The Best PlayStation Game Every Year 1994 - 2024

With Insomniac Games’ time with Spyro coming to an end, their next project had a chance to freshen up the 3D platformer space and capitalise on the zeitgeist of the early 20th century. Tastes were changing, their target audience had grown up and it was time for a new hero and his tin-can friend.

Enter Ratchet and Clank, an argumentative duo forced to travel a sci-fi world together with a bonkers arsenal of weapons and gadgets. 

Where 3D platformers of the previous generation had been jumps and spins and not a lot else, Ratchet & Clank smash the genre into the third-person shooter and offer a selection of brilliant, sometimes bizarre, weaponry, encouraging players to experiment. There were no wrong choices, just whatever felt the most right

Amidst the pure chaos of the R.Y.N.O. missile launcher and the Glove of Doom, players were treated to pure eye candy with the game’s bustling worlds. Kerwan’s futuristic Metropolis complete with flying traffic was a real next-generation moment, made all the more sweeter by how fun it was to navigate with Insomniac’s unsurprisingly tight control scheme.

And with more worlds to see, secrets to find and weapons to wield, Ratchet & Clank brought 3D platforming into the next millennium in a hail of thruster-packs, rocket launchers and 2000s sarcasm.