The PlayStation 2 is widely regarded as one of the best games consoles of all time, having outsold its rivals and cemented its legacy – and one of the big reasons for it was its impressive library of PS2 games.
From the start of iconic titles to genre-defining benchmarks of classic series, the PS2 had some of the best games ever made grace its platform, and dozens of the thousands of titles have been remade or remastered since. And that’s probably one of the reasons the console sold over 160 million units. Still, looking back at the console itself, it’s hard to just pick a few top games.
Image Credit: Konami
Here’s our list of the best PS2 games of all time.
Image Credit: Namco
It’s rare a launch title is seen as one of the best games ever made for a console, but in this case, Tekken Tag Tournament broke the mold. While it could be argued this was just a visual update of the PS1’s Tekken 3, the tag mechanics, huge roster, and iconic soundtrack instantly put the PS2 on the map.
While every PS2 Tekken game could easily make this list, we had to choose Tekken Tag due to its fond place in our memory – and it’s enduring momentum as a launch title. This wasn’t just a new entry in a series – it was a statement about just what the platform was capable of, and helped show that the PS2 was the new home of fighting games.
Image Credit: Namco
Strange, unique, and iconic, the first of the Katamari games really was its own type of beast. Stylish graphics, a completely new premise for a game, that incorporated puzzles, arcade timers, and free roam exploration, there’s still nothing else like this game – except its sequels.
Sporting a thumping soundtrack that instantly plays in our head just while we’re typing this, and a satisfying gameplay loop that’s pretty addicting, we had to add Katamari Damacy to the list. This entry is really also an homage to all the wonderful and weird experimental games that the PS2 hosted including Fantavision, Mr Mosquito, Chulip, and others.
Image Credit: Radical Entertainment
Widely regarded as the best Simpsons tie-in game ever made, The Simpsons: Hit & Run is the GTA-like you never knew you wanted. Casting you as one of five of the show’s iconic characters, it’s hard not to love the jokes, references, and slapstick comedy of this game.
You’d think a licensed tie-in Simpsons game would be easy as well, but as anyone whose played the brutally hard side scrollers or devilish Simpsons Wrestling titles can attest, that’s not the case. Just like its fellow Simpsons games, Hit & Run has some huge difficulty spikes, and is not for the faint hearted. Still, it’s one of the best PS2 games by far, and it’s a shame licencing issues mean it will likely never be remastered or remade.
Image Credit: Clover Studios
Visually incredible and quite literally a one of a kind game, Ōkami is (surprisingly) a roughly similar game to the N64 Legend of Zelda games, but with the magical wolf god character taking the place of the protagonist. While there’s plenty of 3d platformers on the PS2, there’s really none that do the visual style and tone quite like Ōkami, which has only seen every limited re-releases. The best way to experience the game, in our opinion, is still on PS2, with a CRT and memory card, just like originally intended.
Image Credit: EA
Before Call of Duty hit its stride, Medal of Honor ruled the FPS world, and Frontline was its peak. Released in the wake of Saving Private Ryan, Medal of Honor was to some the first game that let you storm the beaches at Normandy, and incorporated the visceral horror of that experience the best it could.
While the rest of the game could be forgiven for turning into a one-man-army shooter where a single paratrooper wins the entire war, the opening scenes and missions of MoH: Frontline are just so special. While it’s one of the lower reviewed games on this list, it’s still our choice for one of the best games ever released on PS2.
Image Credit: Capcom
It’s a bold move of a horror game to fundamentally travel away from the place that makes it iconic, but in heading to a fictional part of Spain, rather than the iconic Racoon City, Resident Evil 4 did that. In doing so, it transformed the horror of the game into a more nuanced experience. A game that has you scrambling for ammo and fighting unstoppable hoards of seemingly undead villagers, bringing maximum tension rather than jump scares and oblique angles.
It’s telling that even the remake is highly reviewed in a sea of Resident Evil remakes. Safe to say this game is one of the reasons the series is still going strong today.
Image Credit: Square Enix
At the time mocked for its voice acting and cheesy story, it’s hard now to consider Final Fantasy
In an era where Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wins accolades, it’s sometimes easy to forget that just a few years ago, the PS2 era was maligned and sometimes criticized for being the final nail in the coffin of turn-based RPGs. With some of the best ever titles in the genre releasing on the console, consider this entry representative of all of them. Sorry Persona 3 & 4, Disgaea, Xenosaga, Shin Megami Tensei, and others, there just wasn’t room for all of you.
Image Credit: Santa Monica Studios
While now God of War is a staple of gaming royalty, could you believe in 2005, this relatively new title was a quirky and experimental title. While we’d seen 3d action brawlers in the likes of the hugely successful Prince of Persia 3d series on the PS2, God of War’s over the top violence, sex, and sometimes brutal difficulty spikes could have spelled doom for the nascent series.
Instead, the game is one of the most fondly remembered titles on the PS2. Receiving near universal acclaim at the time, it turns out gamers of the mid 2000s were ready for something even more visceral and brutal to come to the PS2, and after the controversy of games like Manhunt and GTA earlier in the decade, the more arcade-like tone of God of War made it a hit.
Image Credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Breathtaking, epic, and continent-spanning are things that are hard to imagine the PS2 delivering by modern standards. But rest assured that when it was released, Shadow of the Colossus was all those things. I’ve almost done myself a disservice here by using “epic” in the first line of a description about SotC, because it’s really the perfect word for it.
The gameplay, at the time, was so unique that there really was absolutely nothing like it, and even today, the process of climbing and defeating the colossus can feel like something very unique and special. The sound track, the visuals, the scale – nothing quite matches one of the most revolutionary games every put to PS2 disk.
Image Credit: Konami
It’s hard to explain how impressive MGS 2: Sons of Liberty was on release, but the game pushed the boundaries of what a game could do, both narratively and technically. Ironically, the game which would become one of the most important stealth games of all time was criticized on launch for its choice to cast Raiden, not Solid Snake, as the main character.
Given the former character is now beloved, helped in part due to the cult success of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, it seems silly. Still the game was one of the most acclaimed games of the PS2 era, perhaps in spite of its story, which gained more acclaim later for its bold decisions. This is the game that turned Hideo Kojima into a superstar, and for much of its existence was a PS2 exclusive.
Image Credit: Rockstar North
While Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas were all released on the PS2, it’s Vice City that really sticks in our mind. Initially a PS2 exclusive, and one of the best selling PS2 games every, with over 14.2 million copies sold (only surpassed by San Andreas and Gran Turismo 3), almost everyone has to have played this game.
Vice City was perhaps the most memorable because of its dominance of the genre for multiple years. Still riding from the hype of GTA III which released in October 2001, a year later Vice City would come out, and it would be two more years before San Andreas followed. During that time, Vice City would perfectly evoke 80s crime movies like Scarface and Miami Vice. Filled to the brim with jokes, controversy, violence, sex, drugs, the game felt like the peak of what a “grown up” game could be in the early 2000s. It’s our best ever game on the PS2.
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