This year I cleaned out my family’s old PS2 and got really into playing tons of games from the era I missed! The PS1/PS2 lineup is truly spectacular & has so many heavy hitters from big names & super unknown developers. Here are some of my favorites.
God of War (2005)
I’ve only ever played God of War 2018 so I really had no idea what to expect from this one. The opening hydra level is an amazing intro, and the game manages to use its dynamic camera to always show the most exciting angle of the action.
The story is a lot somber than I expected, leaning into it as a proper greek tragedy. Kratos is more introspective than purely angry, and I love how the story teased out reveals. The only real disappointment of the game was the 2nd to last area before the final boss. Some truly maddening platforming that felt more like a test of luck than skill. 8.5/10
Parasite Eve
One of my favorite games I’ve played this year, and easily one of the best PS1 games for me alongside RE2 and MGS. The game tells an engaging story at a quick pace, and manages to deliver new combat challenges you’d typically see in a full length JRPG at a lightning fast rate. The soundtrack alone is one of my favorites from Yoko Shimomura, with the police station theme “Out of Phase” being a highlight. If you enjoy JRPGs or Survival Horror, you gotta check out Parasite Eve. 9/10
Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
My first Ratchet & Clank was a lot of fun. My partner knew more about the series than I did, so it was fun to see her relive & recognize iconic moments from this game. The shooting is a ton of fun, though some of the grindy challenges for upgrades got tiring after a bit. Also a huge difficulty spike at the final boss caught me off guard. Still, I enjoyed the experience. 7.5/10
Disaster Report
This game really surprised me! I went in expecting a light hearted survival game, and what I got were some genuinely meaningful character moments, branching decisions that matter, and tons of exciting real-time setpieces that would make Uncharted jealous. This is an earthquake survival game where you play as Keith, a reporter investigating an ongoing disaster in Capital City. Through your adventure you’ll meet other survivors, uncover a conspiracy, and make some narrow escapes. Unfortunately this game does have a frustrating gameplay shakeup near the end that you’ll want a guide to get through, but other than that it was a great time. 8/10
Raw Danger!
Okay I gotta tell y’all about Raw Danger, because I’m convinced this is the PS2 hidden gem. Holy shit. The developers took everything they learned from Disaster Report to deliver one of the most interesting survival games I’ve ever played. This game features six playable characters experiencing a massive flood in the city of Del Ray over the Christmas Holidays. You start as a waiter, Joshua Harwell, staffing a bigwig event held by the mayor when the disaster starts.
The game does an astounding job putting you into the shoes of your character experiencing the signs of disaster to come. Seeing water slowly trickle into the venue, increasingly nervous fellow staff as you tend to your duties, electrical problems, and soon ankle deep water begins to seep in! The survival is a lot more in-depth than Disaster Report, allowing you to customize your character’s whole outfit to maximise staying dry & warm (or looking goofy as hell). Heat management is crucial, and staying out in the rain too long can be deadly. The same real-time setpieces from Disaster Report return, with even greater scale.
The most mechanically interesting part of this game is how it handles its 6 playable characters. Each character has tons of dialogue with those around them, and key decisions they make or say can end up influencing what happens in other playthroughs hours later. You might shove some rubble out of the way, desperate to save your companion - only to curse yourself a couple hours later when that rubble you pushed causes a massive flood to sweep away your current character into a desperate situation. The game delivers on some genuine emotion, while also capturing some truly truly off the walls insane dialogue (shoutout Amber Brazil, my favorite character for this). If you have any interest in adventure or survival games on the PS2, Raw Danger is an absolute must play. 9.5/10 (The graphics/water can look real jank at times)
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I don’t remember whether the God of War sequels are PS2 or PS3, but you should try and play every erly GOW game available to you. I honestly love the gameplay of the original games more than I love the Dad of War games (which I also really like!).
R&C UYA is definitely a fun game. I can remember that I was at my best friends house and I don’t remember why, but he showed off that game and I was immediately hooked.
Eventually got my own copy. And eventually all the other PS2 titles in the series over the years. Love them all. Definitely a fun series. Cannot speak too much about the later titles since I’ve barely gotten anywhere in Rift Apart, but those early games definitely have a fair amount of that classic PS2 charm, IMO.
I think 2, 3, and Deadlocked/Gladiator were the best ones. Deadlocked was really the best, but it’s so short that I have a hard time putting it over Going Commando, and I’d put UYA as a distant 3rd place.
The first game was always rough- the controls and camera are clunky, and the bolt economy is rough. Plus if I remember there were no nanotech upgrades or armor- you just needed to git gud.
Size Matters was remarkably similar to the first game. Secret Agent Clank is in the conversation for bottom-10 worst videogames of all time and should be avoided.
Tools of Destruction and Crack in Time were both pretty forgettable. They felt like mediocre licensed shovelware- they were still from Insomniac, but a lot of the people who worked on the PS2 games left by then and it just didn’t have the same feel. If I remember correctly, they opened up a new office in North Carolina and gave R&C to that team and had their California studio focus on Resistance, but even in California a lot of the people who worked on Spyro and the PS2 games left. Quest for Booty is basically just a 2hr DLC that they sold standalone for… Reasons.
