Your game that DEFINED the ps2?

[Foxymophandlemama]

I always found it neat how some countries that was just the way it was lol. Just curious if you remember if you had a chipped ps2, or something like swap magic. I remember starting with swap magic I’m pretty sure, then an exploit came out that would let you start ulaunchELF with a ps1 game inserted. By that time I bought a network adapter just to be able to load games from the hard drive. Then my final ps2 upgrade was freeMcBoot.

I’m sure some people have experienced this: downloading an entire game library and just kinda jumping around. Well, for the time ps2 games size/internet speeds/hdd prices made it where you didnt really do that. It was so awesome being able to rent a ps2 game and rip it to your drive.

I think mine was chipped, it shows a "Matrix" logo when turning it on, everyone else's was like that, but never looked into that. I used to buy my games in this little store in my city that was wall to wall with pirated games, like bootleg San Andreas called Rio de Janeiro and Guitar Hero with brazilian songs, it was awesome and cheap.
I think the only time I saw a original PS2 game in person was in 2012. By the time that the PS2 got popular here rental stores like Blockbuster were dying (the one I used to rent N64 games from had already closed) and it was cheaper and easier to just buy from bootleggers. Ah, good times.

 

[tool]

ATV Offroad Fury 2. Best soundtrack and great racing game.

 

[thisisnotmymain]

Jak and Daxter and Lego: Star Wars

 

[CreamyHerman’s]

Black for me, classy game

 

[Dojima's Dragon]

ATV Offroad Fury 2. Best soundtrack and great racing game.

Want to ask something i recall there was atv game that had a neon lit skateboard ramp but for atvs

 

[Pillar of Autism]

Sly trilogy, Tony Hawk's Underground, Star Wars Battlefront 2, GTA Vice City, MGS 2, Okami.

 

[Wormy]

Tough call. It was ALMOST Silent Hill 2, but in the end...

This is still the best pound for pound hack n slash I've ever played.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Dynasty Warriors 2. At the time, I had never seen a game that did the 3D fighting horde game before. Then the games steadily added more RPGish features and created this giant rabbit hole for me.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Final Fantasy X. It's a top 5 (3?) JRPG, and the best Final Fantasy.

Gotta give an honorable mention to Metal Gear Solid 2 and Kingdom Hearts (and dozens of other fantastic games tbh).

 

[Vlinny-kun]

Ace Combat motherfucking 4. The first time I played that game I had legitimately never experienced a story that impactful before. That, the art direction, and the music were beautiful and just starting up the game still gives me chills down my spine. And it paired that shit with cool jet dogfights. I must have spent hundreds of hours just on multiplayer playing with my siblings. It's one of my favorite games of all time.

That, and a shit ton of sports games that my dad got for us because he doesn't know what a "video game" is. There's this one fishing game that I remember dumping a few hours into every now and then that I can't remember the name of. I thought that was pretty neat at the time. Seems like the PS2 was the mecca for sports games compared to other consoles afaik.

 

[Solid Snek]

Nothing like it before, nothing like it ever since:
View attachment 2756374
You had to be a weeb to truly appreciate it, but even non-weebs that never watched Gigantor could appreciate kids having a remote control to a 12 story robot, and actually controlling the kid. Story mode was great and changed based on what buildings and businesses were destroyed as you progressed, and the multiplayer was suprisingly deep; if your giant monster was losing against the other giant monster, you could win by just crushing the kid controlling the other giant monster(IF you could see and hit them). The facts that you had to actually find a vantage point to see the battles and the controls were clunky were so SOULFUL though. Your analog sticks moved the fists and you had to swing them in smooth arcs, and the steps were an awful rhythm with the shoulder triggers but goddamn did it feel good when you moved how you wanted and made it look good. The fact that the robots transformed was just icing on the cake.

This game is so underrated, I especially like how some of the female racers are wearing thongs and it's groovy techno soundtrack.


Never played more than a demo, which I regret, but this was one of those games that never showed up on the shelves of Blockbuster and didn't review well enough to seem worth buying, which of course I deeply regret, but I was a teenager, so what are you gonna do...

It says it all that the PS2 had so many games that didn't review great, but were still fucking awesome if you could look past some flaws, a lot more creativity than you see today.

I also liked how RAD had very 90s looking anime characters despite coming out in 2002, it's nice to remember how 90s the early 2000s still were.

OH FUCK, THANK YOU TWO. I've been looking for this game for decades!!!

