Top 10 PS2 games - Part 1

Getting some free time to sit down and write is priceless when you have a young family, so having some time off from work and the kids at school means i can sit and game or even better research some ideas to blog, or both, today I am switching my time between writing this piece and getting stuck into more Mafia III, very much enjoying my time as Lincoln Clay.

Today we are following on from something i touched on at the end of the last article, and that is top 10's, PS2 in particular, the top 10 series will hopefully prove both easy reading but also stir up nostalgia and debate, i doubt very much you would find one 10 ten then same , we all have games that resonate with us differently and games that were just that good its impossible to ignore them.

I recently found a you tube channel called MetalJesusRocks, does what it says on the tin, retro gamer who has passion for games and mental who boasts a Jesus like head of hair. Good channel if you like retro gaming, a strong thumbs up from me and suggestion to follow him.

Sit back grab a coffee and let me take you through my journey on Playstation 2. Sony released the antisipated PS2 in the UK in November of 2000, making this gamer the ripe age of 20, the painful journey of leaving my teens behind was still fresh in the memory from that summer (not sure why i found that one difficult to take, maybe the realisation i needed to think about growing up i guess) I can still recall finishing work that morning (i had many jobs before i found my calling in exercise therapy, and i had a job in a plating factory, mundane stuff, work to earn enough cash to have a good weekend and games was pretty my my life priority at the time) i digress (again) bought the PS2 equipped with Grand Theft Auto III and Smackdown i believe.

The list is not in any particular order and again is strongly reiterate this is my top 10 of PS2 games i ethier owned of played at some stage.

Enough of the life nostaligia, onwards to the list

Headhunter - Sega 2002

Action adventure title set in the future sees you play as one Jack Wade, a wronged headhunter, in our future headhunters are equipped with non lethal weaponry via the agency called the anti crime network, the reason being the preservation of human organs which are now at a premium. 

The game has a good mix of stealth, VR training to gain hunter licences and transportation via jack's bike, 

The game was generally well received averaging 7-8/10. Headhunter found its way into my PS2 by chance, having traded some other titles one day to make room for some up and coming releases i found myself having some left over monies, my rule is generally to try and find a title that doesn't cost much in this instance with the hope that this way of thinking will unearth a hidden gem, and in this instance it certainly did. 

Escape from Monkey Island - Lucas Arts 2001

Point and click may not have the wealth of titles that it once had in the hazy days of the 80's and 90's so once i stumbled across the latest instalment from Lucas Arts it felt like christmas, the opportunity to get re-aqunated with Guybrush and the gang made my year, I grew up on games the Monkey Island francise, Zak McKracken, Indiana Jones and later Broken Sword.

The game begins with our unlikely hero Guybrush returning from his honeymoon with guvnor Marley to find his wife has been declared dead, from here guybrush embarks on a quest to bring her back to life and get back into insult sword fighting and arm wrestling along the way, we meet past faces along the way and the game really hasnt lost any of the attitude of past titles, if you are a pointand clicker and you havent played this then SHAME!!

Grand Theft Auto III - Rockstar 2001

We can be honest GTA III has not aged well in the slightest when we look at the titles that followed but take yourself back to 2001, prior to this we had the GTA of old, in my option very over rated (i know stirke me down now) but i just did not think they originals were all they were made out to be. Rockstar in 2001 gave us a real treat with GTA III, a free roam open world game were we could just stray from the story just because we could.

The story was fairly solid, our mute protagonist (later found his name to be Claude) is wronged whilst making an escape from a Heist, Claude spends the remainder of the game making money cracking skulls to get to his end game to and get his vengeance. The music stations and talk shows were hilarious and we were introduced properly to Laslow who we know still exists in our current GTA universe. A trail blazer for sure.

Need for Speed  Underground 2 - EA, 2004

It feels like the NFS franchise has had more releases that Fast and Furious movies and with that its easy for quality to be diluted (im my opinion the call of duty series suffer from this) admittedly i have not played some of the more recent NFS titles but the originals are certainly up there.
Underground 2 resonated with a young me mainly as we could take some fairly standard cars (Corsas, golfs etc) and spend the money to pimp them out. The game allowed you to carry out a variety of race modes (circuits, drag, drift and sprint) never got the hang of drag racing. I think the game done considerably well due to the underground theme which again tied in with the birth of the fast and furious films.

The Warriors - Rockstar, 2005

Movie to game crossovers are a tricky business, lets be honest they rarely work, at the risk of angering some i feel scarface did not work at all, one of my favourite films i was maybe expecting too much, The warriors is an absolute classic in film terms so coming up with a game to do it justice was going to be a walking a tight rope, dental floss levels, but the warriors game actually worked. Leave it to rockstar to deliver the goods. They took the GTA dynamic and threw over a nice big warriors themed blanket and hey presto new game.

Some could criticize Rockstar for lazy developing here but I would say its very smart developing (Call of duty developers have got away with it for years) If Rockstar developed any other title under the same GTA engine more flak would have came their way but the fact they used a cult film alongside meant it was easily a success.

At present I am struggling with the second half of my list, not so much I cannot find the games to put down, more the hard business of which ones I have to leave of my list, apparently there were over 3500 titles releases for PS2 so lets you know the scale that any ones list has to choose from.

Happy Gaming.