The Top 10 PS2 Games of All Time

Posted by Zer13 on 12:47 PM

Labels: Burnout 3, Devil May Cry 3, Final Fantasy X, God of War, God of War II, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Jak and Daxter, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid 3, Shadow of the Colossus

10) Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening Special Edition
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Year Released: 2006

Synopsis: Picking a reason why Devil May Cry 3 is a frickin' awesome game is kind of like picking a single reason why you like pizza. Maybe it's good cheese, a tasty sauce or crispy crust that draws you to a good pie, but it's the sum of the parts that keeps you coming back.

Devil May Cry 3 is like a great pizza - a pizza comprised of 32 missions, five difficulties, tons of monsters and multiple weapons.

Following Dante, a half-man half-demon who just can't seem to stay out of trouble, Devil May Cry 3 puts gamers through one of the most challenging games PS2 owners ever popped a memory card in for as the hero blasts bad guys, solves puzzles and tries to meet up with his brother.

Armed with his guns and sword - and four styles of play - Dante breaks out dozens of attack combinations on his missions and leaves you in that funky-place between challenged and frustrated.

9) Kingdom Hearts
Developer: SquareSoft
Publisher: SquareSoft
Year Released: 2002

Synopsis: The premise behind the game was completely absurd: Disney cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse thrown in with Square Enix characters to make a new kind of action RPG. However, as strange as it sounds, these two dissimilar franchises came together incredibly well.

Sora's massive adventure to find his friends Kairi and Riku took him through numerous Disney inspired worlds, such as Wonderland and Olympus. Along the way, he befriended famous characters like Aladdin and Ariel, fought alongside Donald Duck and Goofy, and captured the hearts of various RPG fans. There seemed to be something for everyone, including secret endings and bosses, fighting tournaments and hidden collectables. Even if you hated Disney or Square Enix titles, you couldn't help but be impressed by the massive impact this title had on the PS2, which spawned a popular sequel and mid-franchise card battling game.

8) Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Developer: Naughty Dog Software
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Year Released: 2001

Synopsis: While there's a massive fault line that gamers gather 'round to holler and scream at each other about when it comes to naming the great platformers of our era (or any era for that matter), Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacyis among the elite. It represents a stellar culmination of 3D platforming elements, many of which are have been used before, and yet it still feels fresh and new even after all these years. The words "endearing" and "likeable" don't even begin to do it justice.

Besides, even if Jak hadn't spawned two successful sequels and a couple of cool offshoots, Naughty Dog's excellent PS2 rookie would still have made our list because it warmed our hearts, and created a game that was raucous, subtle, beautifully animated, and never made us feel as if we were collecting things... just how a platformer should be.

7) God of War
Developer: SCE Studios Santa Monica
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Year Released: 2005

Synopsis: Though the PlayStation 2 has seen a rather incredible number of extremely high quality titles in its six-plus year lifespan, no game has better shown off what the system is capable of than God of War. We're not just talking visuals here, either -- the control mechanics are virtually perfect, the storytelling techniques are fantastic and the scope of the game is downright enormous.

But while God of War's epic feel makes it stand out, it's the subtle things therein that allow it to sit so high on our list. Nearly every facet of the game's design is perfect, from the pacing to the difficulty to the way its tale is wrapped with Greek mythology. Very few PS2 games can compare to the epic, well-designed beauty of God of War, which is why it deserves to sit comfortable on our list of the best PS2 games around.

6) Burnout 3: Takedown
Developer: Criterion Software
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Year Released: 2004

Synopsis: Criterion Games' racing series really hit its mark with Burnout 3: Takedown, providing perhaps the most white-knuckled driving experience to ever hit a gaming console. The series' perfect control mechanics were dialed in with this release, giving gamers perfect control of a vehicle at 220mph+ and allowing them to barrel down highways and side streets so fast that you almost need otherworldly abilities to stay calm. When mistakes were made, Hollywood-derived crashes became the result.

Burnout 3: Takedown's fantastic visuals allowed for some of the most devastating crashes we've ever seen, and the result is that the game managed to reward the player with plenty of eye candy when they made a mistake. Add in some great online play, the ability to take out other cars, the fan-favorite Crash mode and you have the total package. Simply put, we're not sure how arcade racing will ever get any better than Burnout 3: Takedown.

