My 2023 Review in Gaming

Prophecy Fulfilled – Alone in the Dark – PS2

I remember playing the original Alone in the Dark on my 486 PC. I’ll admit, it had moments that spooked me, especially when I’d play late at night with the lights down low and my headphones on. Combine those classic memories with a stubborn quality I have of “Well, let me see how bad it is really is for myself”, because as I discussed in my I Love Video Games series last year, I enjoy enjoying games, even more so if I can find something good in titles others can’t (some foreshadowing for later in this post). So when I had the chance to finally try out Alone in the Dark on PS2 for cheap, I felt it was time to have this experience.

In this case, the masses were correct. What a terrible game. It reminded me of a Resident Evil version of Dragon’s Lair. It’s not like it had quick-time-events, but just the way the “puzzles” turned out, had an overly scripted feel to it. I’m not sure how to explain it better than that. Awful controls with tiresome game-play. Everything else on this list I managed to make it through to the credits (which included the “Worst Game”, as it’s the Worst Game I Beat), but this game that I gave up on deserved to be called out for exactly what I should’ve known it to be.

Worst Game – Dark Legion – PSVR

PSVR did not have a good year for me. Perhaps I made it through all the titles that were going to be fun for me and now I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel. Half of my bottom 10 titles for 2023 are PSVR titles, with only one PSVR title making it higher on the list. At the very bottom of the list is Dark Legion. You can watch my review of this cumbersome game in the video below.

Most Disappointing – Bloodrayne: Betrayal (Fresh Bites) – PS4

Although not the worst, it did make it into the bottom 10. I was looking forward to Betrayal because I enjoyed the first two 3D games on the PS2, and thought a good 2D brawler with Rayne would be a lot of fun. Sadly it was not. It’s one thing when you’re going in expecting to not have a great time, but a bad game is even worse when even mild positive expectations are shattered.

You can read my review here.

Most Underappreciated Game – Forspoken – PS5

Now let’s get to the good stuff. Well, get into the stuff that I though was good, although that’s definitely not an opinion shared by all. I think there’s open-world-exhaustion, which I can understand but I’m not necessarily there yet. As I explain in my review below, if the setting is right I don’t mind a action-piece checklist. I had fun with it, and I feel like a chunk of the criticism comes from people jumping on the bandwagon of popular criticism. It turned it from “it’s not good” to “it’s cool to hate.”

Most Surprising Game – The Riftbreaker – PS5

I felt like I was taking a chance with The Riftbreaker. It had components that looked good to me, but I was worried that the resource management and base-building/defense would be too involved for me to enjoy. I was very happy with how things turned out. It was addictive for me, and kept me engaged. The power-management was the most frustrating part for me, but it was definitely worth putting in the effort. Watch the video below for my review.

My Favourite – Spider-man 2 – PS5

I honestly can’t say if this is an objective choice, as I’d feel almost guilty if it wasn’t my #1. There’s been more than one year that a Spider-man game makes it to my #1 spot. But I do love them, and this one was no different. The ability to play as Peter or Miles, slick combat, and lots of fun stuff to do, all help build a wonderfully good time. When I rank games, the question that’s always top of mind is: how willing am I to play this game again? No doubt, that if I looked at all the games I played this year, this would be my first choice for a re-play.

Top 10 of 2023

10. the Rift Breaker PS5
9. Alienation PS5
8. Vanquish PS4
7. Prodeus PS5
6. RoboCop: Rogue City PS5
5. Atlas Fallen PS5
4. Forspoken PS5
3. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PS5
2. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor PS5
1. Spider-man 2 PS5

What’s next in 2024

I already have a considerable to-play list for this year. As of writing this, I’m only a mission or two away from wrapping up Aliens: Dark Descent. Once that campaign is complete, the top games I’m looking forward to trying out (that I currently own) this year are:

1. Weird West – Although a different genre, like The Riftbreaker, I feel like I’m taking a chance on this RPG. It seems like it’s going to be a little different then the action RPGs I’m used to, but it’s been well received and I look forward to what I hope is a pleasant surprise.
2. Dusk Diver 1 & 2 – A brawler of sorts, it’s another franchise I’m taking a chance on, but it seems like a fairly safe bet.
3. Clash: Artifacts of Chaos – It was on my wishlist, then off, and then back on. It’s the random mechanics at play that affect combat encounters that have me uneasy. Aside from that though, I do like the look, despite some people I know that have called it ugly.

