Sony PlayStation2, want to collect, need some pointers

[high voltage]

I want to get into PS2 collecting (got something like 12 games or so), so I need some good games for this system.

 

Any recommendations please?

[iesposta]

I haven't played the other Burnout racing games, but Burnout 3 Takedown is so very fun and exciting.

Not only is there races all around the globe, but different game modes.

When you need to take a break from racing and forcing opponents off the road, and watching stuff in super slow motion, there is a mode where you earn bronze, silver, or gold for smashing into oncoming traffic off ramps, picking up floating power-ups and causing the most damage possible!

The "radio" even has some bands that I remember from back when it was made.

[Necron99]

There are a lot of great games on the PS2 and even more under-rated gems. what I did years ago, was read a lot of top 10-100 lists based on genres and under-rated list and watched a bit of gameplay videos on youtube for each.

 

I would start here

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sony/ps2

 

As for buying the games, the easiest way is to check eBay and the Buy and Sell forums here. PS2 games are still often found amoungst DVD's at thrift shops but that seems to be becoming rarer and rarer. Local B&S sites like Kijiji often have PS2 games for cheap as well.

Edited December 27, 2016 by Necron99

[omegadot]

I enjoy the MetalJesusRocks hidden gems and top 10 videos on YouTube. There are quite a few for the PS2.

[dj_convoy]

I wrote a ridiculously long list with my thoughts in this thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/254528-recommend-me-some-ps2-games/

 

Suffice to say, there's a lot out there.

[high voltage]

Thanks all

[4Ks]

If you like weird crap, there's a game called Chulip that you should absolutely check out. You play as a muppet with a huge mouth whose goal in life is to kiss a girl, and the entire game is about practising your kissing game on random people. Literally every character in the game can be kissed. There's also a man stuck in a log who shows up at various points to beat you up and drop existential musings on you. Seriously, it's great.

 

[StopDrop&Retro]

This is my favorite console of all time with the best library of all time, don't believe SNES fans who say otherwise. I have more PS2 games than any other system. There's just so much out there, I don't even have everything I want yet and my collection is easily over 200 games. With the sheer volume of stuff out there I would recommend that you at least familiarize yourself with the most valuable games on the system because a lot of garage sale sellers don't know what they have and even if you don't want to keep it in your collection it could make for some good trade bait later. If you look long enough, you will come across the rare stuff. I found a copy of Haunting Ground for $5, which easily fetches $100 all day on ebay, so it pays to know what's out there.

 

Here's some hidden gems you should be able to find cheaply and people don't usually recommend:

• Urban Chaos Riot Response - this FPS was way ahead of its time. It feels like the inspiration behind Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. The action is frantic and exhilarating.
• Battle Engine Aquila - this is basically a game where you play as an overpowered flying mech in someone else's real time strategy game
• Red Faction - this game was huge back in the day but it's starting to become forgotten to audiences now, which is a shame because the GeoMod technology should have been a game changer for the industry and no one has really done it the same since. If you don't have a key for a door just blow a hole through the wall, you can even tunnel around stuff, it made the multiplayer legendary.
• Naval Ops Warship Gunner 2 - a really cool naval warfare game that's incredibly addictive, I sunk so much time building ships from the ground up and there's even boss battles! It's a crazy game. Don't go for the first game unless you find it cheap. It's harder to find and more expensive but not worth it because the second game improved on the formula in every way and is cheaper. Make sure not to pick up Naval Ops Commander instead, that's its sister series and not as good IMO.
• Kya: Dark Lineage - a really good third person adventure platformer with a unique world to explore.
• Sky Odyssey - this is like the third party answer to Nintendo's Pilot Wings. Not as good in some areas but better in others and has a really wacky story in it. The music is done by the same guy who made the music for Shadow of the Colossus and it shows.
• City Crisis - a light hearted but very challenging rescue helicopter game. It's also one of the few PS2 games that doesn't have a spine label for some reason.
• Finny the Fish and the Seven Waters - I love this game. It's by far the most underrated game on this list, I've never seen it priced higher than $3 out in the wild. No one gives it respect but it was actually made by Sony in collaboration with SEGA, which I believe is their only collaboration on a game ever and I welcome anyone to prove me wrong. Maybe because of that the game plays almost exactly like an Ecco the Dolphin game. Either way, it's really good and more people should check it out.

 

Also, I unfortunately have to disagree with 4Ks. Maybe he's showing his age, but Chulip is no longer worth the money anymore. It's quirky as hell and I used to find it all the time for one to two dollars and I think I have two copies but now it's skyrocketed in price and you can't find a complete copy for less than $50. There are some games easily worth $50 like Robot Alchemic Drive, but Chulip is not one of them. A funny fact is that the game is so abstract they actually included a walkthrough in the instruction manual but it includes unintentional errors so it's worthless to use it as a guide.

[jhd]

Other than sports and music games, there are very few titles still to be found in thrift shops; online or specialist shops are the only option at this point.

 

I am a big fan of RPGs -- of which there are many -- and Classic Game compilations (these include Genesis, Atari, Intellivision, and multiple arcade games collections).

 

There are even very odd things, like Operation Spy, which uses the Eye Toy camera to create a motion-activated security system, the various Sing-Star karaoke games, Dancing with the Stars (with included dance mat), and probably more stuff that I have never seen.

 

It would be challenging to find a theme/genre that is not well represented on the system (though I would like more naval combat sims...)

[high voltage]

Were I reside the second hand game shops are full of PS2 titles, and cheap, can't wait to get into the hunt in 2017.

[0078265317]

I have a sealed copy of Mad Maestro at home.

[xenomorpher]

I have a sealed copy of Mad Maestro at home.

Pics or it's not real.

