Here’s a wild revelation for you: the PlayStation 2 ranks among the greatest video game consoles of all time, if not as the greatest. With over 4000 games released worldwide, though, choosing the best games for Sony’s black rectangle of revolution isn’t easy, but we managed it.
Somewhat overlooked in its day and the absolute certified hipster’s pick when it comes to the PlayStation 2’s vast, vast library, God Hand really does deserve its place here. It sums up the PS2 era better than most games.
The first Clover Studio game on this list but by no means the last, God Hand’s unique blend of challenging beat ‘em up gameplay, deep and rewarding mechanics, along with humour that makes you want to guard your bedroom door so no one catches you playing it makes God Hand one of the most memorable PS2 games of all-time. Does it have flaws? Absolutely, but it’s also unapologetic in being itself, and we will always adore it for that. Also, monkey.
One of those absolute “you had to be there” kind of games, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance might be a bit basic in a post-bear sex world, but there’s no underselling just how big of a leap action RPGs on console took when this dropped in 2001.
A co-op cult classic, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance was one of a handful of early PS2 games that hinted at what the console was capable of technically and graphically, and its approachable role-playing and hacking and slashing systems make it and its also brilliant sequel guilt-free throwbacks today. They’re certainly better than whatever this was, by the way, which somehow forgot the whole character side of being a DND game, if you can believe it.
A lot of people are completely blinded by childhood nostalgia when it comes to licensed games. Go in the comments section of this video in a couple months and you will no doubt find some lunatic suggesting that, I dunno, Blade 2 is one of the best PS2 games of all time.
However, as well as looking as close to the real thing as you could get at the time, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King was a lovingly made hack and slash with an insane sebse scale for the PlayStation 2 real reverence for the source material. Even Sir Ian McKellen is fully on board here.
Return of the King is the Goldeneye of licensed hack and slash games, and you’re gonna have great fun with this one with a pal, even now. Dibs Gimli. He is me.
While Hitman 2: Silent Assassin was 47’s watershed moment, and for me as a ten year old dragging dead chefs about the place, Hitman: Blood Money for some remains the absolute pinnacle of the series, even next to the World of Assassination trilogy. And then they went and forgot everything and made Absolution next. Fun game, but not Hitman.
But this is the Hitman franchise at its most pure and brilliantly complex, with so many different ways of approaching your targets that it feels almost as deep as the immersive sims typically reserved for PC. Murder chess is quite brilliant when it comes together. It also has quite possibly the coldest final mission of all time.
It was kind of a bit random to hear that Rockstar’s next game was going to be an adaptation of The Warriors when you were a kid. But that’s what the best adaptations do: they introduce new audiences to things that deserve more love.
And what an eye-catching rendition of Swan, Cleon, and the gang’s big barney around New York City, Rockstar cooked up here. The game looked great for the time and it still does hit different today, with deep, visceral combat and a surprising amount of exploration and side content for a brawler. The Warriors is a brutal trip to the digital movies that Rockstar will almost certainly never make again. Shame.
Behold: the most 2000s game ever conceived. Amnesiac secret agent protagonist? Check. Telekinesis? We got that. Nu-metal on the soundtrack? Brother, we were living.
A game that I didn’t realise was actually a commercial failure considering my playground was obsessed with chucking idiots around, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy is a superbly edgy third-person shooter that’s a bloody precursor to something like Control.
The PS2 was blessed with a bevy of video game-y ass video games, and Psi-Ops was utterly unashamed to be just that. Sure, the controls are a little wonky, but you can put guys on fire, so that’s all good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go buy some Cold vinyl on eBay.
American viewers: hold it. Hold it. Don’t go anywhere just yet. While you as a country might still be struggling to fully appreciate our finest export since Custard Creams, seriously, get on those immediately, it’s hard not to appreciate making dinosaurs and penguins have a kickabout.
As well as being wonderfully daft in a way that simply wouldn’t happen today, Pro Evolution Soccer 6 was also the last true high point for a series that had redefined football games for the entire generation. Sure, today’s football games may have high fidelity Michael Keane with a side of crippling debt, but Pro Evolution Soccer tapped into the fun of football in a way that’s truly just been lost over the years.
Lebron James. Peanut butter and jelly. The Real Housewives of Roanoke. You can come back. now.
Wait a minute, something’s not right here. Another licensed game?
