1-15: WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain
All day.
1-15: WWE SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain
All day.
The system had tons of great games, too many to count, and there's still loads out there I've not even heard of yet. Awesome machine.
My top 15 (in no given order)
Silent Hill 3
Grand Theft Auto Vice City
Zone of the Enders
Zone of the Enders 2: Second Runner
Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3
Hitman Blood Money (all round best game to date in the series)
Legacy of Kain Defiance
The Warriors (criminally underrated classic)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Hitman Contracts (has the best missions)
Bully
Super Dragon Ball Z (another overlooked classic)
Final Fantasy X*
Silent Hill 2
Marvel vs Capcom 2
* I'm sure there are better RPGs on the system, but this was the first I played, so it gets bonus points for that. Also, from what I remember (not loaded the disc up in years...should change that), the game was awesome anyway.
Ok then I'll give my top 15 a go, in no particular order:
- Super Monkey Ball Deluxe
- The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match
- Metal Slug 3
- Gradius V
- Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus
- R-Type Final (gets a lot of hate over on Shmups due to the slowdown and some empty level design, still love it tho)
- Do Donpachi Daioujou
- Fate: Unlimited Codes (you know 3D fighters that play 2D like Rival Schools etc - this is by far the best IMO)
- Melty Blood Actress Again
- Capcom Vs SNK 2
- Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution (IMO the best VF there is)
- Vampire Collection
- ESPGaluda
- Garou Battle Archives Volume 2
- the Taito Legends/Memories collections
So yeah. lotta 2D stuff in there, and being a Neo Geo fan the PS2 was, along with the Dreamcast, the first time there was enough RAM to do the ports justice. Apart from forcing 480i on some games, most of them are pretty spot on.
It's also a fine shmup machine (although the J360 trumps it IMO), with Arika turning in accurate ports of Do Donpachi Daioujou and ESPGaluda to name just two.
The PS2 certainly has something for everyone, and the arcade/2D fan is extremely well catered for. Perhaps more so than ever before.
I can't really say... but I'll name some favorite in no particular order... (keep in mind some of these were released on more than just the PS2, but it's the only 6th Generation console I had at the time)
1. Time Splitters 2
2. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
3. Mercenaries
4. Burnout Revenge
5. Bully
The PS2 is one of the worst consoles ever based purely on my opinion, and is almost certainly be the system I dislike the most... but it also has a massive library, including some really good games. So, here's my list of 16 PS2 games I quite like, plus a bunch of honorable mentions that are also good.
1. Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast - An absolutely incredibly fun racing game, Outrun 2006 is a must-play on some platform. I happened to get it first for the PS2 so it's the version I've played the most. This well deserves its #1 spot, and it's one of the best racing games of the generation as well.
2. Ico - Fantastic platformer that deserves the accolades it gets.
3. Metal Slug Anthology - Metal Slug is amazing! The ports aren't perfect, but they are good enough.
4. Maximo: Ghosts to Glory - An awesome 3d platformer that is often under-rated.
5. Gradius V - One of the all-time-great shmups.
6. Final Fantasy XII - Probably my favorite Final Fantasy game ever.
7. The King of Fighters ’02/’03 - '02 might be the best KOF game, and I at least really love '03 as well.
8. The King of Fighters XI - The last KOF game with the Neo-Geo era sprites (though it's an Atomiswave arcade game) is really great as well. Huge roster, fantastic gameplay!
9. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy - The first Jak game is a very good 3d platformer. Too bad about the genre change in the sequels...
10. Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest - I love Gauntlet, and like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. This is like that latter game, and is about as good.
11. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King - A pretty good classic JRPG.
12. Unlimited SaGa - I know everyone hates this game, but all that hate made me want to try it, and I like it. This game REQUIRES playing with a guide, but there is a good game there beneath the confusion.
13. WipEout Fusion - A fantastic futuristic racing game! This game seems a bit overlooked compared to its predecessors, but it's really good as well.
14. Rogue Galaxy - I was quite surprised when I played this one with how great it is... but it is great. This is a very good action-RPG, play it.
15. Shining Force Neo - This action-RPG is more Diablo-esque. It's from the developer of the Lodoss War game for Dreamcast and plays like that one. Pretty good game.
16. Okami - Okami doesn't have as good pacing as a Zelda game, but as a huge Zelda fan I had to play this, and it is indeed really good.