[iesposta]

I had an 80GB hard drive in my PS2 Fat, a pull reuse from a ReplayTv (the original TiVo). That held a lot of my RockBand / Guidar Hero / Karaoke Revolution.

I wanted to try an SSD drive.

I got a cheap Chinese 120GB SSD. Needed SATA to IDE converter to connect to the real Ethernet HDD add on.

I had a SATA to USB adapter for my computer.

My MAC has VMWare with Win 7.

winHiip formatted the SSD in Win 7 with the USB adapter mounted by n Win 7.

I used my real Burnout3: Takedown and a LG USB DVD burner to copy the Disc to the SSD.

Had to remove the metal shield, the loosen the star screws on the power and IDE connector so they would bend up as the iDE to SATA went lower and couldn't be plugged into the PS2.

 

I still had "loading" wait times, but much faster than waiting on DVD, and a little faster than a spinning hard drive.

Since the PS2 will only be reading that data and not writing or moving data around, the SSD should last for decades.

[TDIRunner]

I definitely recommend the Metal Gear Solid games on the PS2. Both Gran Turismo games are fun and super cheap (with Gran Turismo 4 being the best in the series in my opinion). There are also a lot of good single player campaign FPS games like Medal of Honor (Frontline and Rising Sun) along with Call of Duty Finest Hour and some Bond games like Agent Under Fire and Nightfire. These FPS games all predate what I consider the "modern" FPS which I have absolutely zero interest in. And of course, don't forget Ico or Shadow of the Colossus, which are two of my all time favorite games.

[vw57drvr]

DOA 2 Hardcore

[copper20]

I'm gonna point this out real quick - PS2 games are EXTREMELY cheap compared to other systems. It didn't take me very long to get a nice sized collection of about maybe 60 games on it.

 

If you have an Xbox, don't bother buying any FPS games on the PS2 excluding the timesplitters games. They're better on Xbox. Same with GTA styled games that aren't Rockstar or 3rd person shooter games that aren't exclusives. I just think they played better on Xbox. Otherwise the majority of 3rd party was better on PS2 to be honest.

Edited January 18, 2017 by copper20

[spacecadet]

If you have an Xbox, don't bother buying any FPS games on the PS2 excluding the timesplitters games. They're better on Xbox. Same with GTA styled games that aren't Rockstar or 3rd person shooter games that aren't exclusives. I just think they played better on Xbox. Otherwise the majority of 3rd party was better on PS2 to be honest.

 

I'm gonna put forth the controversial opinion that most games that also made a Dreamcast appearance are better on the Dreamcast too. That shouldn't really be the case, but lots of people did comparisons between various games at the time (and I myself own various games on both systems) and in most ways the DC version usually comes out ahead.

 

Some games, for example Re-Volt and LeMans 24 Hours, are almost entirely different games on the Dreamcast. I mean it's not just graphical differences; it's actually a different game, and in the cases I can think of like that, the DC version is more fun.

 

Other games, like Rez, Soul Calibur or DOA2, just look smoother and more pleasing on the Dreamcast. (Though I remember Rez seeming a lot harder on DC.)

 

I agree also about Xbox. I was surprised to check one of my big buckets of games the other day and saw that I have a lot more Xbox games than I thought, and most of them are just cross-platform games that I'm sure I knew looked better on Xbox.

 

There are some cool exclusives to the system, though. Here are a few I'd recommend:

 

Hot Shots Golf 3

Katamari Damacy

Ridge Racer V (maybe the last good RR game)

Ring of Red (really fun, totally overlooked strategy game)

Silpheed: The Lost Planet

Skygunner

SSX (the original)

Stretch Panic

Time Crisis II (if you have a CRT and a light gun)

Vampire Night (if you have a CRT and a light gun)

Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero

Twisted Metal Black

Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution

Wipeout Fusion

Xenosaga (technically also on the DS, I think)

Unison

 

That's just from what I have, although surprisingly most of my collection (which is about two to three times more than this) was also released on some other system either at the time or later. So these particular games are basically the only ones I'd hook up my PS2 for.

[Reaperman]

If you have not purchased Persona 4, do so right now. It is absolutely fantastic, and still available sealed for under $15. In a decade's time people will be kicking themselves for not picking up a copy now. I really like how Persona 4 isn't an rpg with a huge scope and world-ending consequences. It really breaks the stereotypes by being a small town murder mystery. Likely the best RPG I've played.

 

The rest of these are far less important:

 

 

 

Grandia II is also on the system. An early release that was honestly better on dreamcast which is why it's easily overlooked. The story is linear but very interesting and if you like turn-based, their weird hybrid battle system is a marvel to see. It really steals the show. I don't recall grandia iii (also on the system) being stellar, but the earlier one really is.

 

Gran Turismo iv holds up today and is easily the best in the series with so many tracks, 1080i visuals, and solid force feedback support for logitech wheels.

 

downhill domination. A bike game, that plays a bit like an arcade skiing game, what a stupid idea--but oh my god is it executed flawlessly. Also along the same lines, ps2 has a very late release motorstorm game that came out after the ps3 one. Kind of a weird piece of history there. Last up in the arcade racer territory, XGRA, the last Extreme-G game, is also the best.

 

Culdcept. A weird video board game that's huge in japan but rarely comes here. On ps2 it did. Fun mechanics, but when you get spanked by the random number generator you will be cursing and throwing controllers.

 

Harvey Birdman, attorney at law. also available on wii...whatever that is. This capcom title plays like phoenix wright but with a full cartoon network makeover. It's much easier than its inspiration, and isn't terribly long, but entertains all the way through.

 

Speaking of controllers, logitech makes some fantastic ones for PS2. And logitech also makes some terrible ones for ps2. And they look exactly the same. So if at first you don't succeed with them, buy, buy again.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2017 by Reaperman