OK, so a golden era for licensed games would sort of just be like if Hollywood stopped putting The Rock in movies for a bit, but the PlayStation 2 had so many licensed bangers like Hit and Run that it’s the closest thing we’ll probably ever see to one.
A more than cromulent GTA clone, which was the style at the time.mp4, The Simpsons: Hit and Run released when the show was just cresting over its peak, and it’s got the actually funny comedy and golden age references to match. Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts, but we’d pay more than that to see a remaster of this one, or even a brand new Simpsons game. It’s been years.
Call us suckers, but we love RPGs where you get to build towns up from nothing. Placing buildings, recruiting villagers, role-playing having mates, completing tasks; it’s a simple life, and it’s why games like Dark Cloud 2 are some of the best you can find on the PS2.
Dark Cloud 2, or Dark Chronicle as it was known in the UK, features pretty much everything from the first game in terms of ideas and mechanics, only pushing the game further with bigger dungeons, more weapons, more characters, more better graphics wait what and more everything, really. The first game might be more fondly remembered, but if you want the actual best of the best, give Dark Chronicle a whirl. Or just binge them both, back to back. You know you want to.
Look, we told you that Clover would be back again. The game that allowed the team within Capcom to actually form as Clover, Viewtiful Joe’s approach to graphics, 2D platforming and combat was a massive departure from anything else on the platform.
Playing as the titular Joe, you’re dragged kicking and screaming into the world of sentai cinema, becoming the hero known as Viewtiful Joe in the process. As you’re now in the world of film, you can use features like slow-mo, fast forward and zoom in to gain an advantage over the enemy in this thrilling, eye-catching beat ‘em up adventure.
Will it kick your ass to hell and back in the process? Absolutely, but it’s brilliant nonetheless, and the sequel is pretty darned good too.
A wrestling game with hip hop artists sounds like the elevator pitch for a game that would probably never work, but somehow EA managed to turn the Def Jam games into a pretty successful series, with Fight For New York being the undisputed best of the bunch.
Based on the AKI Engine wrestling games responsible for the likes of WWF No Mercy, Def Jam: FFNY featured dozens of real-life artists along with plenty of original creations battling it out in four player brawls across New York’s seedy underbelly, with a banger soundtrack to boot. If you ever wanted to see Snoop Dogg yucking it up as the most diabolically evil pimp in gaming history, Def Jam: Fight For New York is the game for you.
The PS2 era really inspired the wave of illegal street racing games, with the Need For Speed series sitting at the cutting edge of that specific niche. Many tried to imitate or replicate the magic that the Need For Speed series captured, and some came very close, like Midnight Club 3, but if you want the best, Need For Speed Underground 2 takes the cake.
As a young punk street racer, you’ll work your way up from tricked out Peugeot 106s to Ferraris and other supercars as you complete events, unlock new cars and upgrades and customise your vehicles with decals that wouldn’t look out of place on a teenage boy’s wall, or on a Game Boy Advance SP. Tribal tattoo times was better times, but Underground 2 is still brilliant fun even in modern times.
Before Call of Duty became the predominant military FPS series, there was Medal of Honor, which had already wowed players with its depiction of World War 2 through the first two PS1 games. Medal of Honor: Frontline was the series’ first entry on the PS2 though, and stood as a chance to push the capabilities of the PS2 early on. EA basically knocked it out of the park from the first level.
From the iconic menu music to the opening level of the campaign, which somehow remains the best depiction of the storming of Normandy in all of gaming, Medal of Honor: Frontline truly felt like you were able to live through your own personal Saving Private Ryan or Band Of Brothers, and it’s a feeling many of us will just never forget. If only the series were able to continue that run of form going forward.
Namco’s genre-defying oddity (puzzle game? Platformer? Roll ‘em up?), Katamari Damacy for the PS2 was brave enough to show people that not all games had to be about bloodshed or competition.
Just introduce a fun gameplay concept of rolling everything into a ball, couple it with some bizarre yet immaculate vibes and you have an instant classic on your hands. Quite frankly, we had to include Katamari Damacy on the list, as it really is just one of those games that sums up the weird, experimental, and most importantly brilliant era of game design that showed why the PlayStation 2 surged into a crazy lead. Also, you could watch How High on it on DVD, but mainly games like Katamari.
If you end up with the Katamari Damacy theme music stuck in your head for the rest of the day because of this entry, we refuse to apologise in any way, shape or form.
