Questions for Mike Stout

Either way, Going Commando questions:

1. We can see there are two unfinished weapons in Going Commando: boots that spawn fire when circle is held down, something similar to the Mine Glove where mines connect each other with lasers. Do you remember the reason they were cut, and why we won't read about them in the Insomniac Museum?

2. Also found in the files of Going Commando is the Glove of Doom, though it doesn't function. Likewise, in Up Your Arsenal, the fully functional Bomb Glove is found, along with a non-functional Sheepinator. Were these left in as placeholders for testing purposes, or is there another reason?

3. In Going Commando's files, there are lines from the Help Desk lady and from Slim Cognito that sound like they're used while the player is browsing the vendor, like how the vendor in R&C1 spoke while browsing. Was there a reason they were dummied out after being recorded?

4. In Going Commando, there is unused text for a mission to take out the defenses at the space entrance to MegaCorp's Headquarters, another ship mission, though there are no assets for this mission found. Angela did also mention "MegaCorp's orbital defenses are nasty", a reference to this. Were the developers just unable to finish this mission?

5. On the subject of voice lines, there are also voice lines found for Clank in scenes he doesn't appear: when encountering the Thug Leader on Megapolis (as it was possible for the player to fight the Leader without Clank) and obtaining the second Wrench upgrade in the Flying Lab on Aranos. Does this plus Angela's line about a cut mission above suggest that voice lines were recorded very early in development? Or were missions/scenarios created before the story was fully developed.

6. There's a Monsterpedia entry for an enemy known as the "Attack Ship" on Grelbin. Is there a reason this was removed?

7. Another unused Monsterpedia entry is the Thugs-4-Less Leader's Giant Mech on Snivelak. Now this entry actually shows his mech used on the Giant Clank battle. Was that mech going to be used for both battles originally?

8. I know you said that there were things removed from the singleplayer because of multiplayer resources (such as the racing missions and space combat), but how early on in development did you know you'd be including multiplayer? Also,

Up Your Arsenal questions:

1. I noticed how rather than have two arenas and two collectible places like Going Commando did, Annihilation Nation is used twice and the Aquatos sewers is the only one. Was this to save resources while working on multiplayer?

2. You've mentioned there was an idea for space combat in UYA similar to Star Fox that was cut (brought back in ToD, though I know you didn't work on that one). Is the ship customization vendor in Starship Phoenix, which lets you change the color and design like the shack from R&C 2, a remnant of this?

3. We know from the Insomniac Museum that Florana was going to include the Turboslider mission (and unused text suggests the Crashed Leviathan ship was going to contain a race track as well). Was this replaced with the Path of Death as Qwark's challenge?

4. Was there a major reason why the developers chose to make progression in Up Your Arsenal more linear, in that it was now impossible to arrive on a planet, and be unable to progress due to missing a gadget found on another planet?

5. Unused text suggests that there were going to be In-Level Movies and Shortcuts accessed from the Extras menu, brought back from R&C1 and Going Commando respectively. Why were these removed?

6. There seem to be unused text for Tyhrraguise conversations. Were there going to be more conversations used in the final level?

7. There appear to be references to a "Hydrogen Gun", "BullHorn", "Tresspasser 2", "Omnipack" and "Mini-mech" gadget within the files. Do you remember what these were?

Deadlocked questions:

1. Was multiplayer intrinsic to whatever game would turn out to be the 4th game?

2. Is it true that there were talks to make a "Ratchet Racing" game that was scrapped because Naughty Dog were making Jak X?

3. Plans for "Ratchet & Clank: Nexus" (not to be confused with Into the Nexus), a concept for a game taking place on a single planet about a conflict between two races in which Ratchet and Clank had differing ideas, is a darker story than seen in past games. Was there always the notion that, after Up Your Arsenal, you all wanted to move onto a darker narrative?

4. Unused files show a rescue mission involving Hydrogirl, a hero who only appeared at the end cutscene in the final version, but there are several unused lines relating to a mission with her. Why was this removed?

5. What was the general feeling by Insomniac after the game was released? I know multiplayer has never been included in a Ratchet game since, and the games seem to rarely mention it. Did Insomniac just feel that they didn't want to try and take the series in that direction again?