The Best PS2 games – The PlayStation 2 titles that changed the world of gaming forever; best sellers and more

Sony’s PlayStation 2 could have been a difficult second album moment for the now-gaming giant. Having achieved enormous success with… Continue reading The Best PS2 games – The PlayStation 2 titles that changed the world of gaming forever; best sellers and more

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Sony’s PlayStation 2 could have been a difficult second album moment for the now-gaming giant. Having achieved enormous success with the original PlayStation and having seen off Sega’s Saturn challenger, the second console from the company needed to be good. The fact that it was so good laid the platform for the console dominance we still see today, creating brand loyalty and a user base in the hundreds of millions.

I was fortunate enough to be present at the Tokyo Game Show in September 1999 when Sony unveiled the machine for the first time. After the small grey box of the PlayStation, we were suddenly confronted by this industrial-looking block of black plastic that raised more than a few eyebrows on the day.

Of course, as future PlayStation iterations would also get, there were slimmer models further down the line, but at that moment in the Makuhari Messe Convention Center in Chiba, nobody really grasped what a game-changing moment this was.

The inclusion of a DVD drive certainly helped place the console under many a TV at the time, but the ever-expanding game library, featuring greats for pretty much every taste ultimately cemented the PS2’s place as the best-selling console of all time, shifting some 155 million units during it’s lifespan.

The console itself was to continue being manufactured until January 2013, an astonishing 13-year stretch and if you never got around to owning one, you owe it to yourself to pick up a piece of history on eBay or somewhere.

Here we are going to look at a smattering of truly amazing games for the PS2. We won’t ever manage to cover them all, but we will take a cross-genre look at some of the classics that you absolutely still need to play. And if you don’t have a PS2 handy and don’t want to go through the mess of getting one to work these days on your fancy flat-screen TV, then certainly check out the great work that is being done on the PCSX2 PlayStation Emulator, which you can read all about here.

Best PlayStation 2 games – a curated selection of classics

Where to start, where to start. Further down the page, you will find a list of the top ten best-selling PS2 games of all time and while you will see some expected names in there, it doesn’t leave much room for some of the other classics the system is responsible for.

There is no point in just chonking out an unsubstantiated top 25 list or something like that. So let’s look at some true classics, one or two leftfield choices, and basically games that, if you want to get into PS2, you should have on your list.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

 

GTA SA’s massive map and utilization of the new hardware capabilities under its feet gave Rockstar all the tools to take Grand Theft Auto further than it ever could before. Sure a little bit of controversy over the Hot Coffee minigame causing it to be yanked from the shelves in some countries, even though it wasn’t actually playable without modding the game first. Over 17 million bought the game, and we’d imagine a fair few of those did mod it though!

Shadow of the Colossus

This is one of those games that is probably one of my favorite games ever, but also one that I would accidentally leave out of my top 10 list. In all honesty, it’s better playing it today on a souped-up PC running PCSX2 because back in the day, even the PS2 struggled to run this amazing game properly. It couldn’t be further away from the tawdry nature of the Hot Coffee mod above, but damn it’s an amazing experience.

SSX Tricky

If you have read any of my previous PS2 stuff you will know I still play SSX Tricky several times a week. I love it, always have, and always will. The snowboarding game from EA Sports BIG spin-off label is literally the perfect blend of arcade racer and mid-air trick-pulling. It is a sports game masterpiece from start to finish.

Burnout 3: Takedown

While most car games encouraged you to avoid crashing, along came Burnout 3 and said, nope, today we are going to crash cars. And crash them you did. Into everything. Running opponents off the road to win a race or just causing mayhem at a Crash Junction there is a reason Burnout 3: Takedown is still ranked as one of the most run arcade race games of all time. Not much has ever even come close to how good it is.

God of War

 

It seems obvious now but Kratos and God of War were always destined to become a system seller for Sony. The music, oh man the music, and the uninterrupted sheer violence of the game made God of War at the time feel more like videogame art. The tech inside the PS2 and five years of development practice for Sony’s Santa Monica studio all aligned to deliver this phenomenal experience.

ICO

Ico is another game the uninitiated could easily overlook for a Metal Gear Solid or GTA but this beautiful single-player extravaganza is among the best games of all time in my opinion. A heady mix of puzzles, fighting, and platforming might not sound that original but the way it plays is just beautiful. A must-try.

Final Fantasy X

If Final Fantasy VII was one of the games that made the original PlayStation so great, then 10 carries the same torch for the PS2. The power of the new PlayStation gave us a 3D we could fully explore for the first time in the series and the storytelling, combined with the tech make this one of the best FFs of all time,

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

 

One of those games with a silly name that has somehow managed to transcend into a household name, Metal Gear Solid 3 managed to re-introduce and improve its predecessor’s stealth mechanics and still sits out there as one of the best examples of the genre to date.

The Others

There are literally hundreds of other games we could have mentioned here. Devil May Cry, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil 4 all deserve honorable mentions, and don’t forget Tony Hawk’s Underground and Jak Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal. There are also obscure Japanese games like the horse-racing title Gallop Racer that are always worth a look for some niche experiences.

The Best-selling PS2 games of all time

Game Title	Sales (million)	Release Date
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas	17.33 million	October 26, 2004
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec	14.89 million	April 28, 2001
Gran Turismo 4	11.76 million	December 28, 2004
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City	10.5 million	October 27, 2002
Final Fantasy X	8.5 million	July 19, 2001
Grand Theft Auto III	8.305 million	October 22, 2001
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty	7.03 million	November 12, 2001
Tekken 5	6 million	March 31, 2005
Final Fantasy XII	6 million	March 16, 2006
Kingdom Hearts	5.9 million	March 28, 2002

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