Yesterday marked the 10-year anniversary of the PlayStation 2 in North America, so we thought it would be fun to ask a few high-profile game developers and journalists to name their top three “must play” PS2 games. Word quickly spread, the project swelled in scope, and the result is what you see here — a definitive list of “must-play” PS2 games by some of the greatest living game developers in the business.
A few quick numbers: Ico earned the most mentions at six, while Grand Theft Auto III and Shadow of the Colossus tied with five mentions. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, God of War, Okami, and Katamari Damacy were also popular picks.
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Cliff BleszinskiDesign Director, Epic Games (Twitter: @therealcliffyb)
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Ed BoonCreative Director, NetherRealm Studios (@noobde)
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Scott CampbellCo-Founder and Co-director, Eat Sleep Play
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David CageCo-CEO, Quantic Dream
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Alex EvansTechnical Director, Media Molecule (@LittleBigPlanet)
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Chet FaliszekWriter, Valve Software
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Nate FoxGame Director, Sucker Punch Productions (@SuckerPunchProd)
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Tasha HarrisProject Lead, Double Fine Productions (@tashascomic)
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Todd HowardGame Director, Bethesda Game Studios (@BethBlog)
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Hermen HulstCo-founder and Managing Director, Guerrilla Games
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David JaffeCo-Founder and Co-director, Eat Sleep Play (@davidscottjaffe)
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Ken LevineCreative Director, Irrational Games (@IGLevine)
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Steve PapoutsisExecutive Producer, Visceral Games (@leveluptime)
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Ted PriceFounder and CEO, Insomniac Games (@InsomniacGames)
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Tim SchaferPresident and CEO, Double Fine Productions (@TimofLegend)
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Warren SpectorCreative Director, Disney Interactive Studios
*Note: These are excerpts of Warren’s full responses, which you can read at the bottom of this post. Please do: As always, Warren is brimming with passion and insight into the art of great game making. |
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Evan WellsCo-President, Naughty Dog (@naughty_dog)
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Tim WillitsCreative Director, id Software
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Press & Community
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Dan “Shoe” HsuCo-Founder and Editor, Bitmob.com (@bitmobshoe)
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Ben KucheraGaming Editor, Ars Technica (@benkuchera)
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Greg MillerExecutive Editor, IGN.com (@GameOverGreggy)
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Gary SteinmanEditor in Chief, PlayStation: The Official Magazine (@tinymanrages)
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Ricardo TorresEditor in Chief, GameSpot
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Sid ShumanSenior Social Media Specialist, PlayStation (@sidshuman)
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Rey GutierrezSenior Social Media Specialist, PlayStation (@r3yguti3rr3z)
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Jeff RubensteinSocial Media Manager, PlayStation (@jeffrubenstein)
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*Appendix: Warren Spector’s Full Comments So what is it that makes Ico great? It’s the characters, and, more importantly, their relationship to one another. And even MORE important than that is the relationship the PLAYER has with those characters – the boy in the horned helm you play and the girl that boy has to protect. The first time your character holds hands with that girl who needs protecting, you feel something never before felt in a game. It’s an almost indescribable feeling born of the power of touching, even virtually, another person. The fact that the girl is weak and slow, the fact that you have to wait for her, putting yourself in peril?… That’s design genius, friends. And then, toward the end when there’s a magic moment of role reversal? That’s when I knew I’d played one of the best games I would ever play. If you haven’t played it do so. Now. It takes, like six hours to get through, so no excuses. Beg, borrow or steal a copy and get ready to FEEL something as you play – and that’s a statement that can’t be made about many games, sadly. 