With the accolade of best selling games console ever tucked firmly under its belt, it stands to reason that the Playstation 2 also had some of the best games ever made gracing its sexy little disc-drive. Here’s five of the best games to ever appear on Sony’s little black box.
Silent Hill 2
Remember when you didn’t wake up screaming in puddles of your own sweat every night, petrified that Pyramid Head was dragging his rusty sword through the corridors of your house? Yeah, me too. They were happier days. Unfortunately, they’ve long been lost since Silent Hill 2 dragged it’s murmuring carcass into our lives and into our nightmares – to the point where playing it back now is still a terrifying experience. Playing the recent Silent Hill games is also a terrifying experience but for very different reasons. The franchise desperately needs rebooting, but Konami are apparently not interested in money and admiration. The planks.
GTA San Andreas
GTA San Andreas was arguably the last GTA game that properly went balls to the wall on the what-the-fuck-ometer. Though the series has always maintained its sense of humour, San Andreas stuck its tongue so firmly in its own cheek a priest had to be called to perform an exorcism and separate the two. Alongside bags of memorable missions, characters, quotes and settings, San Andreas also threw in a ton of character customisation that made CJ a reflection of our inner gangsta. Personally, I went jacked and tatted. Grove Street fo’ lyf mo’fucker.
Shadow Of The Colossus
If you like a large dose of existential crisis thrown in with your mindless boss rush modes, then Shadow of the Colossus is a must play. As Wander, you’re tasked with bringing down 16 colossi that prowl the landscape in order to bring your dead girlfriend back to life or something. As the game goes on you begin to realise that these giants are pretty chill, and you’re being a bit of a dick by killing them all – but fuck it ’cause your girlfriend, right? You can now re-play Shadow of the Colossus in HD, making your soul-crushing decisions in crisp new environments. Beautiful stuff.
Star Wars: Battlefront II
Hey look, it’s the game that EA and DICE decided to completely ignore when rebooting Battlefront. But it’s easy to see why they chose to re-skin Battlefield 4 – all Battlefront II had going for it was enveloping mutliplayer experiences in a variety of key Star Wars battles using all the weapons and characters fans could ever want, and it had pretty decent story and galactic conquest modes. Oh no wait, those are all good things aren’t they. Hm. Somebody fucked up.
God of War
It sounds obvious, but God of War really lived up to its name, making players feel like the God of fucking War. For a start, the game’s protagonist Kratos is a massive, quivering dick, who’s about as easy to love as Pierce Morgan. The story sees our man Kratos trying to exact revenge on the current God of War – Ares – for tricking him into killing his wife and child. He does this by killing absolutely everybody else in the world. It’s loosely based on Greek mythology in the same way that Rambo is loosely based on the Vietnam War. While the game’s later instalments are also worthy of praise, its worth remembering where it all began, and praying to Kratos through fear that he might rip us from mouth to arsehole with his bare hands. Long may he reign.
Mark is the Gaming Editor for UNILAD. Having grown up a gaming addict, he’s been deeply entrenched in culture and spends time away from work playing as much as possible. Mark studied music at University and found a love for journalism through going to local gigs and writing about them for local and national publications.