Featured Photo by Nikita Kostrykin on Unsplash
The Playstation-2 was a big part of my young and now long gone childhood and is pretty much where I first got into any sort of gaming type content, although I did have some experience with SEGA MegaDrive (SEGA Genesis to those in NA) and PlayStation One beforehand, but the Playstation-2 is where it all really begun for me and so I thought I would go across the 10 games I enjoyed and played most on the gaming console.
There were so many great games on PS2 that it was very hard to narrow it down to a Top 10, but I managed to do it in the end, although it was painstaking, but here it is…
Number 10 – Bomberman: Hardball
Photo uploaded to Bomberman FANDOM Wiki by Legato32x
Many old gamers will know what Bomberman is, more so if you had a SEGA Megadrive/Genesis. The original Bomberman (alongside Lemmings) was my all-time favorite game on the SEGA Megadrive for the short time we had one and thinking back to it brings me so much nostalgia.
The main part of Bomberman was to clear stages using bombs to break through obstacles and kill off various enemies. Bomberman: Hardball is much different to the original Bomberman, in the game there are a number of different bomb types and you fight against other Bombermen rather than enemies, but it also came with sports games as well, such as golf which was also one of my favorite parts of the game, until the Nintendo Wii came along and became king of sports games.
Me and my brother often played against each other on the game in 2-player split screen mode on both the normal Bomberman mode and the Golf mode on the game. It provided us with many hours of entertainment and so I believe it earns a spot on the Top 10.
Number 9 – Shrek 2 The Videogame
Photo uploaded by user cynti19 to fanpop.com
I love all the Shrek movies but Shrek 2 was my favorite out of all of them and so of course the game itself would be another favorite, but it was not just down to it being based on one of my favorite childhood movies, but also the fact that it was a really good multiplayer game where you could have up to 4-players at once.
Going through the levels, completing tasks and fighting enemies was really fun on this game and it was even more fun if I was playing 2-player co-op with my brother or even 3-player co-op with our cousin who would sometimes join in as well.
Honorable Shrek 3 mention as well, another pretty good game, but I could not fit it on to this list, there was also a really good minigame on Shrek 3 where you took out different coloured pirate ships to stop them from landing on the beach and stealing treasure, the waves got harder and harder the longer you went.
Number 8 – Shrek Smash N’ Crash Racing
Another Shrek game, but this one was a really cool racing game, with numerous fantastic courses and many of your favorite Shrek characters, as well as that there was items you could use as weapons against your foes making it even more fun!
I can actually say this game was also a favorite of my mum’s and also my nan, who played it against each other, sometimes we’d play it 3-player with my mum, brother and me, so it provided us with good family quality time.
Another honorable mention for yet ANOTHER Shrek game, Shrek SuperSlam, a really awesome fighting game that could support up to 4 players, it was another game me and my brother often fought against each other on. As you can see, we had a thing for Shrek movies and games. Shrek was awesome! Also, they announced a 5th Shrek movie recently as well!!! YAY.
Number 7 – Lego Indiana Jones
I love all of the LEGO games that were made across PS2 and PS3 but my favorite will probably have to be Lego Indiana Jones games, and it was yet another game you could have up to 4-players co-op on and so it was yet another game me and my brother very often played.
Playing through the levels and following along a story with characters that never spoke was pretty amusing and the many enemy types and the fact you could collect tons of playable characters was a personal joy for me with these LEGO games, but the LEGO Indiana Jones series of LEGO games I found to be the most enjoyable for some reason, not sure why though.
Honorable mention to the LEGO Star Wars & LEGO Batman videogames that also provided us with many hours of entertainment. Also, LEGO IS AWESOME, I have lots of LEGO at my house and many models on display.
Number 6 – Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
The Crash Bandicoot games that were on PS-One that I often played on PS2 (PS1 games were able to be played on PS2 back in the cool days) were very fun and I would re-play them over and over again, specifically the 2nd Crash Bandicoot game which is my all-time favorite out of the Crash Bandicoot series.
The Wrath of Cortex was a magnificent entrance on to PS2 for the Crash Bandicoot series but it was too bad it was mostly the last good one they made, in my opinion, the games that followed after, such as Crash Twinsanity etc. were nowhere near as good.