2. Ratchet & Clank – I’ve always found the Ratchet & Clank series oddly inspirational. I don’t typically make games like them and don’t really love playing them as a rule. They’re action adventures, mostly, I guess. But I think what I love about them is the way they defy genre definitions. They feature RPG-ish character development and action-adventure story and puzzle-solving. Plus there’s some platforming. (If that sounds a little like Disney Epic Mickey, that’s no accident.) And beyond gameplay, the character designs of Ratchet, Clank and the rest of the cast are on par with anything Hollywood has ever put on the silver screen. The list of good things goes on: The writing, animation and cinematics work are all first rate. These games are fun to play, witty to watch and just fine entertainment. Now, for my money, the series has gone from good to even better with each installment. But the core goodness was all there in the PS2 entry in the series. I’ve been more influenced by these games than I like to admit. Gotta have a place on my list. 3. Grand Theft Auto III – I’ve gone on record – somewhat foolishly, I admit – as being annoyed with the GTA games. But I’ve always tried to be clear that while the CONTENT makes me feel this way, I’m in awe of the DESIGN thinking behind GTA. And I’ll be damned if the level of execution doesn’t match the conceptual brilliance. I’m a huge believer in the idea that games should be vehicles (pardon the pun) for player expression. The groundbreaking, open world, freeform, sandbox gameplay of GTA (with a story thrown in for good measure) takes that idea – that games are about the PLAYER’S creativity as much as, or more than the designer’s creativity – to ridiculous heights. I still don’t quite get how Rockstar pulled this off on a PS2! |
Perfect way to celebrate 10 years of greatness!
1. Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence- camouflage, sneaking in jungles… just pure awesome! I was a late bloomer for the series, and it took me forever to find a copy with the bonus disc that included MG and MG2:SS.
2. God of War II- the magnitude and scope of this game was magnificent, only to be trumped by God of War III. It also had the sickest looking attack in the series (L1-O), which was only teased in GOWIII (but replaced with the much more useful grapple).
3. Final Fantasy XII- yes, I know, no one liked this one… well I DID! Gorgeous graphics, huge (half-open) maps and no random battles! I am a huge Final Fantasy fan, and I have to say FFXII has the best battle system of any team based RPG to date. It was just so fluid, and your team actually did something without you having to tell them to. I don’t know why SQEX took a step back in FFXIII.
Mad props to Tasha Harris for her picking FFXI. Seriously.
I had a friend who majored in FFXI in college
As for my own list,
1) FFX-2, Best combat system ever, and the saccharine story doesn’t hurt it at all.
2) MGS2, First and best postmodern game
3) ICO, Incredible.
HOLY CRAP! EPIC LIST!
Wish there were more women in this industry though.
Not a single fighter? What?
I wanted to put Tekken 5 so bad…
Wow, this just reminds me of how awesome the ps2 was…Greatest game console of all time if you ask me….well imma go with, (1) God of war…this game is just awesome in every way. scale, controls, visuals and sheer badass….(2) SSX3, the only game to garner a perfect 10/10 score from me in a looooong time. Tearing down that mountain from top to bottom just felt so real, and the controls were spot on.perfection….(3) Metal Gear Solid 3. snake still remains my all time favorite video game character.and thats my story folks…keep on gamin.
Wow great lists! Thanks for sharing them with us :)
1. Kingdom Hearts 2– I was late getting into the KH series.. it was a random rental, but after trying it out I couldn’t put it down! The first game was great, but KH2 took everything wrong with the first and made it so much better! First video game to make me cry lol. And that’s a good thing!
2. Guitar Hero– who doesn’t like Guitar Hero?! Sure it took ideas from some of the past rhythm action games (PaRappa the Rapper, Beatmania, ect.) but it added a guitar! Who secretly doesn’t want to be a rockstar?! So fun!
3. Grand Theft Auto– really all of them. Personally, there’s parts of the game I don’t like but you can’t knock its creativity. I totally agree with what Warren Spector said. I also really enjoyed Driver 2 and 3, but GTA really took it to the next level.
@ Sid
This was such an AMAZING article. Thanks so much for taking the time to ask those guys and typing all their comments out.
My personal list:
1) ICO/S.O.C (can’t decide)
2) Final Fantasy X
3) GTA 3
Glad you liked it!
