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Twisted metal
Metal gear
Toiny hawk
Resident evil
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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State of emergency rocked
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.
Shadow of the Colossus.
The scale of the game was just massive for a PS2 title. Amazing hard hitting ending and challenging battles.
I ❤️ Katamari
KATAMARI DAMACYYYYYY BUM BUM BUM BUM
Game still goes hard in the paint
Persona 3 FES
Gosh where to start..
Shadow of the Colossus, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, God of War, Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill 2, Okami, Burnout, Metal Gear Solid 2/3, Singstar, Eye Toy, Spider Man 2
And I could go on and on. We had it good back then.
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. Final fantasy 10, 11, 12. Freedom fighters. Kingdom hearts. Xenosaga. Battlefield modern combat. Metal gear solid 2. RAD. NFS underground. NBA street. Shadow of the colossus. Sax on tour. Burnout 3. God of war 1 and 2. Silent Hill the room. Ōkami. Metal arms.
Idk some others I'm sure. It's THE goated console for a reason. I also enjoy RPGs and the PS2 just had banger after banger.
For some reason I kept losing interest in xenosaga 3. I really need to finish that series
It's a good watch that's for sure. I just started xeno blade 3. Going to play them backwards I think lol. But I knew 3 had ff12 combat style. And I love that style
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 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
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
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
I went to use my old PS2 the other night after many years. The controllers thumpads had turned into this sticky, rubbery, goo. Gross. I couldn't play it
You can clean that with some isopropyl alcohol
Oh that sucks. I only had this problem with a Dualshock 1 a while ago, my Dualshock 2s thankfully never got into that state. Maybe it has something to do with how they're stored? Anyway, you can always replace the thumbsticks if cleaning doesn't help.
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MGS2 and 3, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, GTA... There's so many great games specifically from that era, and even exclusive to the PS2.
honestly I completely agree with my feed
ill try to name things most people havent played.
I heavily recommend people to try Downhill Domination. think like snowboard kids or mario kart(specifically mount wario or dk mountain tracks) but on mountain bikes. Silly bike combat with soo many side paths for players to try to forge their own way on winning a race.
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
Twisted metal, vice city, predator
So many great games on the PS2, I think of it as the best console and best gaming period of my life, these 3 are on the top of my mind of that time.
Edit - ofcourse, not a game, but the modchip was the best thing :)
I really loved the "Anchor Man" DVD menu. Solid graphics, great playthrough, simple controls.
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
My unsung hero of the PS2 was World Poker Tour.
I spent a lot of time playing Texas hold em with internet strangers, which doesn't sound like a big deal now, but I think back then, most people didn't even know you COULD connect a PS2 to the Internet.
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!
STOP MAKING ME FEEL OLD, SIR!!!!
Final Fantasy X is tied as my favorite game of all time. Funny enough, the game it's tied with came out on Xbox.
Worth mentioning:
Final Fantasy XII
Kingdom Hearts I & II
Ratchet & Clank (all)
Tony Hawk's Underground
Champions of Norrath: Realms of Everquest
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits
Burnout 3: Takedown
Rock Band
NFL Street
Amplitude
X-Men Legends
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
Cars, NFS Hot Pursuit 2 (and Underground 2), Test Drive Unlimited, and The Simpsons Game (and Hit & Run). Mostly racing games lol.
A few titles that I never really hear anyone mention:
Mister Mosquito
Wetrix
Steambot Chronicles
Auto Modellista
XIII
And then some of my favourites that everyone knows about:
Burnout 3: Takedown
Smugglers Run
State of Emergency
NFS: Underground
Manhunt
Shadow of the Colossus
SOCOM, specifically the online MP
To name but a few, I don't want to write an absurdly long list which is just too easy to do.
I still can't believe Socom was real. A game released in like 2003.......where you can fight as the "terrorists", and if you win the game says "terrorists win".
This something like 18 months after 9/11.
I cannot believe this game was real. I mean I know it was. I played it. It's just......what?
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.
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
- 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
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