Considering that Sony has managed to turn the series into a pretty decent TV show, you’d think they’d have announced a new Twisted Metal game by now. Why strike while the iron is hot when you can just, I dunno, remaster Knack 2? Actually, do do that.
Anyway, Twisted Metal: Black was the absolute zenith of the car combat genre that came to define the early days of PlayStation. Following on from the PS1 games, Black saw a post-apocalyptic cabal of psychopaths using their very much OSHA uncertified cars to cause carnage. With multitap and four players willing to get stuck in, Twisted Metal: Black remained a multiplayer favourite for many throughout the PS2’s lifecycle and even beyond. Did someone say “PS5 remaster with online support”? We hope so.
Another Sony IP that’s fallen way, way by the wayside over the last couple of generations, Sly 2 is everything we’ve been told doesn’t work these days. Cartoonish, stealthy, and not afraid to take risks.
You see, Sly and his pals’ second sneaky shindig tried a lot of different things and wore many different hats, helping it to become one of the most distinct, visually charming platformers of all time. It still looks great, sounds amazing, and is packed with a host of brilliant sandboxes that are just begging to be explored.
If you want a funny, vibrant platformer with a tonne of depth, Sly 2 should really be sneaking its way into your library as soon as possible.
The Tomb Raider series has been through plenty of ups and downs over the years. Before the launch of Tomb Raider Legend, it was perhaps at its lowest. Tomb Raider Chronicles followed by Angel Of Darkness is a bad run of form, even if Angel of Darkness still looks decent today. Don’t ask about the gameplay part.
Tomb Raider Legend, while a simplified version of the Tomb Raider formula, managed to bring the series back in a big way, featuring Lara Croft on her usual globe-trotting adventure in the pursuit of relics, ancient secrets and perhaps even the legendary sword, Excalibur. While the gameplay was perhaps a bit more action oriented than previous Tomb Raider games, the platforming and puzzle solving were still a key focus, and the real highlight of this excellent journey.
The PlayStation 2 was really ahead of its time, allowing players to enjoy online tactical shooters with their friends thanks to the SOCOM series. Quite why the series hasn’t made a comeback in the past decade, especially when the Tom Clancy series keeps pumping out successful tactical shooters, is baffling. It’d be real easy to live service this one, gang.
There were many SOCOM games that launched on the PS2, so picking the best one is like picking your favourite child, only with way lower stakes, but for our money, the mix of campaign and multiplayer on offer in SOCOM 2 makes it one of the best games available on the PS2. It’s basically the first game, only with more content and some key upgrades to the gameplay. Can’t go wrong with a package like that.
The first SSX certainly wasn’t bad, but it was with SSX Tricky that the franchise and EA Sports BIG, sorry, EA Sports BIG – Intro, really found their identity.
Basically taking the downhill snowboarding of the original while cranking up the character knobs by several magnitudes, SSX Tricky suitably went pretty big. When it comes to letting you ignore the rules of physics and human limbs, few games go quite as hard as this one, and that soundtrack still hits hard too.
Grab a mate and challenge them to a race down Tokyo Megaplex and watch the years roll back with every Bronco Buster and Triple H. Not those guys. Well, now it is.
If you need any proof of how big a leap video games took between the PS1 and PS2, just check out how the SmackDown series improved from the also amazing SmackDown 2 on PS1 to the genre yardstick that is Here Comes the Pain. It was a bigger leap than whatever Shane McMahon decided he needed to do to make his dad love him that week.
With wrestler depictions and animations that still look amazing today, a consistently amazing career mode that remains the best in class, and the ability to frog splash someone off a helicopter ladder for absolutely no reason whatsoever, Here Comes the Pain sums up the dumb brillian brainrot that is professional wrestling in general like few games ever have. You might prefer one of the Smackdown vs Raw games, but this one’s got Scott Steiner in it.
While the prequel trilogy was bad-bad-good, Star Wars Battlefront 2 from top to bottom was good-good-good.
Introducing space combat to the series, ne ver had galactic conflict felt this cinematic and just epic on console before, with Star Wars fans basically able to ditch their action figures and act out their wildest digital match-ups. Mace Windu vs Darth Vader? I’ll have two trilogies of that please.
As well as capturing the look and feel of its big screen counterpart remarkably well, Star Wars Battlefront 2 took you across the galaxy in an amazing single-player mode, as well as the ability to team up with your mate and see who can commit the most war crimes. Ah. Simpler, more war crimes-y times.
