talks like a hero; but he's really a coward. We get it. It's not really funny or poignant anymore.

But what is funny and poignant are the secrets that both Ratchet and Clank discover about their respective lineages. [Very minor spoilers ahead.] Ratchet finds a fellow Lombax who once knew his parents. If he and Ratchet can reach the Great Clock, they can reverse time and bring Ratchet's long-dead parents back.

The catch, however, is that should they do this, it was change Ratchet's life-course completely, meaning he'll get his parents back, but he will have never had the chance to become friends with Clank.

I know it all sounds silly, but if you've been with the series over the course of nine games in seven years the way that I have, then you will -- at least a little bit -- be intrigued by this conundrum.

There's still plenty of the series' trademark sci-fi, ironic mumbo jumbo -- it's a hypersonic brainwave scrambler! -- that always feels like so much white noise to me. And I know this sounds silly, but I think there are still too many weapons in the game. Man, I don't care what the hell this gun or that gun does; I just need it to get rid of these vaguely bug-like insect robots so that I can get back to more of those awesome time-recording Clank puzzles!

And the levels are still a little too visually busy for my tastes. There's always a ton of stuff flying around, and explosions going off, and lights blinking, and I feel like the game is constantly saying LOOK OVER HERE NOW LOOK OVER HERE NOW LOOK OVER HERE!!!! In a few levels, I got to travel Psychonauts-style into Clank's subconscious. They were appropriately spare and orderly, and were a nice visual counterpoint to all the bright-shiny-blinky-flashy-ness of the rest of the game.

In the end, I have to admit, I was really kind of hypnotized by A Crack in Time. I breezed through the entire thing over the weekend. (It's not short by any means; these were a couple of heavy gaming days.) Whenever I put the controller down to tend to the rest of my life, I found myself craving more of the game, which I think is the highest praise possible that one can bestow on a game.

Insomniac: I will never doubt you again.

OK, I probably actually will doubt you again.

But feel free to keep on proving me wrong.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.