I’m going 5-1 on this one:
5) Soul Calibur 2
4) Final Fantasy X-2
3) Metal Gear Solid 3
2) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
1) Resident Evil 4
1) Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons Of liberty
2) Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec
3) Grand Theft Auto 3
4)Devil May Cry 1 and 3
My Top 5 Ps2 Games I Like:
1:Metal Gear soild 2 and 3
2:Burnout 3
3:Twisted Metal Black
4:Grand Theft Auto Vice City
5:Gran Turismo 3
My top 10 (because the PS2 was that great):
1) Final Fantasy 10: Still my favorite FF game!
2) Metal Gear Solid 2: The best MGS game. Love the storyline!
3) Kingdom Hearts 2: Awesome game. The Steamboat Willie level is so cool.
4) Ratchet & Clank series: I’m not sure which one is my favorite. All of them are fun.
5) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snaaaake Eateer!
6) Kingdom Hearts: Introduced us to Sora & pals. Classic game.
7) Wild Arms 3: Horseback battles & cool old west setting!
8) Dark Cloud series: Both games are very good. DC3? Please?
9) Diseaga: One of my favorite SRPGs, dood!
10) Jak 3: The best Jak game imo. Platforming, world exploring, and more.
All great games. ;)
Mine are:
Final Fantasy X
Metal Gear Solid 2/3
Devil May Cry 1/3
and Ninja Gaiden
Scratch my earlier response, I totally forgot about THE SHOW! Kept spinning in my PS2 longer than any game before it. Even the whole time I had the 360 (before PS3 came out) I was playing this on the PS2.
Mine are:
1. ICO
2. MLB 06: The Show
3. Shadow of the Colossus
Honorable Mentions: G-d of War 2, Metal Gear Solid 2, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
1. Final Fantasy X
2. God of War II
3. Persona 3
So many developers and other people in the game industry talking about ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Especially ICO, makes me really want to play it so bad. Glad there’s going to be that remake. But it needs to come out NOW!!!
1. PSU (The 360 version is better, but it’s Phantasy star)
2. Mushihimesama (SHMUPS all the way)
3. REZ (Just a great game)
Oh man awesome list glad to see all the extra addons of additional people dropping off their top picks. Really is a fun read through.
To the commentors spazzing about devs from other systems being on here, chill out. I personally find it fun to see what their picks were, and even if their not doing a Sony related game at the moment, they have done stuff for the Sony brand before.
Exactly. Glad you liked the piece!
Here is the Top 15 all time PS2 games decided by 404 gamers (some dev too) who made their own Top 15.
Go make yours and that list will be automatically updated.
# 01 – Final Fantasy X
# 02 – Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
# 03 – Shadow of the Colossus
# 04 – Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
# 05 – Okami
# 06 – Ico
# 07 – Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
# 08 – Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
# 09 – Kingdom Hearts
# 10 – Final Fantasy XII
# 11 – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
# 12 – Kingdom Hearts II
# 13 – Resident Evil 4
# 14 – God of War II
# 15 – Silent Hill 2
Here is the full list:
http://www.unikgamer.com/tops/top-playstation-2-games-3.html
Here is mine:
http://www.unikgamer.com/members/papissama-1.html
My favorites:
1. God of War and God of War II
2. Okami and Devil May Cry 3
3. Shadow of the Colossus
Sorry, I couldn’t fit only 3 games, but I couldn’t help it, PlayStation 2 has just way too many good games.
1 Persona 4: The best JRPG of this generation. The voice acting and relationships of the characters set an awesome tone, and the swerve at the end was jawdropping. If not for one swerve too many it would sit next to Chrono Trigger and give it the evil eye as the best JRPG of all time.
2 Disgaea: Hour of Darkness: It’s like a rabbit hole, the more you find out about the systems, the deeper it gets until you find yourself sucked into a crazy abyss you have to tear yourself away from to escape. This is World of Warcraft’s crazy Japanese single player cousin.