For those who didn’t always have time to watch a 14 minute cutscene on how a gun was made and who made it and why, and why it was actually the Patriots the whole time, Splinter Cell was the absolute best way to get your stealth fix on the PlayStation 2.
With the previous games a little bit too slow and maybe honestly hard for some, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory made things a bit more approachable without sacrificing the core design philosophies of the series. It still really rewarded patient planning in its immersive sim like levels as you took to the shadows as Sam Fisher, everyone’s favourite gravel swilling spy.
Could you even imagine Ubisoft trying to make a game like this these days? I genuinely cannot.
Many iconic series made their bow on the PlayStation 2, but few were as consistently brilliant as Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac’s platformer shooter that may have been most responsible for platformers going more Arn Anderson in general.
But arguably the best of the bunch is Up Your Arsenal, which ups the, um, arsenal, embraces its goofy side more, and just generally includes enough stuff to collect and complete that it’d make Rareware blush, all while looking brilliant.
Up Your Arsenal also introduces drivable vehicles for the first time in the series, as well as online multiplayer alongside its charming single-player offering as Ratchet and Clank seek to stop an invasion by a villain who you might just recognise.
At this point, a new Double Fine game is a landmark event that people should take notice of, but back during the PS2 era, they were a fledgling studio built off the legacy of LucasArts staff like Tim Schafer. They were an unproven commodity as their own, but when their debut game, Psychonauts, finally dropped on the PS2, any fears were set aside like an empty bottle of milk.
Set in a summer camp made for kids with psychic powers, players control Rasputin as he learns to get to grips with his new powers, travelling into the brains of the camp counsellors and other denizens to solve their mental problems.
It’s a bonkers game, but the level designs, comedic timing, and that immaculate aesthetic are completely unique to Psychonauts, and the gameplay is up there with some of the best 3D platformers ever made too. Play that second game as well when you get the chance.
While Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution definitely has some vocal fans, the Virtua Fighter series has often been stuck in the shadow of Tekken and other 3D fighting games. That’s a bit of a shame, as even though they’re not as successful, the Virtua Fighter games are uncanny in terms of their gameplay design and control schemes. Accessibility and complexity somehow combine to create pure magic.
The Virtua Fighter games only feature three buttons, punch, kick and block, but somehow SEGA and AM2 squeeze every possible combination of moves you could think of to create command lists bigger than most game manuals. Virtua Fighter is amazing, basically, and Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution was the best instalment in the series up until that point.
We’ve only had one brand new Virtua Fighter installment since this one, and that’s crazy.
The Tony Hawk’s series continued to grow and evolve from its humble Pro Skater roots into something pretty wild on the PS2. While 3 and 4 added mechanics like the revert and spine transfers, Underground revolutionised the formula entirely by letting you get off the board.
The idea of a skateboarding game improving because it reduced the overall amount of skateboarding sounds ridiculous, but the climbing and parkour elements of THUG allowed players to experience levels in a whole new way, setting up new lines, extending combos or just glitching their way out of bounds. Throw in a decent story mode too that’s not quite tainted by this turbotwat, as well as just a heap of unlockable content including Iron Man and uh KISS, and it’s not surprising that THUG is considered a high point in this legendary series.
The game that arguably started gaming’s love affair with bullet time, which is always a good time, Max Payne allowed Finnish developers Remedy Entertainment to prove that they were going to create iconic single-player action games.
A hard boiled New York detective reeling from the deaths of his family, Max Payne sees the titular detective going on a rampage around the city to stop the drug runners responsible for their death. How does he do that? Slow mo shoot diving into every room and blasting everyone within a five city block radius.
The noir style, the comic book cutscenes, the wonderful gameplay, the making drugs a bit cool, the haunting nightmares levels; all of these are reason enough alone why Max Payne is an all-time great. The second game is also a whipper on PlayStation 2, if your eggs aren’t quite hard boiled enough.
Bullet time is a good time, but go back time is also a good time, as Prince of Persia: Sands of Time proved way back in 2003.
The Sands of Time gave a pretty much AWOL franchise a second lease of 3D life, as players wallrun their way to vengeance against basically Jafar. Basically. The advanced platforming and souped up combat would be enough on its own to bring the franchise into a new era, but being able to control time honestly felt like a revelation in gameplay for the PlayStation 2.
You might want to put the Two Thrones or Warrior Within here instead, and that’s totally fine, but there’s a reason why the remake of this game seems to be next to impossible to get anywhere.
