What are the all time best PS2 games?

Cafe Society
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I bought a PS2 and an xbox a while ago. Unfortunately, while I’d like to use the xbox, the cd drive is defective, and gradually loses the ability to track CDs. From what I read years ago, that was a chronic problems. Is there any sort of fix?

Anyway, I never did get all that much use out of my consoles. PCs do most things a lot better.

But now that the new generation is out, I’m guessing all of those PS2 games can be had for cheap. And so, before, while the 15-20 hours I might’ve got out of a title might not have justified $50, if I can find them for $5-10 now used, then it could be.

So, what are the great PS2 games that I should look into buying?

I have pretty much no interest in FPS games, because PCs do them so much better, but consoles do 3rd person shooters alright. I guess some of those survival horror games are supposed to be really good.

I’d like to get some racing games, but I prefer racing games with some fun elements like destructable cars/environments, or stuff like the police chases in need for speed, to the kind of gameplay where you try to shave a quarter second off your lap time.

Consoles tend to do sports games better. I really hate EA, but I might buy one of their games second hand. I have, for the most part, no interest in sports outside of football - but sometimes games that I have no interest in can still be really fun. I’ve had some fun with hockey and tennis games in the past.

Rhythm games are something I’ve never really tried at all, but wouldn’t mind giving them a try. What are the best ones that work well with the standard PS2 controller?

And feel free to list anything else you happened to really like.

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Oh, I forgot to add - I’ve played GTA 3 before, but I haven’t owned any of the GTA games. Should I start with the original and work my way through the series - or are the later ones clearly superior and I should just get those?

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Here are some of may favorites:

Crazy Taxi – based on the arcade game, you drive around like a maniac trying to pick up and drop off fares. Lots of fun, especially the comments (“Watch it you jerk!”, “Dumbass!”, “You nearly killed me!”)

ATV Off-Road Fury 1 & 2 – Fun racing games, but no damage to vehicles. You race ATVs, in case that wasn’t obvious.

Ratchet and Clank – There are 4 games in this series: “Ratchet and Clank” (Henceforth abbreviated as RC), “RC: Going Commando”, “RC: Up Your Arsenal”, “Ratchet: Deadlocked.” All are a lot of fun.

I have also enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, but they are infiltration type games and might not be your style.

4

You can get GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas as a box set for cheap now ($40 CAD) Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories are both good from what I’ve heard (I haven’t actually played them)… But they’re basically just mission packs, the city is the same.

I know you’d prefer to stick to the standard PS2 controller, but I’ll give the advice I give every time anyone asks what PS2 games to get: *Guitar Hero *(1 and 2). In my not so humble opinion, they’re probably the best games out there for the system.

Other than those: Katamari Damacy and We (Heart) Katamari are fantastic games, which are PS2 exclusive. They’re another series I can’t recommend enough.

Let’s see… The Ace Combat series was always fun (I’ve always love flying games… Probably why I’m a pilot now). Though the acting and not-so-deep gameplay generally relegate those ones to rentals.

I’m a big Metal Gear fan… Although 2 wasn’t as good as 1 or 3.

That’s all I can think of at the moment.

5

If you like war games at all, Brothers in Arms is great, but I love the Medal of Honor series as well.

My biggest reccomendation is if you like games with wonderful stories but less action, try Siren. It is based in a rural town, Hanuda, and there are zombie like creatures called Shibito. The whole story takes place over 3 days and 10-some characters. You get to play as each person and watch videos inbetween levels that fill in the story, but it is about attention to detail instead of just finishing levels and about sneaking around instead of just killing everything. I think it took us about 4 weeks with the walkthrough. Would’ve taken longer without, but once you get into it, it’s very interesting…

Brendon

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Also, forgot to say, you can pick up Siren for probably 10-20 dollars.
I bought Brothers in Arms as a package at Walmart for $20 with some other game included. I think Medal of Honor games usually go for about 20, but I got mine for $3 on ebay.

Brendon

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I’ll second the Katamari games. Absolute fun and brilliance in game design on par with Tetris. Both games are bust buys.

Lessee here. Most of my favorites are of the survival horror genre: Fatal Frame 2 and 3, Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill 2 and 4, and Haunting Ground. They get high marks for atmosphere, story, and controls.

I like Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 (2 more than 1 but you really have to play them both). Final Fantasy X is good, but Final Fantasy XII is much better.

The last and probably top of the heap for me are Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. The games themselves are friggin’ gorgeous. The stories are amazing, with Shadow taking the lead for just twisting your emotions around. The only knock against both games is that the replay value isn’t great, but the initial ride is well worth the price.