You can view all my rankings for this year and years past HERE!

Thanks to Usagi704 for reminding me that I should probably do something with that information I was tracking all year long.

Bloodrayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites – Mini Review

Bloodrayne Betrayal started fairly strong, but the last run of levels got to be annoying. I find it particularly from some slow to respond controls, making it hard to do the precision-timing platforming that’s required at some parts, and making the combat at times feel like I’m not in full control. Fourteen stages at maybe 5 mins a pop (maybe add a few minutes to account for deaths and such) and you’re looking at a couple hours at most, for which the last 20% gets tiresome.

I enjoyed playing the PS2 titles back then, but they were never a favourite, and this game seemed to take the franchise a little further down the rating meter.

After Us (PS5) – Review

On the face of it, I thought After Us was going to be a mostly artsy game. An “experience” driven more by a visual narrative than game-play. It did intrigue me though, so I wanted to experience it myself. I was pleasantly surprised by how solid a platformer it is! It’s not a fast-paced action platformer. In fact, it leans towards more of a survival horror platformer.

The platforming itself is not overly challenging, but still engaging and well designed. The environment has a beautiful creepiness to it, fitting into the themes accordingly, which is where I get the horror vibes from. It’s not scary, but it is unsettling at times. There’s something about the ideas of corpse-like figures floating in dark waters that you have to swim though that always give me the shivers. Maybe I’m traumatized from having seen Big Trouble In Little China at too young an age, with the hell of the upside down sinners. The world proportions are all off too, but in an effective way. Compared to your character nothing seems to be the right size. The animals, the cars, the buildings, the people, they’re distorted.

(After Us, PS5 game-play.)

As for the combat, I’ve seen people complain about how it works. You can only shoot in the direction your moving, and it’s a relatively slow affair. But after I came to feel that this was more of a horror game than anything else, that started to feel right. It made the combat scenarios feel panicked and appropriately clumsy.

Now that I’m reflecting and typing this out, the only real issue I had with the game, was that sometimes the camera was uncooperative. Everything else was very well crafted. It’s not an experience for everybody, and there are things you have to accept, like how you may get lost (as I did sometimes) but that’s likely because you stopped paying attention to the visual clues you were given (as I did sometimes). I’ve heard others say the controls are floaty, but the controls fit the world you’re in; so you may have to adjust from other games you’ve played, but sometimes that because you’re just playing a different game.

I enjoyed the game for the about 8 hours I played it, although I didn’t fall in love with the game (i.e. feel the need to replay over and over, maybe try for a speed run), I definitely appreciate the game, and the hook that Piccolo Studio had worked on me. It felt different, and I like that.

If you want a sombre platformer, I can recommend After Us.

I Love Video Games – Part 13: What’s next?

I wasn’t sure how to wrap things for this series, but here we are. An air balloon ride skimming over my game system experiences. Over forty years later, and I still love playing video games. I remember there was concern a couple times as to whether or not I was going to buy another system. Were companies going to start charging an activation fee to play used games? Were they going to make systems  with always online requirements?

Thankfully those things never came to pass. And even though there are problems lingering like tolerance for loot boxes and in-game-transactions, they are meeting resistance and their regularity has dipped. Meanwhile, transgressions of big companies are coming to light, encouraging skipping on what they offer to spite their intolerance and criminal behaviours.

There are still some so-called triple-A studios that I enjoy content from, and I look forward to spending more time with B-studios and publishers as well. I just want to have fun, and will continue to find ways to do that without contributing negatively to the communities.

As for interacting with communities, it’s not always consistent, but I still post blogs, videos, reviews, chat on discord, and even get to contribute to the Hart & Usagi podcast every now and then. I also always perk up when I’m in a meeting at work and discover someone else that’s into gaming.

I like listening to Alan Watts’ seminars. I’ll do a little creative syllogism and paraphrasing and mention how he talks about life being a game, and the purpose of life is simply to live. So you could say that the purpose of life is to play the game. And the best way to play the game is have fun. Bring on the new titles and innovations, because corporate greed aside, I think gaming overall does keep getting better. Please, mo gatekeeping, no bullying, no exclusionary behaviour. More options, more styles, more fads, more fun for everyone! I you continue to find games you love to play.

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Please check me out on YouTube for game reviews and more, and follow me on Mastodon!