Bullet time. Go back time. Pizza time.
Truly, I never thought video game open worlds or superhero games in general would get better than this. Spider-Man 2 fundamentally changed the way both genres worked, and while it is a tad rough to compare to its peers of today, it’s wild to look back and see what Treyarch cooked up here.
One of the first alive feeling open worlds where you can’t pick up “after dusk entertainers”, Spider-Man 2 let you embody the Spiders-Man like no game before it, feeling like a huge step up from even the earlier movie adaptation.
It absolutely nailed web-swinging, so much so that you could just spend hours swinging about, ignoring children crying about their balloons so you can piledriver goons from the top of skyscrapers. Would Tom Holland do that? No.
Considering that Tekken 3 was one of the highest selling games on PS1, it’s not surprising that Namco were keen to continue their love affair on the PS2. Tekken Tag Tournament offered more of that Tekken 3 goodness, only with 2v2 fights, though Tekken 4 perhaps changed the formula too much with its Dead Or Alive-esque arena design.
Enter Tekken 5, which removed the silly arenas from Tekken 4 while refining the additions of walls and their combo potential to create arguably the most fluid, kinetic game in the series right behind Tekken 3.
Throw in the introduction of character customisation, which allowed you to play dress up with your characters, something that’s become a core part of the series ever since, and Tekken 5’s place as one of the greatest fighting games ever is truly earned.
The greatest Wayne Rooney sandbox simulator ever, Bully felt like something completely different from Rockstar at a time when the studio was known for trying new things often.
A lot has changed since then, but what hasn’t is the inherent appeal of Bully, in which you play as Jimmy Hopkins as he acclimates to Bullworth Academy and all its cliq ues. But rather than just singing Evanescence and shopping for them octopus trousers, Jimmy has so many curricular and extracurricular activities that this relatively small sandbox feels completely packed.
With a banger soundtrack, amazing visuals, and plenty of rhythm minigames to inevitably mess up, choosing Bully as one of the best PS2 games ever is a bit academic. Modern devs, add more lawnmowing minigames, ya cowards.
The PS2 was the home of arcade racing games, and picking the best of the best is harder than you’d think. Between Ridge Racer 5, Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast and the Burnout series, that’s an embarrassment of riches for racing game fans. We’re suckers for Burnout though, so choosing between Burnout 3: Takedown and Revenge is like choosing the best Lord of the Rings movie.
While Burnout 3: Takedown really set the Burnout series on the correct path, with its focus on carnage, crash junctions and the ability to be rewarded for slamming cars into pillars, Burnout Revenge takes everything about Takedown and turns it up to 11. Bigger tracks, bigger cars, bigger explosions and more of them; Burnout Revenge is a kitchen sink sequel to an all-time great racing game, making it even greater by default.
Plus, it has LCD Soundsystem on the soundtrack. 11/10, game of the year every year until the end of time.
While all three of the famous Onimusha games — sorry mate, maybe one day — are deserving of a place here, I’ve got to give it to Onimusha 2 for just feeling like the most unique of the bunch, even though Onimusha 3 has the best CG opening cutscene of all time.
With newcomer Jubei as the leading man, Onimusha 2 pits you against that rascal Nobunaga, but this time with extra friends in tow. Onimusha leans more into the RPG side of things, with you able to give your allies gifts to open up more routes, which wasn’t seen that much at the time.
Onimusha 2’s clever ideas and likeable supporting cast are pretty regularly overlooked when it comes to the PlayStation 2, and while the controls may take a bit of getting used to nowadays, there’s just a feel to Samurai’s Destiny that you’d struggle to replicate today.
Sticking the two disparate worlds of Disney and Square together sounded silly at the time, and it’d almost certainly still get a bit of ridicule if announced today, but together, they created magic in the form of the Kingdom Hearts series, with Kingdom Hearts 2 being the best of the PS2 bunch, and probably still the series as a whole.
Continuing the adventures of Sora, Donald Duck and Goofy, Kingdom Hearts 2 sees you travelling across various Disney inspired worlds, with the usual suspects all appearing alongside some surprising additions, such as Tron, all to try and stop the dastardly Organisation XIII.
The lore is certainly dense, but the combat is incredible, and the absolutely undeniable charm of seeing a goatman cheering Hercules on against one of the coldest RPG characters ever makes it easy to see why Kingdom Hearts 2 was a pivotal game for millions of childhoods.