5) Final Fantasy X
Developer: SquareSoft
Publisher: Square Electronic Arts
Year Released: 2001

Synopsis: The PS2's first blockbuster RPG is still one of its best. Final Fantasy X, as we could only expect from Square, was an utterly gorgeous looking game, with stunning landscapes, a wild array of color and artistic license, and some incredibly attractive-looking character and monster designs. Still, these aspects have become the status quo for the FF series. But this time, we got voice-acting for the first time in the series, and it didn't suck!

We got a huge modification/upgrade/alteration to the battle system and the supporting cast delivered a slew of cool, goody accents. Best of all, the storyline and its ending are among the best of any game in any genre of the last generation. All in all, Final Fantasy X pretty much delivered flawlessly on the PS2, and we loved every minute of it.

4) Shadow of the Colossus
Developer: SCE Studios Japan
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Year Released: 2005

Synopsis: Shadow of the Colossus has what is perhaps the most risky on-paper design we've ever seen. With only 16 enemies to fight in the game and an enormous world that is practically devoid of any actual tasks to perform, it doesn't sound like the making of one of the best adventure games ever released.

But Shadow's beauty lies in these empty spaces. It was designed much like a fairytale -- you're left to fill in the gaps with your own ideas of how things came to be, what the reason for the events are and so forth. The battles and events that are there are some of the best we've ever seen, with characters and creatures that look like they're straight out of a dream. Shadow of the Colossus is touching, mysterious, beautiful, desolate and even tragic, and these elements make it one of the most original and awe-inspiring games all of time.

3) Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
Developer: Kojima Productions
Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment
Year Released: 2006

Synopsis: Very few game characters can hold a candle to Snake from the Metal Gear franchise when it comes to outright action. However, when it came to telling the origin of the franchise, 2004's Snake Eater was missing a couple of solid elements.

Subsistence provided the definitive exploration of Snake's roots thanks to the sheer volume of changes made to the title. Six new difficulty levels were included. A brand new camera perspective was added to improve gameplay, along with loads of additional camouflage. A demo theater played cutscenes and let you change the movies at will. Games such as Snake vs. Monkey with new levels, as well as the original Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 on disc made it into the game. A joke theater with loads of video comedy, and a massive online mode rounded out the game, and for players who owned the special edition, a three hour movie comprised of every cutscene from Snake Eater. This wasn't a patch, a port or a simple expansion; Subsistence was a full re-imagining of the Snake Eater experience.

2) God of War II
Developer: SCE Studios Santa Monica
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Year Released: 2007

Synopsis: The PlayStation 2 certainly has no shortage of action games, and when it comes to pure, unadulterated action, no one does it better than Kratos. While the franchise may be known best for its outright and over-the-top violence, Sony Santa Monica crafted a tale with the sequel that was bigger, better, more refined and, if you can believe it, even more epic than the original, and that was no short order by any stretch of the imagination.

The Greek mythology-inspired tale was told with deft hands, the sites were something out of a book of paintings and the combat was essentially perfect. Oh, and let's not forget the boss battles, which still remain as some of the best we've ever seen. Yes, both the original and its sequel rank high amongst our list, but if you've played them, there's no doubt as to why. It simply does not get much better than this.

1) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Year Released: 2004

Synopsis: Rockstar's enormous follow-up to its smash-hit GTA series, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, was one of the most evolved sequels we've ever seen. The revamped and more responsive gameplay mechanics, the brand new vehicle physics, a ton of upgradeable skills, more than 100 different missions, and some of the best production values around proved that through and through.

But that isn't the only reason it made our top slot. Once you factor in the excellent storyline, the open-ended gameplay structure, and even two-person multiplayer elements, this one became a no-brainer. If you're looking for the most fun and flat-out best PlayStation 2 game ever created, GTA: San Andreas delivers the goods as no other game offers so much variety and ways to make it your own than Rockstar North's creation.