All4One was… Fine, but a very niche experience. It’s like a 4 player party game, but it’s 10 levels that are about an hour each, and it’s hard to get 4 people together to play through a 10 hour campaign. I only ever played it alone, and it was fine, but clearly designed for at least 2 players.
Full Frontal Assault I remember liking a lot, but not the specifics of it. Wasn’t a fan of the art style, but I remember the tower defense being cool and really suiting R&C.
Into the Nexus was great, maybe better than UYA even. Best story of any R&C game IMO, and the gameplay was okay. Only 6 hours long for a first playthrough though, way shorter even than Deadlocked and not as much replayability.
R&C 2016 was… Fine. They fixed the gameplay issues, but I didn’t like the weapon upgrade system. It felt like they were trying to copy online multiplayer looter-shooter systems in an offline single-player game. I wasn’t a fan of the updated story, art style, or tone either- felt like they were trying to do a less mature version of Fallout 4. I’d say better than the original, but still mid-tier overall.
Rift Apart was… Fine. Gorgeous. The whole thing about using the PS5’s fancy SSD to do rifts was complete BS (the game released on PC later) and didn’t affect the gameplay as much as the marketing suggested. A lot of the weapons were useless, and once again I didn’t like the upgrade system.
Also, Sony seems to re-use a lot of stuff between their AAA releases starting on the PS4. R&C, Horizon, God of War, and Spiderman all have very similar UI’s. I’m pretty sure there is a lot of music shared between the R&C and Spiderman games. The looter-shooter/gacha still item systems plague all of those series too. I haven’t played the newer Uncharted or TLOU games yet but I suspect they will be similar. Heck, out of all of their games recently Knack was the series that felt the most refreshing to me.
On a slightly related note, I would recommend Sunset Overdrive too. It feels like a very clear midway point between Ratchet & Clank and Spiderman.
It may have been pretty long since I played Into The Nexus, basically the only PS3 title I’ve played besides Quest for Booty, but I definitely remember the length of Nexus being too short for me to love it. Your comment jogged my memory on it by name alone, after a quick search to make sure I wasn’t mistaking it with another game.
Can’t remember much about Quest for Booty, which I’m pretty sure I got through a code that came with Nexus, so that should tell you something about how memorable I thought it was.
Parasite Eve, from the golden age of Squaresoft. (Sorry I never got to finish it.)
FFVI and VII, Final Fantast Tactics, Vagrant Story, Front Mission, Xenogears
If you can get your hands on R.A.D. (Robot Alchemic Drive), do so. It’s a very interesting robot combat game developed by Sandlot, who would later become famous for Earth Defense Force
The birth of action games: Onimusha, God Hand, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, Okami, and many more.
My favorite underrated PS2 game is The Red Star—super fun beat’em up/twin stick shooter.
No better library of AA games.
My partner got me God Hand for Christmas & it’s been such a blast so far, like holy shit it’s so fun to play
Heck yeah, Parasite Eve recognition! It’s a fantastic RPG and one of the more unique ones thanks to its setting and gameplay - I wish later games kept the latter at least. If you didn’t play PE2 it might also be worth a shot. It’s a bit different, both in terms of story and gameplay, but it’s still a solid and enjoyable title.
Parasite Eve was an amazing game. Blew my mind my first play through. Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy 7 & 8…a great time for gaming
Golden fra for Squaresoft
I loved PE1, but had trouble getting into PE2.
For those who may not know, the game was made to be a sequel to a book with the same name.
My understanding is that the book was wildly famous in Japan, but don’t make a big international splash.
I once found a used English copy on Amazon for $200.
So, just pickup the ebook. I started to read it, but got busy with my wedding and never finished it. I need to give it another go.
Yeah, PE2 can be like that. I vastly prefer the first one as well but I also think that the sequel isn’t bad, it’s just not necessarily what I’d like from a follow up. That’s why I think it’s worth suggesting anyway - some people might find it to be more enjoyable than I did.
I think that game suffers as it is not as good as the first one. But it was not a bad game, I guess. I think I just had high expectations. Maybe it would have been better if it was marketed as a sequel to PE1
Wait, it wasn’t? It’s a genuine question as I got into the series way past its prime.
Sorry I meant to say wasn’t marketed as a game in the series.
It was originally developed as a spinoff right? I recall watching a video about PE2, but the game didn’t interest me like the first one
I guess you’re right cause it was more of a spinoff not really a sequel.
It’s more of an action horror vibe instead of a survival horror vibe.
I recently bought a ps2 slim to enjoy some old titles and ran into a big problem. They look terrible on modern TV’s even ones with built in component. Might have to look into some sort of upscaler.
Many of these older consoles have hardware mods and stuff these days if you’re comfortable with soldering. HDMI ports and upscaling are usually one of those mods too.
I use a GBS Control upscaler! Super happy with it, there are a couple pre-builts you can find online if you don’t want to mess with the hardware yourself.
God of war 2 is even better if you can find it.
I already have it! Gonna get to it next year