Like Dom, I only ever played a store demo. But I thought the idea of having a stompy robot game where you could actually walk around real-world style cities and destroy the fuck out of buildings was brilliant; like King of the Monsters, but in 3D.

Dunno if the game's actually good or not, but just finding the name after all these years is enough for me.

 

[Broseph]

I would go with:
Kingdom Hearts (I was a huge FF/KH sperg back in high school so those games were pretty much synonymous with my life back then)
MGS 3
Silent Hill 2/3
Timesplitters 2
X-Men Legends (really wish they still made video games like this nowadays)
Dragon Quest VIII
Tony Hawks Underground (the peak of the series)
GTA Vice City/San Andreas
DBZ Budokai Trilogy (These games may not have been that great but I have very fond memories playing these games with friends in my teen years)

 

[Dom Cruise]

Tough call. It was ALMOST Silent Hill 2, but in the end...

This is still the best pound for pound hack n slash I've ever played.

It's almost criminal how unknown this game is, I'm shocked to see anyone mention it since it seems like almost no one knows this game.

Unfortunately it does have one major flaw and that's the stealth sequences are pretty bad despite the environments being interesting, but the gladiator sequences are great, it just sucks how unknown the game is, so badly overshadowed by coming out around the same time as RE4 and later DMC3 also from Capcom.

Ace Combat motherfucking 4. The first time I played that game I had legitimately never experienced a story that impactful before. That, the art direction, and the music were beautiful and just starting up the game still gives me chills down my spine. And it paired that shit with cool jet dogfights. I must have spent hundreds of hours just on multiplayer playing with my siblings. It's one of my favorite games of all time.

That, and a shit ton of sports games that my dad got for us because he doesn't know what a "video game" is. There's this one fishing game that I remember dumping a few hours into every now and then that I can't remember the name of. I thought that was pretty neat at the time. Seems like the PS2 was the mecca for sports games compared to other consoles afaik.

Ace Combat 4 also really blew me away with it's story, I was expecting the game to be some generic military affair so imagine my surprise to suddenly see those beautiful watercolor cutscenes.

Although it confused me how it was set in some weird alternate world, I was still very impressed.

 

[Soycast Guy]

MGS 2/3

Silent Hill 2/3

Final Fantasy X

Devil May Cry 3

Resident Evil: Code Veronica

 

[SITHRAK!]

Armored Core 2, Kengo: Master of Bushido, and Fight Club.

And before you judge me for that last one, it did let you viciously beat the shit out of Fred Durst.

 

[Anon88]

Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Katamari Damacy
Code Veronica

 

[Mongo0o]

It would have to be San Andreas, even though it was only exclusive for about a year. Roll up an old CRTV and bask in that orange sunlight that was removed from later ports. Also, everyone who played it stashed their weed in the network adapter slot. Everyone

 

[Dom Cruise]

Silent Hill 2 defines the artistic heights and the wave of survival horror games on the console.

Metal Gear Solid 2 defines peak Kojima era.

Jak and Daxter and God of War define what Sony was doing on the PS2.

Katamari Damacy defines the wave of experimental Japanese games on the PS2.

Ace Combat 4 defines the seemingly typical games being done with more interesting twists on the PS2.

And FFX defines the PS2 era of JRPGs.

And finally San Andreas defines the technical heights of the PS2 as well as it's ubiquity, that game was absolutely everywhere.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Tony Hawks Underground probably nails half the tropes of early 2000s hedonism, complete with obscure trip-hop.

BULLY gets an honorable mention, it was probably the last goofy game Rockstar released that wasn't GTA. The last goofy game they ever put out.

Jak trilogy, these just keep hammering the early 2000-isms, if not to a painfully cheesy degree now.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Tony Hawks Underground probably nails half the tropes of early 2000s hedonism, complete with obscure trip-hop.

How did we go from the hedonistic young people of the early 2000s to the commies of 20 years later? I remember when being young was synonymous with caring about nothing but getting drunk, getting high and getting your dick wet.

Jak trilogy, these just keep hammering the early 2000-isms, if not to a painfully cheesy degree now.

Including female characters with big boobs and bared midriffs, it's amazing how much sexy females were such an ingrained, unquestioned part of 2000s culture they even popped up in ostensibly kid's games.

But beyond that, the first game was all about a tropical/Asian aesthetic, as was big in the late 90s and early 2000s and then the sequels were all about "dark and gritty" as was the style at the time.