I Love Video Games – Part 12: Playstation 5

I’ve had my PS5 for just over a year, so it’s still early for me. One reason I got it was basically to get the “good” versions of newer games. The versions that won’t overheat my system like they likely would on the old PS4 hardware. God of War Ragnarök and Horizon Forbidden West are a couple of examples. But because this has been a sort of transition year, not a lot is different for me so far. I haven’t seen what the system is really capable of, like I’m sure we’ll see a in another year or two.

That said, it does have some additional benefits, including backwards compatibility. This has been somewhat of a divisive feature for some on previous gen hardware. The PS4 didn’t have it, and neither did the PS3 (after that first run of hardware at least), but it’s really been nice having it on the PS5. I enjoy taking advantage of the loading speeds, and for PSVR games, things look a lot crisper.  The developers that offered free PS5 upgrades from the PS4 version was appreciated as well. I did expand the storage this year though, because 500GB just isn’t going to cut it.

If you’ve been reading my previous entries, you’ve probably noticed I haven’t own any model of XBox. I’m not a relentless Sony fanboy, in that I’m overtly anti-xbox, I just find it makes more sense for me to focus on one collection, and ever since the PS2, it’s the Playstation route I’ve wanted to go. I’m enjoying my time with the PS5, have scored a few platinum trophies on it, and have even gotten a collectable hard-copy of Stray for it. My collection is still comparatively small, but it’s growing. I’m looking forward to the games to come as well, such as the new Spider-man game due out later in 2023, and RoboCop Rogue City!

As for what I feel the future holds for me in terms of gaming, stay tuned for my final installment of this series.

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Please check me out on YouTube for game reviews and more, and follow me on Mastodon!

I Love Video Games – Part 11: Playstation 4

Going from the PS2 to the PS3, I felt there was a big jump in graphics. I didn’t feel like the leap was as significant going from the PS3 to PS4, especially in the first half of the lifespan. It wasn’t as immediately noticeable. What I didn’t know at the time was how the new system was going to continue refining many of the genres I was enjoying, such as that ever-expanding open-world genre. I happily handed over dozens of hours to exploring in games like Biomutant and Ghost of Tsushima. I prefer the worlds that are distanced from our own, by either time or space. Put in far in the past or the future. Put me on another world completely. I’m not so much for hanging out in the now-times. I look at my favourite game on the system, Horizon: Zero Dawn, to see how that open world mechanic was perfected in my eyes with a great story, visuals, action, characters, and activities, and think it reflects the best of how that generation of consoles was building on what came before.

Included in that refinement was seeing games from decades past being paid homage to and being rebooted, holding on to the fun and principles of yesteryear, and at the same time taking advantage of all the modern amenities. From smaller games like Hyper Sentinel doing the game-play better than Uridium did, and Giana Sisters: Twisted Dream improving upon the what the Sisters offered in 80s, to the juggernauts like Doom coming back strong with brand new entries.

Re-masters continued to churn out from the previous gen, but to me re-makes appeared to be taking the lead. I took the opportunity to play games that were rebuilt from the ground up that I never played before like the Spyro series. I also experienced the amazing Shadow of Colossus remake that blew away its previous (yet great in their own right) iterations on the PS2 and the PS3 re-master.

I allowed PSN into my life more, and with it came some great indie titles, and enticing sales. Being able to try out some games that would’ve otherwise passed because I wasn’t sure if I was willing to pay the price, but PSN offers gave me a low risk chance to try them out, and now I have over 100 digital titles. Included in that are some games I wanted to play that were ONLY available in digital form (save for maybe limited series collectors presses that may exist). Games like the Super Hot series!

It was the Super Hot series second entry that became a top game for me with a new peripheral: the PSVR. Filling the gap for light-gun shooters of the past, and offering so much more, I’ve had a lot of fun with my PSVR. From astounding built-for-VR experiences Sairento, AstroBot Rescue Mission, and Pistol Whip, to the flat-screen conversions and VR-enabled mode for Borderlands 2, Minecraft, Star Wars: Squadrons, and my favourite of the group: No Mans Sky. I don’t know how many hours of VR I put into that game, but it was well over one hundred, maybe even two. What a success story for Hello Games, to turn around what launched with disappointment and broken promises and pay it back to the players ten-fold with everything they’ve done to improve the game.