Source : http://ps2.ign.com/articles/772/772296p4.html

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Gamer Memories: PS2 Launch

Posted by Zer13 on 2:36 PM

Labels: DVD movies, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Gamer Memories, PS2 Launch

Gamer Memories: PS2 Launch

One editor's tale of DVDs, money belts, and glory.

by Greg Miller

December 21, 2009 - At IGN, we're a lot of things. Nerds, douches, Achievement whores, over-raters, under-raters, and so much more, but at our core, we are gamers. Each and every one of us has a brain filled with cherished memories that revolve around our hobby. Unwrapping a Nintendo Entertainment System on Christmas morning, beating Streets of Rage with a pal, desperately trying to get Lara Croft's nude code to work – you get the idea. Before all of us who lived the adventure drift into a senile state and forget, IGN thought it would assemble those stories in an ongoing feature called "Gamer Memories."

Here, an editor will walk you through one of his or her favorite memories involving a controller, some kind of dance pad, or (more generally) a memory that was a defining experience for the editor's time with games. On tap for this installment? Why, it's none other than Greg Miller, an IGN editor known for screaming on Podcast Beyond and Game Scoop.

For some people, it's their wedding day. For others, it's the birth of their first child. For me, October 26, 2000 will be the date that is forever burned into my brain. It was the launch of the PlayStation 2, and it was glorious.

To truly understand why the PlayStation 2 was such a big deal to me, you have to jump back months and months to a time Prince and Will Smith sang about; a time called 1999. See, I went to my friend Jason's house, and he had these new things called DVDs – they were like CDs for videos. It was mindboggling enough to be able to skip by "chapters" instead of fast forwarding, but the bigger deal was that Mallrats was on this "DVD" and had a whole "commentary track" by Kevin Smith and company.

I watched it until 2 a.m. and knew that I needed this format. Of course, DVD players were crazy expensive at this point in time, so it seemed I would have to go on waiting forever. Then, the PS2 was announced. Along with great games, the black beauty would come packing the ability to play DVD movies.

My brain went into overload.

The first thing I did was tell my parents that I'd be getting a typical summer job in 2000 and that none of the money I earned would be going into my savings account – nearly everything I earned would be spent on PlayStation 2 games and accessories. With my mission in mind, I took a soul crushing job as a cashier at Wal-Mart. Once the paychecks started coming in, I kept my sanity by going to Best Buy on my lunch break and buying DVDs such as Ghostbusters, Chasing Amy, and so on.

This is June, ladies and gentlemen. I was buying things for a system that was nearly five months away. Not only was I buying them, I was keeping them wrapped until that day. I'd even pore over them in my car during later lunch breaks and once I got them onto my bookshelf at home.

I was crossing the border into crazyland. I was preordering games like Silent Scope and Smuggler's Run. I was buying terrible third-party DVD remotes, and I was poring over and over the same issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly (No. 136/November 2000).

This fever pitch continued all the way up until October 25, 2000. On that day, I left school giddy as I've ever been, raced to a Meijer (think a Wal-Mart Supercenter) in St. Charles, Ill., and pretty much ran to the back of the store with one of those canvas chairs people sit in to fish.

Now, as I – a fat kid from the suburbs of Chicago – sprinted through this store, I expected the worst. I had a preorder at a Funcoland, but there was no guarantee that store would get enough systems. Coming here and waiting in line would give me the chance to have a system at 12:01 a.m., but I expected there to already be a line, seeing as how it was 3 p.m. the day before the biggest videogame launch of all time.

When I got to the electronics department – completely winded – I found two clerks chatting and not one customer in sight. When they heard my labored breathing, they turned to me and I said the only thing I could think of.

"I'm here for the PlayStation 2 launch," I said as they stared in disbelief. "I'm not a nerd."

With that, the clerks rolled their eyes and pointed me to the front of the game display cabinet. I was the first person in line (number two was my friend, whose seat I was holding, and number three would arrive about 15 minutes after I did). I would sit there in the Meijer electronics department being mocked by the occasional passerby, watching the line grow until they had to turn people away, and rereading issue 136 of EGM for nine hours.

As 12:01 a.m. drew closer, some random clerk from another department showed up to chat with the electronics staff, and I remember being so sure that he was going to try and butt in front of me that I was literally mentally preparing myself to attack him if he did. In the end, he didn't, and I pulled out the $350-plus I had in cash in a money belt under my shirt and became the first dude in the store to buy the system. After the transaction, I kind of stumbled forward lost in a sea of emotion while my friend began checking out. Someone in the line had to shout to me to hold it up, and when I did, cheers rained down upon me.

