Qwark vid-comics

When Ratchet and Clank first met up with Captain Qwark during their first battle with Dr. Nefarious (in Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal), he was living in a jungle with monkeys and did not remember his life. This was a problem because he was, at the time, the only person who had defeated Dr. Nefarious. To unlock his memory, they found part one of a five-part Vid-Comic series and played it in his presence. The other four parts of this series also unlocked parts of Qwark's memories, providing Ratchet and Clank with vital clues about how Qwark defeated Nefarious.

Description
Qwark vid-comics were Captain Qwark themed video games playable on a VG-9000 Game System. It was explained during the introduction for the first vid-comic that they were based off of "eye witness acounts, bathroom gossip, wild speculation, and a magic 8 ball"

The comics were 2D side scrolling adventures where the player controlled Captain Qwark himself in 5 different worlds, defeating enemies with his fists or weapons while trying to reach the end of the world. In the comics he obtained weapons such as a flamethrower and rocket launcher, ran and jumped around, climbed ladders, flew down zip lines, defeated enemies and bosses, and more.

Each comic had an introductory and ending cutscene establishing the plot; the ending of one comic led into the introduction of the next. Additional plot development was embedded in voiceovers by the characters at certain stages in the game.

Completing a comic earned a number of bolts depending on the completion time and the number of Qwark tokens collected.

Comics
There were five Vid-Comics in all:


 * Booty is in the Eye of the Beholder
 * Arriba Amoeba
 * Shadow of the Robot
 * Deja Q All Over Again
 * The Shaming of the Q

The fifth comic was suppressed by Captain Qwark, who edited the ending of the fourth comic to hide its events.

Side-Quests
Within each Vid-Comic, there were many things to do besides complete it. Throughout each level there were 100 Qwark tokens. The player did not need to collect all 100 during the first play of the comics, but should have collected them all at some time as doing so earned a platinum bolt. (They all had to be collected in a single playthrough of the level; replaying would reset all the tokens to their initial location). Some tokens were easy to find and could easily be collected, but some were hidden or hard to be reached. There were mainly single tokens, but there were also some special red tokens that count for 10 tokens. Also hidden in each level was a health upgrade, which restored Qwarks health and gave him some more in his health bar (which was useful for boss fights). This upgrade persisted in all other comics of the series, so that collecting all five upgrades doubled the length of his bar.

Cheat
A cheat was avaliable in each Quark vid comic which was similiar to the Konami Code. The cheat allowed Quark to be dressed in a tutu.

This cheat was obtained by pressing the following buttons:

Up, up, down, down, left, right, circle, square, square.

This cheat was revealed by Al when he snatched the controller off Ratchet to input the cheat.

Unlockables
There were six skill points to be obtained from the vid-comics in Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal; one skill point, Strive for Arcade Perfection, was awarded for obtaining all 500 Qwark tokens in the series (and hence all five platinum bolts). The other five skill points were obtained by beating each comic in a certain time, which was only done by using shortcuts and trying not to collect tokens.

Hidden Vid-Comics
There was also one hidden vid-comic in the game (obtained by pressing your directional button Up when you are on the level 1 selection and are then choosing to play it), but it had no importance to the story or the game itself.

Also, in Up your Arsenal's Insomniac Museum there were two extra Vid-Comic games that could be accessed and played, including a beta version of Booty is in the Eye of the Beholder and a scrapped beta level which had a giant robotic eye for a final boss. Neither of these vid-comics had any importance to the story or the game itself however.

Appears in

 * Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal