Every Ratchet & Clank Game, Ranked Worst to Best
Created nearly 20 years ago by Insomniac Games, the combat-laced buddy platformer franchise Ratchet & Clank has been charming gamers on Sony platforms ever since with its mix of humor, heart, story development, and over-the-top, cartoon-style action spanning multiple genres, outliving its main rival, Naughty Dog's similar Jak and Daxter series.
In the gallery on this page, we rank every* Ratchet & Clank game to date by Metascore, from worst- to best-reviewed. Some R&C games were issued on multiple platforms, and rather than clutter our list with countless versions of the same game, we limited our selection as follows:
• In general, the first release of each title is included.
• If a title was released simultaneously on multiple platforms, we only included the version that received the highest quantity of reviews from professional critics.
• If a title was later ported to other platforms, those ports are not included ...
• ... but if a title was substantially remade for another later-generation platform, the remake is treated as a separate game and included in our rankings. (We're looking at you, PS4 version of Ratchet & Clank.)
* We have omitted the 2005 cellphone (but not smartphone) game Going Mobile, which was not covered on Metacritic. (GameSpot has a review if you are curious.)
All photos courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment unless otherwise indicated.
PlayStation 3, 2012
also on PlayStation Vita (2014)
This 2012 compilation includes the three original Ratchet & Clank games from the PS2, newly remastered in HD for the PS3 (and, later, the Vita handheld). Oddly, the collection received lower review scores than any of the three individual games, as some reviewers complained about a lack of new content and felt that playing through all three original games at once could get a bit tedious. But even more critics felt that the original games held up surprisingly well a decade later.
“It's more than just a nostalgia trip, mind; this is a trilogy that plays great, looks even better and gels together more seamlessly than any other HD collection I've played to date.” —VideoGamer