That was the start of my life with the PlayStation 2, but it was far from my last memory. Later that night, my friend's father demanded that we stop playing and go to bed. In the darkness of the guest room, I tiptoed over to my still-boxed system and picked it up to see if it was real. I went to put it down but misjudged where the floor was and ended up dropping it a few inches to the floor. I freaked out. The next day, I fled school with the PS2 belted into my passenger seat and blew off the next day of classes.

There's so much more to tell, but for the rest of my life, October 26 will mean something to me that few will be able to truly understand. I'm eternally grateful for that. Oh, and here at my desk in the IGN office? EGM No. 136 has been in my cabinet since my first day on the job.

Source : http://ps2.ign.com/articles/105/1056860p1.html

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Is God of War III Adding an Online Co-op Mode?

Posted by Zer13 on 6:02 PM

Labels: Gamer Access, God of War III, online co-op mode, Sony

Sony gives the definitive word on this juicy rumor.

by Jim Reilly

November 16, 2009 - Will Kratos be having a friend join him for his latest adventure?

A story surfaced this weekend on the website Gamer Access confirming Sony's anticipated title God of War III will have a cooperative online mode. The website's source was Sony's Retail Loyalty Site, which educates retailers on upcoming games, and claims to have made this information known by providing a screenshot.

We went directly to Sony for comment, and the company has denied the report saying it is completely false.

"This news is unfounded," a Sony spokesperson told IGN. "God of War III will not have an online co-op mode."

So it appears God of War III won't contain any co-op online multiplayer, though, I guess there is still room for a versus mode. Does this make you happy? With this current trend of most new games adding some cooperative elements, this news is rather refreshing.

Source : http://ps3.ign.com/articles/104/1045974p1.html

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Wolfenstein Review

Posted by Zer13 on 9:45 AM

Labels: Activision, Call of Duty: World at War, Germany, Halo 3: ODST, Team Deathmatch, Wolfenstein, xbox360

B.J. Blazkowicz is back in fighting form.

by Jason Ocampo

August 18, 2009 - There's something comfortingly retro about Wolfenstein, the new first-person shooter from Activision, id Software, and Raven Software. The original Wolfenstein 3D shipped more than 17 years ago and as you probably already know it popularized the first-person shooter. Before Half-Life made scripted shooters all the rage, Wolfenstein 3D relished in the pure simplicity of roaming around big levels and blasting Nazis with an ever-escalating arsenal of weaponry. Call it the Inglorious Basterds of its day. This new Wolfenstein definitely borrows the spirit of the original, but it also has some new baggage, as well.

You play as Allied agent B.J. Blazkowicz, basically every German's worst nightmare. In Wolfenstein, you uncover a mysterious artifact using something called Black Sun energy, and it's up to you to stop the Third Reich from developing it into a weapon. And like that, you're sent to the city of Isenstadt, deep in the heart of Germany. There, you'll work with the local resistance group and another faction to halt the nefarious Nazi plot.

This isn't a purely linear, scripted game. Instead, like the upcoming Halo 3: ODST, the idea is that you use a city level as a hub of sorts that launches you into various missions. This lets you explore the city quite a bit, much like you may have explored the levels in the original Wolfenstein 3D. When you come upon German patrols, it's time to have some fun. You can meet up with contacts to get missions, which then lead you to various jumping off points that launch you into different levels. Once you're done, you return back to the city levels.

Unfortunately, this is where Wolfenstein also stumbles, because it feels like the designers didn't have enough faith in their ideas to fully develop them. You might think that this is a relatively large world or a blend of FPS and RPG, where you can accumulate quests from NPCs and then decide which ones to pursue. Instead, this freedom only gives you a thin illusion of open world gameplay. The city levels of Isenstadt are incredibly compact, and navigating it only takes a handful of seconds rather than minutes. You'll run along the same streets and alleyways a ridiculous number of times over the course of the game as you go between contacts of the local resistance group and other factions. Before long, exploration quickly gets dropped, especially since there's not much need to look at your in-game map as there's a constant marker on the compass telling you exactly where you need to go.

