Game Suggestions for PS2

[Samael Barghest]

Thank you for all the recommendations so far! Fine, fine, I'll be on the lookout for Persona 4 . Anything else you feel is must-play, please do tell!

Also, not one for long, drawn-out cutscenes, but you already have MGS2 and MGS3? I think that qualfies as a paradox.

I've not got that far in MGS2 (the only cutscene so far has been a flash-forward after the intro level?) so I can't speak as to the cutsceneness of it. The only thing that has burrowed into my head so far is "snake? Snake? SNAKE?!!!"
But since everyone was going on about MGS3, and I wasn't aware of its reputation before, I got it. Lets see!

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory - regarded as the best of the Splinter Cell series. If you like MGS, chances are you'll like this.

Killer 7 - a bizarre game that should be experienced by everyone. I blew less than $8 on it, so even if you don't like it it's not too much of a loss.

Any Worms game. Be warned; Worms: Forts Under Siege tends to crash my console for some reason.

Spiderman 2

Ghost Recon - a fun bare-bones tactical FPS. Very atmospheric and I still find myself playing it

Need For Speed - these tend to be fun enough.

I've heard of Splinter Cell, was planning on getting it on the PC, but if you say the PS2 version is better, I'll keep a look out for it!
I played some Worms on the PC as well, not really a fan (I prefer the real-time hectic mess in stuff like Liero instead).
I remember hearing how Spiderman 2 was better for the PS2 than the PC. I'll keep an eye out!
I actually have one of the Need for Speeds (Pro Street, I think?), but I didn't think they were great enough to deserve a mention. I'll make sure to check it out properly. I'm not much of a racing gamer...my history is basically just Lotus 3->4D Sports Racing->Carmageddon 2.

Wild arms 2-4 are all great games. They are a bit different than your standard JRPG, in that the setting is a scifi western. Final Fantasy 12 or Legend of Dragoon are also pretty good in my opinion. Grandia 2 was pretty good too.

Is Final Fantasy XII mechanically much different from X? Because I really didn't much care for it.

True Crimes: Streets of LA. You're a Chinese cop taking down Russians, Koreans, and other Chinese. That's pretty cultural.

There's also a sequel but since you want culture, I can't recommend True Crime: NYC.

I've played Sleeping Dogs on the PC, which was supposed to be something of a sequel that then wasn't a sequel. Is it anything similar? I enjoyed Sleeping Dogs for a bit, but in the end it really became drudgery.

GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas. I'm not sure why the DLC/expansions are on your list, but not these.

All the Ratchet and Clank games as they are beyond amazing.

Resident Evil 4. If you buy any games for your PS2, let it be these.

Because I've played Vice City and San Andreas on the PC (and enjoyed them to a degree), but the -Stories games were PS2 exclusives. Which Ratchet & Clank is the best ? I've got the first already, if it was a choice between that or another, which would you go for?
I played RE2 (or maybe it was 1?) on the PC with an emulator, and enjoyed it in a tension-building, zombie-creeping terror BLAM-BLAM-BLAM sort of way, and vaguely remember watching a friend play a sequel (all I remember is constant load times with doors) on some console. Which RE would you suggest? It is my understanding they went downhill at some point.

You know, owning a PS2 opens you up to much more than just pS2 games. The Playstation 2 is backwards compatible, so you can also play some of the PS1 games as well.

I have a couple PS1 games I play emulated on the PC (PS2 emulation, or maybe just my PC doesn't seem up to snuff yet)- I had Final Fantasy VII (which I am given to understand is one of the peaks of the post-SNES series), but all I remember from it is unnecessarily long combat animation sequences (that still counted towards the countdown clock at the start), and some train and hideout level after. Aside from that, I think I have Tekken 3 somewhere as well...anything specific you'd recommend on the PS1?


Thanks again!

Sleeping Dogs is the spiritual sequel to the True Crimes series. The game changed companies and had to get a new name.

 

[joest01]

Yakuza
Way of the Samurai
Shinobido
Odin's Sphere

As for RE:4 do yourself a favor and play that on Wii instead.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Yakuza
Shinobido

These two. So much. Shinobido: Way of the Ninja is THE BEST ninja game and Yakuza is just freakin' awesome. But make sure that you play both with Japanese language. English voices are not the greatest. They're fine in Yakuza, but Japanese just sounds so much more authentic.

Another one I'd recommend is The Punisher from 2005. It's one of the most amazing third person shooters ever. Fuck Max Payne. It ain't got shit on Volition's Punisher game.

Devil May Cry 3 is a must.

 

[DishonoredElderSouls]

Why not simply get all three Sly Cooper games? They're best played chronologically because each story is lightly connected. Plus, all three are very good (in the case of the second, great) games.

I also recommend Star Wars: Battlefront 2 as well as the Destroy All Humans games, Namco Museum, Pac-Man World 2, and if you're up for some very simple open-world carnage, Jaws Unleashed.

I would recommend Shadow of the Colossus, but it appears you've already gotten that one.

 

[Lightknight]

Shadow of the Colossus. It has since been re-released on the ps3 (so people may miss it as a ps2 only game of that generation) but this is definitely a game to play. Set to have a movie adaptation (reportedly) and winner of a few Game of the Year awards. This one has really stuck with me.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

If you can find a copy, one of my favorite games from the PS2 was called Mister Mosquito. It was, as the title would suggest, about a mosquito menacing a Japanese family. The gameplay is pretty clever. You fly around the family's house looking for choice places to nab a drink of blood.