If you have the money, you may find it worthwhile to get a subscription to Gamefly. That’ll let you work your way through the lists you’re going to get and figure out which games are worth spending the big money on. Just watch the turnaround times on the games. I got a subscription as a present a year or so ago and I wound up cancelling it because it took forever for them to recieve and send games. They may have improved though.

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:smack: Of course that should read “must buys” The only game I would think of that would be a “bust buy” would be Haunting Ground. :smack:

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I see we have similar philosophies regarding games; I may have a Wii but I’m trying to pick up all the nifty underrated games for the previous generation now that they’re cheap. So let me run through some of my favorites:

Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari cannot be recommended enough. They’re not hard games to play, but they’re ingenious, clever, relaxing, and can be picked up and put down quickly. Katamari is the game that finally convinced me to buy a PS2 and it was worth it.

As a nerdy white fellow I not only do not possess rhythm, I have anti-rhythm that annihilates rhythm on contact. There are two games that have connected with me though: Guitar Hero and Taiko Drum Master. Both use specialized controls but I got Drum Master on clearance for less than $20. Guitar Hero in particular is incredibly immersive and is a transcendent gaming experience. Presumably the sequel is as well but that came out last month and I’ve had other things to spend money on for the past few weeks.

Beyond Good and Evil is available for other platforms but is well worth mentioning. It’s one of those games that crosses a dozen genres and does it well. Force me to pin one down and I’d say it was an adventure game, but that’s discounting the photo safari, platform action, hovercraft racing, and the rest of the dozens of elements that make this a solid game.

Clocktower 3 is a fairly distinctive adventure game in the horror genre. I usually find horror games to be ineffective since they often only rely on making a monster jump out to provide the scare just before you blast them (or slowly, clumsily turn around and then blast them if you’re playing one of the Resident Evil series). Clocktower 3 is about being stalked by those monsters and you’ll spend more time running and hiding than fighting.

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are must play games. Ico is a clever puzzle game but it’s spiritual sequel Colossus is something different from anything else out there. These games are something that a person needs to experience for themselves but to give you an idea… Think of the greatest, most challenging final boss you’ve faced in a game. Now picture a game that consists of nothing but fighting bosses that great.

If you haven’t played a Tony Hawk game I would recommend getting one of them as well. Even if you don’t like skateboarding, at their heart the Tony Hawk games are about exploring environments and the trick stuff is part of that. It’s worth trying at least once.

As for the Grand Theft Auto 3 series, any are good games to play. The first one is pretty narrowly focused but it plays well. The second, Vice City, branches things out a lot and is a better game for it. San Andreas pushes things too far, in my opinion, adding very poorly designed RPG elements but it does have a huge environment. Liberty City Stories is an upconverted PSP game and both looks like and plays like it; it is a serious step backward in quality. You don’t need to play them in order as the connection between the games is rather thin. If I had to pick one I’d say Vice City has the right balance. One thing I would not advise is getting them all at once because the core gameplay is so similar in each. Get one, play it, and then when you’re thinking about replaying it get another one.

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Leisure Suit Larry: Magna cum Laude? :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, I’ll just second the Metal Gear Solid series. I actually find the entire series have got erstwhile gameplay value, even now, but be sure to get the Substance version of MGS2. (I also recommend playing them in the proper order, to get the right backstory)

Another series you might enjoy is the Final Fantasy series. Classic RPGs and another one just came out, so that should be state-of-the-art, at least for a PS2 (though, of course, it also comes with the state-of-the-art price tag).

Elsewise, Ico, Beyond Good & Evil, God of War 1&2 and Bully are all good buys, though probably still pricy.

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I’ll second Shadow of the Colossus - that game is incredible. The visuals alone make it worthwhile.

Metal Gear Solid 3 is my all time favorite PS2 game. I’ve played through it three or four times. There is just SO MUCH in that game to take in. If you really immerse yourself in it and listen to every codec conversation and watch every cutscene, it really is an experience. The level of detail in the backgrounds and environments is just astounding, the voice acting is great and the graphics are said by many to be the best on the PS2. It’s also awesome to have a Metal Gear Solid game take place in rugged outdoor environments rather than gray industrial-type settings. Definitely worth the money at only 10 bucks used at Gamestop. I just gave my stepbrother this game for Christmas, by the way.

I thinkThe Getaway is also worth getting. This third person driving/shooting game was largely overshadowed by GTA and was not very popular or well-liked, but I think it’s quite underrated. It takes place in London and the whole city is actually recreated for the game, to a surprisingly accurate degree. The graphics are very good for its time, and the story seems cheesy at first but is actually quite absorbing. There are also great cinematic cutscenes to watch. The overall atmosphere of the game is reminiscent of a Guy Ritchie-type British action movie. (This may or may not be your thing.) But I liked it a lot.

