INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The PlayStation 2 sold over 150 million units, making it the most successful home console ever
It's been 20 years since the PS2 first launched in Japan on March 4, 2000
The console easily dominated its competitors with the size of its software library, and it got a huge boost from the fact that it was also
some of our favorite games of the console's long lifespan
GTA 3, the series' first PS2 entry, was absurdly ambitious: it translated the same mechanics of car theft, gunfights and exploring an entire
city into 3D without sacrificing anything
Its New York-inspired Liberty City setting was unprecedented in detail, from the authentic sound design as you walk the streets to the
variety of NPCs found in the world
It had an entire selection of radio stations that you could tune in to
Without it, the last 20 years of games would've been very different
Subsequent entries Vice City and San Andreas upped the scale and detail of the world, adding licensed music to the radio stations and
What a coup, looking back, that the PS2 had this first 3D game exclusively for a year before Xbox owners got their turn
This competition consumed us, turned us against each other, and enraged anyone who wasn't involved
chunk of its mechanics from a Run-DMC track is going to sit well in a hall of fame
Tricky was the peak of the SSX series, with oh so-simple-controls and incredibly satisfying snowboarding
There's nothing quite like maxing out your Tricky meter with some sweet showboating Uber moves, or the crushing realization that you've
note: we did it, and it was historic)
in theaters kicked off a lifelong love of superhero comics and movie, as I'm sure it did for a lot of people, and somehow there was a great
tie-in game to go with it
Treyarch's Spider-Man 2 took Peter Parker into the open world genre, and while every level that took you indoors was pretty bad,
patrolling the city as Spidey never lost its appeal.Players' patience might've been tested by the rote open world sidequests, like fetching
balloons for kids, but Treyarch nailed the web-swinging through a convincingly rendered New York City
The PS4's Spider-Man game is essentially a spiritual successor to this 2004 classic
formula by furthering nonsensical lore that made the series impenetrable, despite the fact that the series features popular Disney
The first entry in this action RPG series, though, was far simpler
Journeying between Disney worlds with Donald Duck and Goofy in your Lego-style spaceship, you played as Sora, a boy swept far from his home
to take on villains from the films
characters into the story that made the game slightly harder to enjoy
The series' issues escalated from there, but the fact that people are still invested in these games almost two decades later demonstrates
developer at the now-defunct Team Ico, marked a lot of players' first encounter with games that infused their stories with genuinely
protect a mysterious girl, Yorda, from shadowy figures
Their world-building is incredible, inviting you to speculate about what led to the scenarios in each game, and how they ultimately connect
They've both aged incredibly well, and Shadow of the Colossus is available on PS4, too
Hill laid the survival horror series' uncanny foundations, but it was Silent Hill 2 that gave mesleepless nights thanks to its powerful,
Pyramid Head, dragging his Great Knife, was one of the most chilling antagonists to grace the PS2, but nothing in Silent Hill 2 was simply
assemble a picture of rage, guilt and fear
A gut-wrenching masterpiece that few titles since have matched
franchise, but one exception is the original Battlefront games, particularly number two
The battles were pure mayhem, with spaceships, tanks and laser beams flying all over the place, and it was the same kind of fun that draws
amount of fun, bringing some level of strategy to the shooting (which is great for someone who prefers tactical-style shooters)
Having two people spend hours on a push-and-pull campaign like that was a viable alternative to a proper story mode
impressive game for its time, but it was its ultra-violent follow-up, God of War 2, which really blew my mind
Arriving in 2007, an incredible seven years after the PS2 launched, the sheer scale of the game made me stare at my aging console in
The player was dropped right into the thick of the action, and the cinematic battle with the giant statue left many of us wondering what
kind of witchcraft had been performed to get this game running on seven-year old technology.By that point the PS2 had already secured its
reputation as the best games console ever made, so the fact that it was able to put out a game of this quality in its remaining years is a
real testament to just how good the PS2 was
in the '60s where the dense lore of the series couldn't really hurt it
the developers to give Metal Gear's stealth systems an overhaul, letting you wear camouflage to avoid being spotted by enemies
absolute gut punch of an ending, this was one of the PS2's best games, even if it never generated the hype that its predecessor did
2009's Persona 4, a continuation of the Atlus-developed RPG series that combines combat-filled dungeons with life sim-style narrative
4 on PSN via the PS3, if you've got one of those kicking around
But the PS Vita version is probably the way to go these days
entries 7, 8 and 9, but the PS2 era was probably more significant in retrospect
Each of the three mainline entries were wildly different from one another: Final Fantasy 10 introduced voice acting and kept the turn-based
combat from past entries, FF11 was a full-blown MMO and FF12 was a complex RPG that asked you to program your party members to do the
fighting for you.On PS2, we also saw the series' first direct sequel in Final Fantasy 10-2, which marked a turning point for the number of
spin-offs we'd see based on past entries in the future