They managed to work in some pretty funny stuff too. The gameplay is fun, but the voyeuristic nature of being a literal bug on the wall while the family goes about their day, argues with one another, behaves strangely while believing no one is watching, and just general silliness of the concept made this one of my favorites of it's time.

 

[Zeras]

I would recommend Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria; I just got into it, it's got a different combat system - if you've played the first game (Valkyrie Profile for the PS 1) it's basically the same and you don't need to have played the first to enjoy this. I'm about an hour in (tried to beat the dungeon boss and got curb-stomped, so I'll need to backtrack and grind)and I'm finding it very enjoyable...so enjoyable I'll be starting a playthrough of the first game sometime soon (I was lucky to find it at a local game trading store).

 

[Vidiot421]

I highly recommend Front Mission 4. I recently dug my PS2 out of storage just to play it again.

3 days and I choose not to admit how many hours later....

 

[RandV80]

Is Final Fantasy XII mechanically much different from X? Because I really didn't much care for it.

Yes it is. While it loses marks for cramming in two kids (Vash & Penello) to appeal to the Japanese market, it dropped the typical turn based combat and plays more like an MMO.

And you mentioned the long unskipable animation sequences in FFVII... yeah they kind of started that and it sort of became a trademark of PS1 era JRPG's. Kind of a silly 'look what we can do now!' phase as before that there was little to no animation involved in the combat.

I don't know if you can get it on the PS network yet but if you want to try a JRPG with smoother turn based combat I'd highly recommend Suikoden 2, probably my all-time favourite JRPG.

 

[josemlopes]

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory - regarded as the best of the Splinter Cell series. If you like MGS, chances are you'll like this.

Killer 7 - a bizarre game that should be experienced by everyone. I blew less than $8 on it, so even if you don't like it it's not too much of a loss.

Any Worms game. Be warned; Worms: Forts Under Siege tends to crash my console for some reason.

Spiderman 2

Ghost Recon - a fun bare-bones tactical FPS. Very atmospheric and I still find myself playing it

Need For Speed - these tend to be fun enough.

I've heard of Splinter Cell, was planning on getting it on the PC, but if you say the PS2 version is better, I'll keep a look out for it!

Actually Splinter Cell Chaos Theory is best on the PC, I think he was just pointing out that its a very good game that his available for the PS2, if you can play it on PC do so (although if I am correct the PC doesnt have split-screen co-op, so maybe the Xbox version does get an advantage), on the PS2 its rather lackluster visually since it runs on the old engine I think.

Spoiler

Although what you can get is Double Agent for the PS2 since it was made by the Chaos Theory team instead of the "next-gen" and PC version that was made by some other guys and its terrible in comparition.

OT: So yeah, like you already said, Timesplitters 2/FP, just play these games, no excuses. Everything about them is great, the singleplayer, the offline multiplayer (with bots), the level editor, the challenges, they are perfect at being what they wanted to be.

Other ones may have already been mentioned like Destroy All Humans, Mercenaries, Darkwatch (fun gothic western shooter), Black, James Bond Everything or Nothing.

 

[Marik2]

Check out the Xenosaga trilogy. There are moments were it drags on and some things are just kinda....wut?

But it's a very interesting series and you should play it after experiencing Xenogears.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Seconded Front Mission 4. Just a very solid, very challenging mecha strategy game which I only wish was a bit longer and let you play a mission with both character teams together.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, if you haven't played it on another system yet.

Disgaea 1 & 2

Final Fantasy X is one of my all-time favourites so I'm iffy about suggesting another such JRPG to you, but Wild Arms 3 does things very differently from any other game in the genre, and it isn't even five minutes in before a Mexican stand-off occurs and you are thrown into the four 'character intro' dungeons a la Mega Man. I cannot recommend it enough. My main caveat is that it has some outdated mechanics that can make battles drag on, such as posting each individual application of a buff/debuff when you use it on everyone, and a few late-game bosses are just damage sponges without any dangerous attacks. Also bring your thinking cap- this one has more puzzles than every Zelda in the past 15 years put together.

 

[Artaneius]

Way of the Samurai 1+2, TimeSplitters 2, FFX, Legacy of Kain Series, Star Ocean, Mobile Suit Gundam Zeonic Front, Drakengard 1+2, and plenty of others I can't remember at this second.

 

[Tanis]

This...is kind of hard for me.
I own over 500 PS2 games, so it'd be nice to know what genera you're really looking for.

I'm a HUGE fan of JRPGs.
Persona 3:FES
Persoan 4
Devil Summoner
etc

 

[Squilookle]

It's thankfully already been mentioned just the once, but it's worth saying again- THIS:

Possibly the greatest non-GTA sandbox ever made. Incredibly atmospheric, intelligent, and explosive, with immense freedom and a ton of action and stealth options abound. It was only ever made available for two consoles...

And the PS2 was one of them, you lucky blighter!

 

[lachlan4567]

"persona persona persona social links social links social links"
I'm sure it's already been suggested, but there is a good reason for that, simply put they are fantastic.
Persona 3 and 4 and some of the best ps2 games I've ever played.
Also go for Persona 3 Fes if you can ( basically an added epilogue chapter with around 30 hours more content, and a more well balanced and refined game overall.)