12

I don’t mean to be a hijack, but I see a lot of love for this game. I’ve tried it, and frankly, not only do I not like it, but I can’t see anyone liking it. My summary:

  • Little (or long) cut scene to set the action.
  • You’re sent off to kill a colossus
  • Walk or ride around the massive, completely empty world until you find the colossus, using a locater interface that’s about as useful as a jello compass. Continue for increasing lengths of time as the game goes on, eventually a half hour or more at a shot.
  • Find colossus
  • One to two minutes of action, repeated a couple dozen times until you discover the “trick” to killing this particular one.
  • Teleport back to base and repeat.

That appears to be the entire game, although I’ll admit I gave up after four of them. There’s just no game there. Sure the colossus fights are interesting, but there’s all the downtime between them. Did I just not give it long enough?

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It had some problems, but the whole premise is unique enough that I enjoyed the game. I mean, yes, there’s no variety in the gameplay at all, but the way I see it, Colossus can be appreciated as a standalone concept that takes a really interesting idea and develops it into a game.

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For rythmn games I would suggest Amplitude. I think it’s quite rare so ebay may be your best bet.

Resi Evil 4, Metal Gear Solids, Ico, Silent Hill and the Fatal Frames (called Project Zero in Europe?) also get my vote.

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I found all the Final Fantasies from VII onward to be overrated. They look pretty, but have bizarre game mechanics and unsatisfying plots. XII certainly looks awesome, but I don’t know anyone who has it and I can’t go by reviews, because reviewers usually love anything FF. The Xenosaga series is even more so, only with a bunch of philosophical musings added in an attempt to create depth.

For dungeon crawlers, I recommend Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance I and II (no real relation to the PC games) and Champions of Norrath, set in the EverQuest world. You get lots of phat loots and you can customize it too. Dragon Stone is fun but a little shallow.

For strategy, I really like Front Mission 4. You control a squad of Wanzers (mecha) in turn based battles. Between battles you can swap parts and weapons around and upgrade their computers to improve various aspects of performance or add additional tactical options. It’s got a decent if unremarkable story, but I appreciate that the company went to the trouble of doing the localization properly.

Suikoden III is a pretty good RPG. II is supposed to be better, but it’s rare and expensive ($70 on eBay last I checked). The sequels haven’t gotten very good reviews. The major conceit with the Suikoden games is that you experience the story from many different points of view, using what they call the “Stars of Destiny” system - each star being a potential player character. At certain points in the story, you switch to a different group of characters who may be allied with, be opposed to, or have nothing (initially) to do with other characters you have encountered.

Lunar: Silver Star Story and Lunar: Eternal Blue are pretty good too, although I think they might be PS1 games. They run on a PS2 anyway. The Lunar games are pretty old-school mechanicwise, but the story is a riot. Basically, most of your party consists of a bunch of smartass, horny teenagers making ribald comments. They have adventures and stuff too.

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I would also strongly suggest Ico.
This is to date still my favourite PS2 game.
I even kept it while I sold my PS2 and all other games, so I can still play it on the PS3 (if it ever gets released in Europe and I buy it).
I didn’t care that much for Shadow of the Collosus, as it was a bit too difficult and longwinded.

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Most of the problems you have with Colossus are par for the course with most action games: long walk to boss, find and repeat trick for beating boss, back to base, lather, rinse, repeat. For me, part of the joy in the game was the simplified approach it took to the concept.

There’s no crawling through dungeons filled with wee beasties only to find you need to fight more wee beasties to level up enough to kill the boss. You find boss and kill boss. Yeah. The rides to bossland can be a pain, but most games of the type have the long walk to bossland. This one just has less crap to wade through.

There’s no excess blah blah or eye rolling lines. The game gives you just enough clues to keep you interested in the end without tons of chatter or wooden line delivery. Maybe it’s because I played this shortly after playing Ultimate Spider Man, but the near silence of the game was blissful.

And above all, the game is simply amazing visually. I’d get caught up gaping at the ground when I was on the flying bosses.

Shadow of the Colossus is the perfect example of the action game concept without all of the filler. If you can find it cheap or rent it, I’d say give it another chance.

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This sentence describes the Burnout series so well, I think you might have had them in mind when you wrote this. On the off chance you haven’t heard of them yet, I will say it: Burnout 3 is a spectacular game, and received tons of praise from critics and casual gamers alike. I’ve only played the XBox version myself, but it should be good on PS2 as well. It’s a great party game as well.

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Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is probably one of the best looking games for a home system. It’s an action enviornment game with elements of the GTA series.

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Nobody mentioned the Tomb Raider? Maybe that’s because it’s on the PC, too. Anyway, Tomb Raider: Legend was fun.

Don’t forget original Playstations games work on the PS2. You can get those for a song.