• SinningStromgald@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Sly Cooper Jak and Dexter Ratchet and Clank Suikoden III and IV God of War Tony Hawk

    I remember renting God of War and my little brother wanting to watch me play. Then scrambling to turn the TV off as the opening cut scene played. Had to explain to my parents why he couldn’t watch me play.

  • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.ca
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    5 hours ago

    After setting up emulators for both the PS2 and PS1, I’m amazed at how little I actually turn on my xbox one S anymore.

    Games from that generation just hit differently for me. Especially my favourites like Final Fantasy X and XII. It took me a while to get why I felt that way, but it’s the combat systems in modern games have become to frenetic and button-mashy. How am I supposed to strategize what my team mates are doing at the speed that the combat now wants to take place at.

    And that’s not just with the Final Fantasy series. God of War both went down that “let’s make combat as fast and frenetic as possible” route after the PS2 generation.

    I’m also going to give an honourable mention on PS2 to the last Stalwart alternative to the EA NHL series; that being NHL 2K10. I really enjoyed the things that it did differently to EA Sports, like the ability to set two of your team-mates to hassle an opposing player. I wish 2K had kept it up. But it seems they gave up the NHL and EA gave up the NBA. Fair trade I guess.

  • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Shadow of the Colossus.

    The scale of the game was just massive for a PS2 title. Amazing hard hitting ending and challenging battles.

  • SolidShake@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Metal gear solid 3. Final fantasy 10, 11, 12. Freedom fighters. Kingdom hearts. Xenosaga. Battlefield modern combat. Metal gear solid 2. RAD. NFS underground. NBA street. Shadow of the colossus. Sax on tour. Burnout 3. God of war 1 and 2. Silent Hill the room. Ōkami. Metal arms.

    Idk some others I’m sure. It’s THE goated console for a reason. I also enjoy RPGs and the PS2 just had banger after banger.

  • Rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Do you miss how weird and liminal some of the games on this system were? Maybe it’s because of the magical thinking of a child (I was like two when this came out but played mine every day until I was fourteen, loved that thing like a religion lol) but even the startup screen and disc read failed screen were so… Weird? Freaky? I don’t know, I know there’s plenty of indie games now and plenty of shovel ware on current gen but it feels different, there was a strange magic to some games on the PS2 that seems to be sort of inimical

    • lunsjentilanette@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      When watching some videos from retro game youtube channels, they tend to point to how much more daring they were back then, and all new games will just safe it. New aaa games cost so much they cant fail, but then a flop was to a larger extend “meh” and move on for the studio. Guess that made some of these games feel more freaky as you say

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Wow…I remember the PS2 as the console that you smoked weed when you played. I was 16 when it came out. And it was my first ever dvd player.

    • timo_timboo@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 hours ago

      oh definitely. Games just felt differently back then. It was rarer for games to hold your hand, too. Not to say that that was always a good thing, sometimes it was quite annoying I guess, but maybe it was part of the reason games felt different. Combined with having to find stuff out on your own, you literally were on your own, yeah.

      There are many things though that make this era of gaming special, this one is just something I often think of.

      • Rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Omg absolutely! With the “not holding your hand” thing, I think a lot of the magic and enigmatic feeling of the PS2 games catalogue is that you’d only hear about Easter eggs, rather than knowing theyre in the game via dlc listings in storefronts or anything. They felt weird and slightly messed with understanding how big games were. Even up to Halo 3 with that weird developer monkey family and Black and White 2 where it would whisper your windows account name if you played after 10pm?

        Games were just slightly hostile back then, or at least had the developer’s agenda in mind rather than the marketing algorithm’s

  • BroBot9000@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Gosh where to start…

    Shadow of the Colossus, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, God of War, Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill 2, Okami, Burnout, Metal Gear Solid 2/3, Singstar, Eye Toy, Spider Man 2

    And I could go on and on. We had it good back then.

  • HerrVorragend@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Too many to even mention.

    Even more than the games, I cherish the memories made with friends.

    Driving around different towns to finally find FFX, four people sitting around a 15 inch TV to marvel at MGS2, drag racing our ugly custom cars in NFS Underground, spending a whole summer rocking out and breaking highscores in Guitar Hero…

    To me, it was the golden age of video gaming.