But I replayed The Wrath of Cortex over and over again cause the levels were cool, the bosses were cool and also, the game was just cool in general, I’ve always had a thing for platformers (Mario fan! BIG MARIO FAN).
Number 5 – Lemmings
Another Classic, just like Bomberman that you oldy SEGA gamers would surely know about. Lemmings is a puzzle game where you use various tools to give the lemmings jobs to make their way through obstacles and dangers in each level to take them safely to a home, each level requires you to save a set number of Lemmings and it is a really fun and challenging game.
It was another favorite of my mum and nan and so when my nan gave me Lemmings one Christmas for the PS2 I could not wait to get into it as it included many of the original game levels as well as many new ones, as well as the ability to create your very own levels.
A simple but very enjoyable and mentally challenging game to get your brains running while having fun saving little cute Lemmings.
Number 4 – Star Wars Battlefront II
Lots of people will agree that Star Wars Battlefront II was one of the best PS2 games of all-time. The general gist of the game is you fight within an army in the game including both the original and prequel eras so you can fight as either Separatist and Republic or Empire and Rebels and of course you get a chance to fight as many of the heroes/villains including Obi Wan Kenobi, Chewbacca, Han Solo, Count Dooku, Darth Vader, Boba Fett and many others with all special abilities and unique attacks.
I never really did the campaign on this game but me and my brother always fought against each other by doing EVERY SINGLE MAP start to finish, which would normally have us playing for an entire day. My preferred mode was capturing spawn areas and just killing each other until all reserve numbers had depleted or one side captured all spawn areas.
Number 3 – Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal
Another amazing game or even series of games is Ratchet & Clank, the 3rd Ratchet & Clank is one of my all-time favorite PS2 games, as I have said previously, I love platformers and this fits right into that with many enemies to take on and lots of interesting planets/levels as you go through the many missions in the game. Also, one of the most hilarious villains ever, Dr. Nefarious makes his debut in this game.
The game also has many weapons that can be upgraded and made more powerful as you progress and once you’ve completed the game you can do it all over again in a challenge mode.
As well as that it came with a split-screen multiplayer mode that me and my brother would always verse each other on. We would always play the mode where you had to defend your base, capture nodes to get access to vehicles and destroy their base to win.
Number 2 – Ratchet & Clank
Of course, though, the original Ratchet & Clank is the absolute best game in the Ratchet & Clank series and was pretty much the first ever game I played on the PlayStation-2 and it was also a favorite game of my mum and nan. It is so nostalgic thinking of this game and it includes so many enjoyable planets to complete missions on using different weapons and fighting many different enemy types, it is one of the best platformer’s game alongside Super Mario in my opinion. It really deserves its spot, although it was really hard not to put it as Number 1.
Right now, I am playing the Ratchet & Clank re-make on PS4 and I am really impressed how they have improved on the game, making the story make more sense, explaining the enemies and just making it all the more fun by adding new parts and elements.
Number 1! – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
And here we are at the top spot and of course it takes us into the GTA series. Anyone who has played any of the GTA games will almost always agree that San Andreas was one of the best GTA games of all-time just due to the size of the map, the many different places you could go, the numerous types of vehicles and weapons, as well as gang wars and really fun and enjoyable missions.
And outside of all that you can simply just mess around sandbox style, doing what you want, which can be made even more fun with the wide selection of cheat codes available in the game. They even added a hidden 2-player mode in the game where you could have a friend drop in with another controller, me and my brother played on this mode quite a bit when we found it.
As well as that the game was kept alive long afterwards with mods, including a really amazing GTA Online mod, although we had the PS2 version and not the PC version which all the mods were on it was still very fun to watch the videos out there on the mods and online mode, our childhood wonder wishing we had access to it back then.
And then we have all the so-called San Andreas mysteries in the game, that we would search up about on YouTube and then go and search for them ourselves, even though most of them were not real and were just mods, but we were young and naïve! But there were also lots of cool “Easter Eggs” in the game to find.
So, there you have it, the list was hard to put together and order as all these games are so great and there were also many other great games I wanted to include, but alas, only 10 spots!
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