There were plenty of great platformers on the PS2, but it seems clear – so far, anyway – that one, a franchise best as voted by most critics at the time, is the PSXE reader's choice.
Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal scored the majority of the votes in the first week, although both Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Maximo: Ghosts to Glory performed admirably. For those who liked the niche platformers that didn't sell so well but pulled down high review scores, you'll be unhappy to see games like Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil and Ape Escape 2 make early exits. However, enough of you enjoyed Tim Schafer's excellent Psychonauts to push that game into the second round, even though it was admittedly better on the Xbox. As one minor surprise, the freshly released Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant managed to sneak into the top 5, which just proves they really did rejuvenate the ailing franchise. As for the coming week, we've seen all kinds of weird things happen before, so although Up Your Arsenal has the obvious edge, that may not stand up until next Sunday. Can Jak and Daxter leapfrog Ratchet ? And will Psychonauts challenge Maximo for the Bronze medal? Guess we'll have to wait and see, but for now, here are the top 5 that will battle it out:
Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Maximo: Ghosts to Glory
Psychonauts
Crash Bandicoot: Mind Over Mutant
By the way, if anyone is still wondering why we only included one installment each from the Ratchet and Jak franchises, it's because we wanted other titles in the running. So we just took the best rated from each highly acclaimed series and put them in; they're doing quite well, wouldn't you say? Vote now for the Best PS2 Platformer Finals!
Hehe not bad
The Ratchet&Clank games for the ps2 were awesome.
Just as awesome as the Jak&Daxter games.
It shows in how close the two were in the polls.
I hope to see Naughty Dog get back into making platform games again….
Come to think of it I might've just ignored platformers on PS2 altogether… woops.
PS3 needs more of these games… where is Jak 4? Naughty Dog…… : O
go ratchet and jak, but where are my favorite of each of those series? jak 2 and going commando.
LittleBigPlanet would like to have a word with you.
The Japanese would like to have a word with you(New Super Mario Bros sold like crazy, still one of the DS's most sold games).
Klonoa(the original) will get a re-release for the Wii.
So no, platform games are still around. Just not in numbers like before….sadly too.
I miss the great Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie, Mario 64, Spyro The Dragon, Klonoa, Tomba days :*(
V-games were built AROUND platform games…….
The Ratchet & Clank series was great. Own them all except Deadlocked. Can't wait for the next one!
Ben! Please can you do some sort of article on: Jak and Daxter – The lost frontier.
Meh platforming games are pretty much n the verge of exstinction, i hope Little Big Planet send companies a message to raise the popularity in the genre, we really need more, i never got into Rachet & Clank. Jak & Daxter was the last one i really enjoyed.
Frankly The Ratchet & Clank:Up ur Arsenal was the best lookin last gen gam IMO.Some argue dat God of war2 n Xbox's Ninja gaiden,but those two games were not as flashy as R & C.
Ben,I think Sony should make a game with Sora,Goofy,Donald,Micky,Ratchet,Clank,Kratos,Jak,Nariko,Nathan,Sly,Sackboy and Solid Snake[wat nintendo usually does:super smash bros,mario kart]If u can send this massage to Sony,i'll b very much pleased.
Last edited by sabitrulz on 11/24/2008 3:07:06 AM
lol that would be awesome. Come to think of it….there was an article on IGN posted a while back explaining how they vision a Sony style super smash bros.
*spends about 15 minutes searching on internet*
http://psp.ign.com/articles/852/852796p1.html
Enjoy…
So Sly didn't make the list.. Can't say I'm surprised, but it still sucks though.. It easily ranks among one of the PS2's best platformers, yet no one seems to know about it.. Why is that?
*Sigh* I geuss.. But sales must have been decent, or they wouldn't have bothered making a trilogy, right? But yeah, I've never seen platinum versions of Sly Raccoon games, so I'm geussing they didn't exactly top the charts..
I understand why they are so close but I think if Jak and Daxter would have had as many installments as Ratchet and Clank, they would be winning. I didn't even play Jak and Daxter very much and I've beaten every Ratchet and Clank and I still think it was better.
I honestly feel that Jak and Daxter was a beautiful game and still is – hell i would start the adventure today again. EXCEPT IT WOULD DEFINITELY NOT BE THE SAME AS BEFORE CONSIDERING THAT all my best memories were stored in that game. It was the first game on my PS2 – and made me love my PS2 so much. Ratchet and Clank is fun but in my opinion will never be as fun as Jak and Daxter was and still is.