3 Grand Theft Auto III: Just mindblowing in it’s scope, scale, and polish. Another game you could just get lost in, exploring Liberty City and causing mayhem in so many different ways. Whether you’re driving an Ambulance or pushing through the story, there was always something that would entertain you.
Great article!
1. GTA: Vic City
2. Metal Gear Solid 2
3. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
1. Kingdom Hearts
2. Star Wars Battlefront
3. SOCOM
4. Metal Gear Solid 3
5. Medal of Honor Frontline
How could these games not be included by any developers?!?!
1) Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistance
Because I couldn’t pull the trigger at the end. Simple as that. When a game makes me feel a character’s sacrifices and commitment to what they believe then I know I’ve just experienced something beyond a great game. Also switching to the jungle was a great way to introduce the camo gameplay, predator style hunting between you and the A.I., and the best boss fights outside of Shadow of the colossus.
2) Shadow of the Colossus
It wasn’t until the 6th of 7th Colossus that I realized what I was doing and wanted to actually stop! But after every time you come back to the temple and you see how he looks at the girl on the table you realize that if it was you then you wouldn’t care who/what got in your way as long as you can save a loved one. A lot of films/literature have dealt with this theme but none of them actually made you the villain an had you play through it all knowing what you were doing… and I especially love the Romeo and Juliet style twist at the end.
3) Devil May Cry/Silent Hill 2
Because these were the very first two games I played for my PS2 (DMC came first) i have to pick them together.
WIN! Cant believe someone gave props to Gitaroo Man, here I thought Id have to defend it myself. Thank you sooooo much Ben!
All aside, this post is wonderful, and really does go to even show the longevity and the impact the PS2 really made. A system that made wonderful genres meaningful and all have stellar titles that lists like this are near impossible.
As for me, top 3 would be something like
1- Gitaroo Man
2- Katamari Damacy
3- Persona 4
But thats all just personal, as I couldnt even put into words the experiences I’ve gotten out of the system period.
Bravo.
1) Jak 3
2) Burnout 2
3) GTA: Vice City
1) Silent Hill 2.
The atmosphere is just spot on. Don’t need monsters to jump out of the corner just for a cheap scare everywhere you go.
2) MGS3: Snake Eater.
Cinematic set pieces and a get soundtrack!
3) God Hand.
Punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch punch uppercut dragon kick.
Ball buster!
Damn Jeff you cheater ;)
Thanks for mentioning DQ8 :)
I can’t believe no1 else brought it up.
Probably my no. 1 pick of the ps2 days
It’s nice to give PS2 some love *hearts* , It was really the experience of a life time , I don’t where will I be now if I haven’t own it. Here’s my list :
Ratchet and Clank 3 : This has to be my favorite game series , I started playing the demo when I got the PS2 for the very first time and I loved it , so some time later ( later later ) , I happened to find it hidden behind some games and held it to my heart like it was precious to me. 3 was my favorite although Gladiator was fun too because it went into a different path , but I like 3.
Sly Raccoon : Another favorite series. The first one was nice but it was very short too , I could like re-play it and be done in 2 hours , the third was the best ( I didn’t have the 2nd because my sister didn’t find it )
Kingdom hearts 2 : That time , when I thought having PS2 would make me a hardcore person , there were some amazing moments and there were epic moments , Kingdom Hearts was the most epic moment.
MGS3
SSX3
Okami
1. Amplitude
2. Grand Theft Auto III
3. SSX Tricky
The Music-Game AMPLITUDE was my favorite PS2-ONLINE-Game !
Ratchet deadlocked
Gran Turismo 4
Jak 2 and 3
Final Fantasy X
And a heck of a lot more, those are just the ones off the top of my head.
Oh yeah and kingdom hearts 2
No love for resident evil outbreak? dam such a great game and no love for it…
I fully agree with ico and SotC both are wonderful and beautiful games.
1. Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2
2. Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal
3. Dark Cloud 2
My top 3 of all time
1. Fatal Frame 2
My first horror game that made me into a horror fan. This game just keeps making me jump, but it made me play through by making me want to save the two sisters. They’re totally cute.