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because the Fortnite clone never happened. Free Radical created three of the best FPS games ever made in quick succession, only for them to apparently fall under a witch’s curse, and all hopes for a follow-up or remastered collection disappeared.
Still, let’s focus on the good old days, with the third and ultimately final game in the series, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, serving as the pinnacle of the whole journey. The campaign mode is a time hopping escapade following Sgt Cortez from the 2400s as he travels through the previous half millenia to stop the evil TimeSplitters aliens.
Throw in a bizarre array of characters, plenty of maps and modes for multiplayer shenanigans and a diverse challenge mode, and it’s no wonder that Future Perfect has become so beloved.
Thanks to Persona 3 blending dungeon crawling and turn-based gameplay with the high school social sim daytime sections that breathed new life into the entire RPG genre, Persona really started to blossom on the second PlayStation, but if you want the Persona game on PS2, you arguably want Persona 4.
Unlike the other Persona games, Persona 4 travels to the Japanese countryside, but you’re still making friends in school during the day and battling monsters at night by jumping into televisions, with your social bonds leading to greater strengths in combat and when summoning personas.
While the title of best Persona game is up for debate, the characters and story on offer here are undeniably brilliant, on top of the uniquely vibrant, captivating, and still off-beat aesthetic that’s come to be a Persona calling card. Also, it’s got Kanji in it.
A game so wonderfully, fantastically simple that I couldn’t imagine it getting made today, ICO is a foundationally vital video game that doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. It’s constantly cited as one of the first examples of video games as art for a reason.
In it, you play as the titular horned boy as he guides the imprisoned Yorda out of a castle and away from her evil mother. You solve puzzles, protect Yorda in combat, do some platforming, and hold more hands than the edgiest anime villain ever, and that’s about it.
There are so many games like Dark Souls and The Last of Us that probably wouldn’t exist without Fumito Ueda’s softly lit, minimalist tale that can still take your breath away today, ICO laid an early marker for just how much the PlayStation 2 was going to change everything when it launched in 2001.
The first game in this iconic RPG series to have full 3D characters and environments, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Dragon Quest VIII would suffer from a tough transition into this new dimension. The fact that Level-5 and Square Enix were able to create a potential series best in DQVIII is nothing short of astonishing.
As the subtitle implies, Dragon Quest VIII follows the adventures of the Hero and their ever growing band of friends as they try to restore the king to his former glory after being turned into a troll by an evil jester’s sceptre.
The turn-based gameplay is still just as fun as it ever was, but the cel-shaded graphics, likeable cast and incredible character designs from the late, great Akira Toriyama have helped cement Dragon Quest VIII’s status as a PS2 classic, and one that you can quite easily pick up and get a lot out of these days.
If you want to put any of the other Jak games in here, that’s totally fine. But for me, booting up The Precursor Legacy one Christmas morning and being completely mesmerised is a memory that genuinely gives me goosebumps every time.
A wonderfully vibrant action platformer that captures the spirit of exploration and just trying things out, The Precursor Legacy follows the titular duo after the latter is turned into
an ottsel, with the only solution being to of course collect everything not nailed down.
From the gorgeous environments to the lack of loading screens to the truly iconic soundtrack to the sheer amount of varied content packed into everything, I’ve constantly been chasing that Christmas morning high ever since, and few games have really come close.
A case could be made that Soulcalibur 2 is the greatest 3D fighting game of all time, and it’s hard to argue against it. Perhaps the only knock we have on the PS2 version of SC2 specifically is that it’s not the GameCube version, which included a playable Link from The Legend of Zelda as a guest character. Don’t get us wrong, Heihachi is still fun and all, but he’s no Link.
Still, Link or no Link, Soulcalibur 2 took everything that worked about Soul Blade and Soulcalibur 1 and refined it even further, making the game more responsive, giving characters more moves and weapons to use, and extending the Weapon Master mode to make it like an RPG of sorts. Also, those graphics are some of the best on the console, and that soundtrack continues to be a whipper.
We’ll give special mention to Soulcalibur 3 as well too, with somehow even better graphics, more characters and the character creation mode. Is it time for Soulcalibur 7 yet?
We’re now three for three for Clover Studio games, but there’s a reason why this one got ported way more than God Hand or Viewtiful Joe ever did: Okami is a genuine masterpiece. While the gameplay formula borrows from The Legend of Zelda, specifically Ocarina of Time, it’s what Okami does with its own ideas and style that makes it an unforgettable experience.
