Too many to even mention.
Even more than the games, I cherish the memories made with friends.
Driving around different towns to finally find FFX, four people sitting around a 15 inch TV to marvel at MGS2, drag racing our ugly custom cars in NFS Underground, spending a whole summer rocking out and breaking highscores in Guitar Hero…
To me, it was the golden age of video gaming.
Metal gear Solid 3, Kingdom hearts 2 and Ape Escape 3
My brother and I almost exclusively used our PS2 to play God of war or Gran Turismo.
Midnight club dub edition was also played to the point that the disk stopped working.
Kind of sounds like you missed a lot of amazing games.
I mean we played a ton of different games, but we also lived in the middle of nowhere and we were lucky to buy a new game once every 6 months. Those games got a lot of replays simply because we didn’t have access to a big library of games. We would trade disks with kids at school occasionally, but for the most part we only had like 10-15 games for our PS2 at any given time. Had to sell games we didn’t play much anymore to afford new ones. Such is the life of poor people living an hour away from the nearest game store at the time lol
Did you ever go to the library? You can “rent” games for free.
What makes you think we had a library that had a video game section if I said we lived in the middle of nowhere and an hour away from the nearest video game store?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the closest library to our old house up there just figured out how to install windows XP on their systems.
I never owned a PS2 when they were still being manufactured and sold. I still do not own a PS2. However, there are some games I actually liked that released on PS2 (I did not list games that were better on other platforms, for example, Silent Hill 2 Enhanced Edition on PC is still the best way to play SH2):
Metal Gear Solid 3
Kuon
King’s Field 4
CyGirls (I liked Disk 1 more than Disk 2)
Drakengard 1 and 2
Shadow of the Colossus
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex
Extermination
Lifeline
Ico
I don’t remember what number it was but soul caliber was good! maybe it was 2? after the glorious dreamcast soul caliber.
I love soulcalibur 2! I played it (and still play sometimes) on gamecube tho, but apart from a different special character (link from zelda in the gc version), its the same game. Tried soulcalibur 3 as well, but didnt really get into it - cant put my finger on why, but it was ages since i tried 3
Destroy All Humans!
- Mercenaries
- MGS2 & 3
- Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2
- Just Cause
- Socom 3 (1 & 2 are also good)
- Spartan Total Warrior
- Super Trucks Racing
- Tom & Jerry War of the Whiskers
I just completed bully on the ps2 (emulated on pcsx2)! Had a lot of fun, planning on going for jak & daxter series next i think. I never owned the console myself, so there are many gems ive never tried, and many i only played at friends houses sporadically.
This thread is a gold mine for suggestions!
After setting up emulators for both the PS2 and PS1, I’m amazed at how little I actually turn on my xbox one S anymore.
Games from that generation just hit differently for me. Especially my favourites like Final Fantasy X and XII. It took me a while to get why I felt that way, but it’s the combat systems in modern games have become to frenetic and button-mashy. How am I supposed to strategize what my team mates are doing at the speed that the combat now wants to take place at.
And that’s not just with the Final Fantasy series. God of War both went down that “let’s make combat as fast and frenetic as possible” route after the PS2 generation.
I’m also going to give an honourable mention on PS2 to the last Stalwart alternative to the EA NHL series; that being NHL 2K10. I really enjoyed the things that it did differently to EA Sports, like the ability to set two of your team-mates to hassle an opposing player. I wish 2K had kept it up. But it seems they gave up the NHL and EA gave up the NBA. Fair trade I guess.
STOP MAKING ME FEEL OLD, SIR!!!
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
Do you miss how weird and liminal some of the games on this system were? Maybe it’s because of the magical thinking of a child (I was like two when this came out but played mine every day until I was fourteen, loved that thing like a religion lol) but even the startup screen and disc read failed screen were so… Weird? Freaky? I don’t know, I know there’s plenty of indie games now and plenty of shovel ware on current gen but it feels different, there was a strange magic to some games on the PS2 that seems to be sort of inimical
Wow…I remember the PS2 as the console that you smoked weed when you played. I was 16 when it came out. And it was my first ever dvd player.
Weirdly enough, I am currently smoking weed and playing Airblade on my first PS2 lol
oh definitely. Games just felt differently back then. It was rarer for games to hold your hand, too. Not to say that that was always a good thing, sometimes it was quite annoying I guess, but maybe it was part of the reason games felt different. Combined with having to find stuff out on your own, you literally were on your own, yeah.
There are many things though that make this era of gaming special, this one is just something I often think of.
Omg absolutely! With the “not holding your hand” thing, I think a lot of the magic and enigmatic feeling of the PS2 games catalogue is that you’d only hear about Easter eggs, rather than knowing theyre in the game via dlc listings in storefronts or anything. They felt weird and slightly messed with understanding how big games were. Even up to Halo 3 with that weird developer monkey family and Black and White 2 where it would whisper your windows account name if you played after 10pm?
Games were just slightly hostile back then, or at least had the developer’s agenda in mind rather than the marketing algorithm’s
When watching some videos from retro game youtube channels, they tend to point to how much more daring they were back then, and all new games will just safe it. New aaa games cost so much they cant fail, but then a flop was to a larger extend “meh” and move on for the studio. Guess that made some of these games feel more freaky as you say
GTA Vice City. I’m still playing it now on my iPhone. I love that game. San Andreas is pretty good too.
I just replayed VC all the way through on my phone a month ago, what a nostalgia kick
I got GTA Vice City in GTA San Andreas downloaded on my phone. I connect a PlayStation controller, and then I airplay it to my TV. It’s just like playing it originally, except the cheat codes don’t work! Lol.
I’m not old. Lalalala. I can’t hear you. But I’m not old, or anything.
My birthday today too, although I’m unfortunately not 25…
I didn’t have a PS2 (Dreamcast and Xbox in my household), but I do remember frequently staying at my cousin’s house and playing NFS, GTA, Simpsons hit and run, and SpongeBob battle for bikini bottom on his
Happy birthday!
Seeing this late, but thank you very much, that’s very kind ☺️