Meanwhile, the mission structure is also fairly linear; you complete a mission for one group and then they tell you to go talk to another faction that will give you another mission, and so on. There's not much sense that you've got a lot of choice or freedom in the matter. There's no currying favor with one faction or displeasing another, either. They're just telling you where to go and what to blow up. At least the good news here is that there's a lot to blow up.

Combat in Wolfenstein might surprise you with the amount of environmental destruction at work. While you can't blow up walls and buildings, a lot of stuff does fly when grenades detonate, and plenty of cover gets shredded by gunfire. The core idea of killing Nazis is in good effect, as you can blast them with conventional weapons and when that gets boring or you start running low on ammo you can pull out your more exotic gear, such as the particle beam that pretty much vaporizes enemies. You can also upgrade your weapons considerably, using gold that you find and recover from the levels. You can't afford to upgrade every weapon, but if you have a favorite you can boost its range, accuracy, recoil dampening, and much more.

This wouldn't be Wolfensteinwithout a supernatural element. In this case, it's a mystical amulet that gives you special powers. Veil Sight sort of acts like night vision, but it also highlights enemy weak spots and, more importantly, it lets you travel to another dimension where obstacles in the real world might not exist. If there's a solid brick wall ahead of you, turn on Veil Sight and you might discover a gaping hole that you can walk through. This facilitates exploration and can be used to flank dangerous enemy positions. The rest of the powers are familiar to shooter fans; there's a bullet-time like ability, a shield ability, and a shield-penetrating ability that's useful in puzzle situations as well as against certain enemies.

Speaking of enemies, they'll run the gamut from Wehrmact infantry to SS troopers to Veil-enhanced foes, such as the armored Heavy Trooper and the Assassin. The more exotic foes are dangerous, but they have specific weaknesses that can be exploited if you use your Veil powers. And you might as well use them, too, because there's not much use rationing the Veil powers given that there's no shortage of special Black Sun recharge points throughout the game.

Wolfenstein has a solid, graphical look, but it really begins to shine when you get into the missions that take you out of the city. There are a variety of environments that are well rendered, from an outlying farm to a vast underground facility to a monstrously huge zeppelin. The city of Isenstadt feels relatively bland in comparison. Character models are well done, but there's a sense that the graphics engine (built on the same technology of the one that powered Quake IV) isn't as state-of-the-art as it used to be. The audio is generally excellent; just close your eyes and listen to the rich sounds of each weapon as it fires.

The single-player campaign runs about as long as most; you'll probably get about six to eight hours out of it. Then it's on to multiplayer, and it's interesting in that it goes for a decidedly retro look and feel; it ditches the glossier graphics of the single-player game to give character models and animation that is reminiscent of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the 2001 game. Yet the multiplayer modes themselves feel relatively rudimentary and they aren't as deep as the popular Return to Castle Wolfenstein mod Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, which is puzzling. Anothe problem is that Wolfenstein is competing against another recent Activision World War II shooter, the wildly popular and deep Call of Duty: World at War.

It's hard to see Wolfenstein peeling away players from those games, especially with just three modes. There's Team Deathmatch, Objective, and Stopwatch. Objective requires one team to carry out a task and the other team to try and stop them, while stopwatch is where both teams take turns in an objective-style level and try to beat each other's times. But it basically translates into lots of mindless running-and-gunning, and the quick respawn times means that there's not much penalty in dying. Plus, the game only supports up to 12 players, which means that the matches lack the scale of other games that have 16.

Closing Comments With almost a decade between installments, it's impossible to argue that id is trying to milk the Wolfenstein license. Yet this also means that a lot of evolution has gone on in the genre. It's admirable that Raven Software recognized this with Wolfenstein, but you can't help but wish that they developed the kernel of the ideas in this game into something more. As it is, this new Wolfenstein comes off as an engaging, though otherwise forgettable, shooter.

Source : http://xbox360.ign.com/articles

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The Top 10 PS2 Games of All Time

Gamer Memories: PS2 Launch

Gamer Memories: PS2 Launch

One editor's tale of DVDs, money belts, and glory.

Is God of War III Adding an Online Co-op Mode?

Sony gives the definitive word on this juicy rumor.

Wolfenstein Review

B.J. Blazkowicz is back in fighting form.

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