Set in the world of Nippon, you control the sun god Amaterasu, as she descends to the Earth in wolf form to try and rid the land of a deadly scourge. The whole game is presented using a version of cel-shaded graphics that look like a traditional Japanese watercolour painting come to life, while Okami’s Celestial Brush allows you to draw symbols to affect the environment.
This is nothing short of a magical adventure that everyone should seek out, whether on the PS2 or in its almost inevitable PS5 port to be announced any day now.
The undisputed king of the racing sim genre, PlayStation and Gran Turismo’s success go hand in hand. If Gran Turismo is thriving, PlayStation is thriving, and Gran Turismo 4 saw the series achieve new heights across the board thanks to the most photo-realistic graphics the console had ever seen. Looking back, calling these graphics photo-realistic almost seems quaint, but at the time, we genuinely didn’t know we could have it so good. Back in 2004, Gran Turismo 4 already looked like the mountaintop.
At a basic level, Gran Turismo 4 doesn’t do anything the previous games didn’t do, but it’s how the game carries itself that makes it an example of racing game perfection.
From the massive selection of tracks, to the hundreds of cars that span decades of the automotive industry, to the massively improved career mode that blends traditional racing with silly events, GT4 deserves to be preserved in a racing game hall of fame.
The absolute cheek of Capcom. Most game developers sweat, struggle and break their own backs trying to find gameplay mechanics that keep players coming back, but Capcom did it accidentally. Twice. The first was Street Fighter 2’s combo system, while a glitch with Onimusha’s combat led to the creation of Devil May Cry, and arguably the character action genre as a whole. Skip the second game entirely, unless you really love Diesel, and then you reach DMC 3, which some still consider to be the best entry in the whole franchise.
Once again following the demon hunter Dante, Devil May Cry 3 is actually a prequel to the series, focusing on the relationship (or lack thereof) between Dante and his brother Vergil. Between DMC3’s incredible gameplay, including the weapons, enemy types and new styles for Dante, along with the kickass soundtrack, DMC 3 was pretty much every teenage kid’s new favourite obsession.
Special mention should also go to the Special Edition version too, which added new difficulty options and the ability to even play as Vergil. He might not be in his final fedora form here, but he’s still fairly cool.
Capcom just kept changing the course of video game history almost by accident a few generations back, as everyone also knows that Resident Evil 4 could have looked very different. While I lie awake at night thinking about Hook Man, I couldn’t imagine my gaming tastes without the Resident Evil 4 we did get.
Bringing back the fringed fancy that is Leon S Kennedy, the S stands for Shinjimikamistillhashishead, Resident Evil 4 shunts the camera behind Leon, amps up the action, and ramps up the camp to breathe new life into a whole genre and the gaming landscape as a whole.
From the insane storyline that sees you saving the president’s daughter from a Plagas infected cult, to Leon’s charming relationship with her, to a certain enterprising individual who has two of the most iconic lines in gaming, Resident Evil 4 is a wild jumble of ideas that somehow works magnificently. The remake doesn’t replace this classic, it’s just a different vintage of cheese.
There are many moments in your gaming life that absolutely just shift your perception of video games and what they’re capable of. For me, one of those moments was playing Final Fantasy X hot on the heels of IX and witnessing the kind of technological leap I don’t think we’ll ever see again.
Final Fantasy X’s tale of a young man whose whole life is turned upside down by a giant whale wasted no time in showing what the PlayStation 2 was capable of, from its incredible CG cutscenes to massive scale to allowing you to play the greatest sport of all time. The only reason Tidus ever got famous for it though was because Tony Hibbert played football.
While every Final Fantasy fan has their favourite battle system, the conditional turn-based battle system here really worked for me personally, especially when it came time to summon those jaw-dropping Aeons, with Yojimbo still being my favourite ever.
With an incredible cast of characters, a gorgeous soundtrack, and the super fun sphere grid to play around with, even my deepest hatred for the Cloister of Trials can’t stop Final Fantasy X from being an all-timer.
While Resident Evil 4 changed the way horror games were played, Silent Hill 2 changed the way that horror games would be told forever — and arguably no game since has told as captivating and deep a tale as James Sunderland’s not that romantic solo getaway in the American version of Newcastle.