2.Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams
I got my PS2 a little late but this game is dramatic with awesome voice acting!! You can feel everything the characters show on their faces.
3. Ar Tonelico: Melody of Elemia / II: Melody of Metafalica
Great story and nice music. Who knew about the little twist(s)?
I know I didn’t. The story is so dramatic that I can feel the hero. But I wish they can remaster this series. It uses too much memory and it lags on PS2 even though it a 2D RPG. Also, I can’t wait for Ar Tonelico III!!
But seriously, all in all, PS2 is awesome. Even if the next PlayStation console came out, my PS2 will be sitting there right besides them.
1. Metal Gear Solid 3: I think this one had the best blend of gameplay and movies. A great game that really drew on emotion as well, sad at the end of that game.
2. Devil May Cry 3: One word; Vergil. I had to replay DMC1 to relaize that Vergil was Nelo Angelo. Loved the over the top game play, the different styles and then the SE that had Vergil as a playable character.
3. Legacy of Kain Defiance: This installment really summed up alot of the series. Like MGS3, really did a good job with the gameplay/movie ratio, as Soul Reaver 2 had quite a bit of chat and not much vartied gameplay. Just wish there would have been a Kain on PS3 to wrap up the series…
And as so many others have said, 3 is definitely not enough…
1. Ratchet & Clank series: What made me want to become a part of the game industry and a dream job at Insomniac. Ahh the guns…the RYNO!
2. TimeSplitters series: So many good memories and oh so many hours spent. Ahhh the guns…the brick…the monkey gun.
3. Tekken Tag Tournament: Made love to this game…well at least thought of it. Ahhh the guns…GunJack.
1)Tekken 4
2)Metal Gear 2:Sons of Liberty
3)Yakuza 2
1. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater — One of the series that made me a PS-Fanboy at heart. Add in the great graphics, awesome cutscenes, good gameplay, and a return to playing a Snake. (Even though it wasn’t Solid, that guy that was referred to as a girl for years until he turned cyborg in the 4th edition just made the second game annoying)
2. Need For Speed: Underground 2 — I still believe it’s the best arcade racing game out there. The amount of races in the game and the ability to tweak your car down to the color of the brake made this a game I played for hours and still return to every once and a while.
3. Star Wars: Battlefront — I spent countless hours playing this game with my siblings and friends. I am just dying to have a reboot of the series for PS3. Once that happens and Twisted Metal comes out I’ll have the ultimate couch gaming battles with my siblings again.
Honorable Mentions: God of War, GTA Games, SSX, Sly Cooper, Red Dead Revolver (Yes I know it wasn’t that good, I just had a lot of fun with it), Jak and Daxter games, and Driv3r
Sadly once that darn PS3 took the spot of my PS2 I’ve been playing to many awesome games to go back and play old ones.
PS2’s 10 year anniversary should mean everyone’s top ten games.. 3 is too little a number to express all my ps2 favs.
1. Socom II
2. Everquest Online Adventures
3. Final Fanstasy XI
4. Indigo Prophecy
5. ICO
6. Shadow of the Colosussus
7. Resident Evil 4
8. Metal Gear Solid 3
9. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
10.Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Shadow of the Colossus
God of War 2
Devil May Cry 3
1)FFX innovative in its time. Great battle system, memorable story and beautiful world and graphics.
2)GTA III- the sequels added more to this historic game. But this was my first sandbox experience and will always love it as such.
3)Resident evil 4- Stellar game. It was pretty much perfect and loved how Capcom pulled off all the drastic changes while still bringing such a great classic to life.
…….I think God of War is beyond overrated….
Ack! Did no one remember Klonoa 2? :(
It’s really too bad that not a single one of these quality older games is playable on the newest hardware. Has Sony realized yet that both systems outselling theirs have one thing in common? (Hint: It’s backward compatibility with the previous generation of games).