One aspect that didn’t carry over from the PS3 for me was the multi-player. I rarely used it on PS3 anyway, and I wasn’t about to start paying for it with PS+ on the PS4. Well, I did one year, when I saw a deep discount on the annual subscription, and looking back on how much I used it, and the games I got to play for free from being a part of it, it became clear it wasn’t for me. During the time I did have it, I was thankful for getting a chance to play Bloodborne co-op with @usagi704. I tried getting into it about a year or two earlier, but gave up. As this experienced showed me, I definitely benefited from the multi-player experience. Sadly, it didn’t encourage me to venture into From Software’s Soulsbourne genre much further, and attempts from other developers that I stumbled into did no better, at least until Steel Rising came about from the team at Spiders.

Everything was coming together wonderfully for me this generation. Flare and colour was leaking back in style, from the gritty browns and greys that kicked off the PS3. Accessibility was spreading, and inclusivity started to demean the gate-keepers. Previously disregarded genres started bulking up again. A wide ranging catalog from family friendly games like the Lego series, to the heavy hitters like Spider-man and Mile Morales, to quirky games like Man Eater. Giving a place to play continuing underdog series like Darksiders, underdog developer titles like Hellblade from Ninja Theory, and appreciated fan service games with Mad Max, Transformers: Devastation, and Terminator Resistance. The PS2 had a good run ranking #1 for me in terms of consoles, but with so many hits from that generation now available on PS4, along with much of the best from the PS3, plus the new catalogue, the PS4 worked hard to be my new king of the hill.

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Thank you for reading, and thanks to all the new followers!

There’s still a couple more entries in this series to come. In the meantime, please check me out on YouTube for game reviews and more, and follow me on Mastodon!

I Love Video Games – Part 10: Portable Gaming

Let’s take a break from the main consoles, and address Portable Gaming. I’ve never been a big user of portable systems. There’s always been something else for me to use at home, so the only time I would be motivated to use something portal was typically in transit, which for the most part has not regularly been a part of my day (I did a lot of walking to work). That said, gaming on the go has been there for me for a while.

As a kid, portable gaming for me was mostly a one-game-per-system experience. We had this mechanical racing game where you would steer this F1 racer back and forth, while these left and right treads of sorts, would move at different speeds and have pictures of cars you’d have to avoid.

I don’t know what happened to that thing, but I do still have the few Tiger LCD games I had as a kid. They were about $20 a piece. Baseball, Pinball, and Heavy Barrel (an arcade favourite of mine on the go) which I did enjoy playing. The one I don’t have any more is this larger stand-up LCD game of After Burner that used a flight stick to control the plane.

I also have the Merlin that made its way into our home. A telephone-receiver looking device with 6 games that you would play using the 11 red LED lights. Games like blackjack, memory, music maker, password, Simon says, and this puzzle game where you had to get all the lights to form a square. The biggest drawback is how freakin’ LOUD it is, with no volume control.

When I was about 16 I did get a Game Gear. This was my first hand-held with interchangeable games. Sucker was terrible on batteries, but served it’s purposes for the occasional long car ride from our little hometown to southern Ontario cities. My favourite game in that little collection I have is Streets of Rage 2. Sadly the screen has lost a lot of its contrast over time, making everything look washed out and hard to see.

That was it for a long time. Then in my mid-twenties, realizing that I would be travelling every now and again for work, I decided to pick up a used Playstation Portable. I got together a nice little collection, but still found the same trappings as before. I wouldn’t sit on the couch very often to play it. It would be if I was on a plane, or hanging out in a hotel room after working in a different city. Or maybe if I was on a trip back to my home town, and wanted to relax in bed before calling it a night. If I was at home, I’d gravitate towards my consoles and/or PC. Still, I played some fun games on it.

The one I probably played the most was an addicting little puzzle game called Gunpey. The goal is to get the high-score by essentially connecting a line (with as many branches as possible) from one side of the screen to the other. Simple but effective. The PSP was also the system on which I had my first experience with the Burnout franchise, and got to see what a great series that is. Then there were the games that basically let me play what I was already playing on PS2: the Lego Games, Star Wars Battlefront and Force Unleashed, and of course the PSP God of War games.

Then there was a big lull in terms of anything new coming my way for handheld games, aside from the 10 minute time killers on these new smartphone things that were coming out. I never bought a PS Vita, and I never bought a DS (well, not for myself anyway). Then a couple years ago I bought an Anbernic handheld. This little gizmo is basically one of those “play hundreds of old-school school games” things that runs emulation. For a quick call-back to an earlier entry in this series, about 66% of the time it’s really just my portable Intellivision. Still a fun little device though, and I have gotten to play some other classic 8 and 16 bit games on it.