Honorable Mentions: Primal, The King of Fighters 2006, Kinetica, Grand Theft Auto III, Chaos Wars, Soulcalibur III, Kya: Dark Lineage, Samurai Shodown Anthology, The King of Fighters ’98: Ultimate Match, Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, Jet X2O, Tribes: Aerial Assault, Stuntman, Nightshade, World Heroes Anthology, Haven: Call of the King, Sly Cooper and the Thevius Raccoonus, Gradius III and IV, Dark Cloud, Tenchu: Fatal Shadows, Taito Legends 2, Champions: Return to Arms, Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity, Shadow Hearts, The Mark of Kri
Generally when getting PS2 games I try to stick to games not available on the GC, Xbox, or PC, but obviously sometimes I get multiplatform games, often because PS2 versions are usually MUCH cheaper than other versions... so yeah, I have Okami and Metal Slug Anthology for PS2 and not Wii, and Outrun 2006 for PS2 (and also PSP and PC now), but not Xbox.
Oh yeah, and yes, my #1 favorite PS2 game, and also #14, along with my #s 5 and 9 favorite Gamecube games and my numbers 1, 4, 6, and 14 favorite Xbox games are all by Sega. Post-Dreamcast Sega was still pretty great for a little while...
Maximo is a Capcom game.
^Lmao. Rep given.
The PS2 is not even my favorite console. But if there is one game console you just can't shit on is the PS2. It simply has the biggest game library of any system EVER MADE! If you have a genre you prefer, IT WILL HAVE IT.
I seem to remember shutting down this comp in disgust - the PAL version anyway - as it seemed to skip frames and was letterboxed IIRC. Not sure about the NTSC one. But if you like MS you'd probably be better off with the individual releases which cover 3-6 at least. Apart from the 480i thing they appear to be very accurate, and have bonus content not present in the Anthology.
The only US release of Metal Slug 3 on its own is on Xbox, and they messed it up by having continues start you back from the beginning of the level, instead of where you died. This makes level 5 nearly impossible; I've never managed to finish it because that last level is very long and even with 2 players, only 5 lives each is NOT enough for all that. The PS2 version as not released here because SCEA didn't allow SNK to release single Neo-Geo ports here -- too old graphics, and such. It's really too bad, because Xbox MS3 is a great game -- it looks and plays great, and there are apparently some unlockable extra modes if you can beat the game, so of course I'll never see them. Bah. There isn't one of those Mission School modes though, unfortunately.
Metal Slug 4 + 5 did get a US PS2 release as well as Xbox, but those are pretty much cartridge ports with maybe CD audio added, as far as I know. Not too much of a difference there between those and the Metal Slug Anthology versions...
And Metal Slug 6 was only released in the US in the Metal Slug Anthology collection. Oh, and between the Wii and PS2 versions, I got the PS2 because the Wii version has hit-flash removed, presumably for anti-epilepsy reasons. I'm sure that makes fighting the bosses a real pain, so PS2 version it is; the game has hit-flash on PS2.
As for the picture, I don't think it's letterboxed in NTSC, though I could check that. I don't know if it skips frames, though, and are the individual releases actually different there?
? Yes it is, and a very good one. Both Maximo games really impressed me, hard or no. It's awful that after the second game the studio was shut down, that series really should have continued! Maximo doesn't have teh PS2's best graphics, but it does have some of the best gameplay.
On that note, one strength of the PS2 for me is that it has some of the generation's best 3d platformers, and that is important for me since I like that genre. Two Maximo games, three Sly Cooper games, four Jak games, Kya, and more, all as exclusives... while thanks to their really dumb decision to sell Rare, the GC has very few exclusive 3d platformers apart from the good but somewhat disappointing Mario Sunshine. Xbox-exclusive 3d platformers like Voodoo Vince or the Blinx games aren't exactly the best either.
You know what they say about "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"? Sure it outdoes the N64 by a lot, of course, but compared to the other consoles of its generation, the biggest problem with the PS2, in terms of graphics, is its terrible, super-jaggy image quality problems. The PS2 can put a lot of polygons on screen, as many as the GC or Xbox, and can do the most particle effects of any system that generation I believe, and such... but with hideously bad image quality for the time, it's often hard to see any of that behind the ugly picture. That kind of thing is excusable in a 5th-gen console, but none of the other 6th-gen systems have issues like the PS2 does! The DC may only be able to do like 1/8th the number of polygons as the PS2, but at least they look sharp and clear, while on PS2 that is uncommon. You get used to it after a while, but if you go back and forth between the PS2 and other 6th-gen or newer systems, it's noticeable.