Just like Final Fantasy X, Silent Hill 2 felt like a considerable step up from its PS1 counterpart, with the foggy, mysterious character of Silent Hill itself really starting to come into focus. Its less than happy inhabitants also remain some of the most interesting seen in the generation, with 2 hour long video essays on a particular person’s hat still getting cranked out regularly. Few games have been pored over as extensively as Silent Hill 2 over the years, but just like the town, Silent Hill 2 is different things to different people, and that’s why it’s so brilliant.
While the more recent version on modern hardware might feel a little bit better to play, again, just like Resident Evil 4 and its own remake, this original still goes down smoother than a pizza milkshake.
Released in 2007 when the PlayStation 3 was already out and wowing us all with its Genji and SD card slots, you really cannot think of a much better send-off for the PlayStation 2 than Kratos’ second quest for revenge.
More than most games of this era, God of War 2 was taking plenty of notes from the blockbusters of the big screen, with a bigger sca le, bigger budget, and bigger acts of violence all combining to make this into a hack and slash dream that still is just a tonne of fun now.
Yes, it might have innovated QTEs a bit too much, but God of War 2 is basically just the first game but bigger and better in every way, which you will realise right from the off when your battle with a colossus takes place across the entirety of a city, and then somehow just never lets up from there.
God of War 2 is extravagant to the extreme, with brutal, visceral combat that flows brilliantly and a spectacle that often makes you pause to take it all in. Not a bad console funeral, as things go.
Everyone’s second example of a video game that should be considered art, Shadow of the Colossus is practically perfect. Sure, the stamina meter can be a bit annoying when you’re trying to climb up a Colossus, and yeah, the formula of slaying every Colossus could be seen as repetitive, but this is a journey that every self-respecting gamer should take at least once. Just make sure you have the tissues ready by the time you reach the end of the game, because this will get dark.
A sort of prequel to the events of Ico, Shadow Of The Colossus follows a boy by the name of Wander as he travels to a forbidden land to try and revive his lost love. A mysterious force tells him that slaying the 16 Colossi that roam the land will revive her, and you can already see where this one is going. Unlike other action adventure games of the time, Shadow of the Colossus actually forced the player to scale the monsters they needed to slay, adding a sense of scale that the PS2 hadn’t previously seen. Team Ico’s second masterpiece is one of the first to really make the player hesitate and ask why you’re stabbing the great big shiny weak spot.
Who needed the PlayStation 3 to be right around the corner when Shadow of the Colossus pushed the PS2, and also us emotionally, to breaking point?
While my heart is screaming Metal Gear Solid 2 for inclusion in this video, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater did feel like a massive technical leap up from a game that was already embarrassing plenty of its peers.
Somehow, within just a three-year span, Kojima and the gang added countless camouflage options, injuries, diet, better CQC, and more of those countless MGS details on top of better visuals in a prequel that’s longer and more open to experimentation to boot. Just like Psycho Mantis and his controller, MGS 3 played around with the very hardware itself for some of its own boss battles.
Then there’s the subversive story, which, just like how Shadow of the Colossus made you question why you were pressing the buttons, Snake Eater has you wade through rivers full of ghosts you made and come up against an antagonist who maybe isn’t all she seems. There’s also a guy who wears bees. It’s Metal Gear, baby.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a technical marvel, a real narrative showstopper that will grab you by the balls. However, it doesn’t have Samuel L. Jackson, so the only winner for the best PS2 game of all time has to be…
The PlayStation 2 was all about progress, and nowhere was this more obvious than in how wildly the Grand Theft Auto series evolved in just a three year span. From the simple sandbox shenanigans of GTA 3 to the cinematic empire building of Vice City to the absolute kitchen sink of San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto’s legacy was solidified in no time at all.
It’s the third game that often gets the most plaudits, as you can really tell that this was Rockstar throwing everything at a game that they arguably haven’t done since. Though hopefully GTA 6 will let me become an obese kung fu master with a gambling addiction.
From different combat styles to gang warfare to the light RPG mechanics that let you improve CJ over time, San Andreas doesn’t do any half measures at all. It’s a wonder that the PlayStation 2 could handle it all, and we’ve not even mentioned the weight fluctuations, dating, character and car customisation, and even some multiplayer that absolutely nobody remembers.
Chuck in a more sprawling, personal, and infinitely memeable story, an aesthetic and vibe that remains impossible to replicate, and the fact that every newspaper feared it like it was the devil, and you’ve got one of the most iconic video games of all time, and the PS2’s best.
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