If you like platformers, especially ones with a sense of humor, I’ll have to strongly recommend Psychonauts. It’s the best game that no one played. Seriously one of the best games of that generation of consoles.
I don’t misremember anything. Take a look at Gamespot and look at those screenshots for yourself. Brown dirt roads, washed out gray buildings, and although there are some blue skies in those pictures, when I played the game the sky seemed to be gray most of the time. If you liked the game, fine. All I’m saying is I didn’t care for the environments. I found them to be monotonous.
If you have fond memories of Sega Genesis, you can get all the Sonic games on one PS2 disc. It’s the Sonic Mega Collection Plus.
Guitar Hero is super fun! Very addictive. I sucked at real guitar so it’s fun to be able to rock out.
I loved Tony Hawk’s Underground. It has an actual story to it so it made it more of a compulsion for me to finish, which I actually did. I’m not much of a gamer.
Madden is always fun. I had 2003 when the Rams were the team on the box (I’m from St. Louis) and I always used them because Marshall Faulk was FAST. Never let Kurt Warner run.
I wish I hadn’t sold my PS2 when I was broke freshman year. I only had a few games but it was fun to play when I was bored. I sold it to the girl who always kicked my ass at Tony Hawk 4. That girl knew how to combo! I’d love to be able to play Guitar Hero whenever I want.
Eh, I didn’t like it all that much. It was the wrong flavor of weird for me.
Well, nobody on a PS2, certainly. It was an XBox game.
Final Fantasy XII is the best video game I’ve ever played, with World of Warcraft coming a close second. I’ve been playing since I was 3 on the TI knock off of the Atari.
I get bored/frustrated with other FF games quickly because of the CONSTANT random battles which is not a problem with XII. FFXII is everything I’ve ever wanted an FF game to be. And, as an added bonus, no whiny giggly girl characters, at least, at 50 hours in, not yet.
There is a PS2 version; I saw it just today while I was out looking for bargain games.
Well, son of a gun, there is. My bad.
Does the license board feel like it’s organized in a logical progression, or does it seem like you have to unlock a bunch of random stuff to get to the things you want? Do skills and things you learn early on still have any use later in the game? Does it have the ridiculous mechanic of changing your clothes to change your skills? (I’m guessing no, but I want to be sure.) Does the complexity lead to interesting strategies, or is it just complex for the sake of being complex?
Dropping in here to recommend the Ace Combat series (Ace Combat 04 has absolutely amazing music, including a choir/orchestral arrangement of the Agnus Dei liturgy). While the plot is fairly shallow, at least in AC04, the atmosphere of the game is very immersive, with radio chatter giving updates to what’s going on, including one mission, with a massive air battle over an occupied city, which includes an ongoing radio newscast covering the battle in and over the city.
I’d call it pretty well organized, but then I take the slow and steady strategy towards rpgs. I had the board maxed pretty early. There’s no random stuff to unlock or wardrobe changes to worry about.
That said I don’t think it works as well as the system in Final Fantasy X. You can specialize your character if you want, but it’s the same board for each character so they wind up almost exactly the same in abilites. It’s handy as far as switching characters in and out goes, but I miss having different parties for different things or having to figure out how to get my fighter to learn Holy.
It’s still a pretty badass game though. The combat and gambit systems are a great improvement over the old random encounter system. There’s a good amount of non-plot stuff (marks, hidden espers, finding the uber-weapons) to keep you busy beyond the last boss. I’m at 100+ hours and I’ve still got a couple of things to wrap up yet. It’s a pretty damned impressive game overall. I’m not ready to call it the best of the series. The story is only okay and the voice acting is kind of wooden at times, but the gameplay makes up for it in spades. It’s a good game even if you aren’t a fan of the series.
Oh, and also, check out the later Burnout games, particularly Burnout 3 and Burnout Revenge. Street racing games where you get points for wrecking your opponents’ cars (and extra points if you do so in unusual ways, like knocking them into city busses or sending them hurdling into a lake). There’s also a “Crash” mode where you get points for how big of a car wreck you can cause, which can be highly entertaining.
I second Final Fantasy XII. I’m 40 hours into it and it’s definitely my favorite so far. (I have played XIII, X, and X-2.) The license board is a dramatic improvement over the sphere grid, in my opinion, because you can’t screw it up or miss something important. The battle system is some kind of crazy stellar mix between hack-and-slash and turn-based… you can line up all your Gambits AND you can override them at any time and seamlessly interact with your targets. My husband’s addicted too, and he’s been less than impressed with recent FFs. The way he puts it, “It’s all the best parts of FF without all the annoying parts.”
In regards to strategy, I think a huge part of FF strategy is the Gambit system, and the more gambit slots you acquire, the more complex your strategy can (and must) become. I really just had to say I think the game is brilliant. I don’t have as long a history with FF as some folks do, but I have enough experience with RPGs to tell you it’s one of the best.
Oh, and cuz I forgot… Silent Hill 2. Assuming you don’t mind having the Sh** scared out of you.
[QUOTE=TimeWinder]
I don’t mean to be a hijack, but I see a lot of love for this game (edit: Shadow of the Colossus). I’ve tried it, and frankly, not only do I not like it, but I can’t see anyone liking it. QUOTE]
I’ll also add on - I tried playing Shadow of the Colossus. Promptly got extremely motion-sick after about 15 minutes of playing and tossed the towel in. 
(for the uninitated, you should know that I get this way if it’s a FPS, which is why I’ve avoided FPS games. shudder)
Folks have already mentioned my favorites, which are FFX, Okami, Ratchet & Clank (although I’d avoid #4, personally, as it seems to be more of a multiplayer than a solo), Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 (the release of which I waited for for THREE YEARS)… OOH. Psychonauts! That one rocked my socks.
A bust buy would be FFX-2. Dear good gods below. That was the definition of fanservice, IMHO. I’ve tried playing through it a couple times, and both times, quit in disgust.
Oop. Doubleposting to say that I forgot another thing: Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. heart I have yet to try out Twilight Princess, though, so we’ll see how my opinion changes.
Ummm… The OP is looking for best PS2 games. A Nintendo-64 game suggestion is pretty useless. Hell, I’ll even grant that it was re-released in an amped-up form for Gamecube, but still, the OP isn’t looking for Nintendo games. From what I’ve seen and heard (which, granted, isn’t all that much) LoZ:TP isn’t going to surprise people much. While the Wii version has the interesting new control interface, outside of that it’s pretty standard fare for modern (post 16-bit) Zelda games (at least, as far as gameplay goes).
Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten a chance to hook up and play the Wii I got for my birthday (Nov. 18th). 
:smack: :smack: :smack:
I will read the post carefully and think twice before posting.
I will read the post carefully and think twice before posting.
I will read the post carefully and think twice before posting.