I Love Video Games – Part 9: Playstation 3

Arriving late to the party again, I got my first PS3 a few years after launch when the slim was already out. The first game I played was God of War 3, which I had borrowed from a friend. I was happy to play it to, as I was put off by GoW2 ending on a cliff-hanger WITH the knowledge the third game would not be on PS2. What a bummer. Thankfully, it was a great way to kick off that generation for me.

The first game I bought was Red Faction Guerrilla, another one that I enjoyed a lot. It was also my introduction to what could be considered the standard structure for modern day open-world games, and continued with titles like the Infamous series, and Prototype 2. Generally speaking I’m still a fan of this genre today, and enjoy going through the checklist of enemy bases, recon towers, loot locations, etc. I know there are some people that find games that go this route can be tiresome and cookie cutter-ish, but there’s just something about them, when in the right setting, that I enjoy.

There was a lot of things the PS3 introduced to me, that I think I kinda take for granted. The studios I learned about, the series and genre formats that were kicked off; I sometimes forget about all the great games and memories it brought me. Rocksteady changed the way you kick ass in melee combat with their Arkham series. Ninja Theory put out solid titles like Heavenly Sword, Enslaved, and the sometimes divisive DMC: Devil May Cry.  Platinum Games wowed with Vanquish and Bayonetta. The FPS genre was spiced up with the Bioshock series and Bulletstorm. It’s the platform that kicked off the wonderful Darksiders for me, and was a home for an excellent sequel that dwarfed its predecessor – Alice: Return to Madness. It also introduced me to the world of Minecraft, for which everyone in my household spent countless hours on.

Gen-7 of gaming consoles was where I noticed remasters really starting gaining steam in a big way. Sure there were Atari, Intellivision, and various arcade and series collections that came out on past systems, but now they started going all-in for games from just the previous gen. The second PS3 that I bought (always good to have a couple consoles of any kind you know), came with download codes for the remaster of the first three Sly Cooper games that came out on PS2. I also ended up getting the remaster of Beyond Good and Evil, which also came out in gen-6, but for as great of a game it was, it was nice to have a version that wasn’t so buggy. There were remasters for Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, Doom 3, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, God of War, Jak and Daxter, Devil May Cry, the flood gates were open!

Oh, and that second PS3 I mentioned, that one is the top loader with the sliding door, and you know what… I LIKE the look of it.

DLC was now commonplace for consoles, thanks to services like the Playstation Store. Although I’m still a hard-copy lover, this service allowed me to access to games that I would have not otherwise ever bothered with. Although at the time I was hesitant and didn’t get into a lot of indie games, I did dip my toe in and get a few titles and what I used to call expansion packs, that I would’ve otherwise missed, like the superb Bionic Commando Re-armed, and the Infamous: Festival of Blood DLC. PSN sales also made it low-risk to spend money on something new to try out; that’s how I ended up playing Crystal Dynamic’s Tomb Raider reboot. I enjoyed it so much that I continued with the series and ended up buying all three games on hard-copy game for the PS4. It’s hard to have a plus without a minus though, and with easy online connectivity comes the willingness to rush out broken games and just fix it with a patch later, maybe.

Shady business aside, I’m lucky enough to have some series favourites of mine appear on the PS3. My favourite Ratchet and Clank game: A Crack in Time. My favourite Spider-man game: Shattered Dimensions. Oh, and I can’t wrap this entry up without calling out my favourite PS3 game in general, which is yet another title that developers are still chasing today to match the tone, ingenuity, and writing: Portal 2.

I don’t feel it overtook the PS2 in terms of greatness. The third of five children (so far), I feel like it gets lost in the middle sometimes, and doesn’t always get the appreciation it deserves, (at least not if it isn’t the system you “grew up with”) even from myself. As I look back though, I can’t deny all the awesome times it offered up.

I Love Video Games – Part 8: Wii

Based on what I have planned at the moment, we’re now passed the ½ way point in this series of posts. Something fun for the kids now! My kids, specifically. Nintendo distanced themselves from marketing the power of their systems, and moved their focus to accessibility. They knew the Wii wasn’t going to offer the graphics that the upcoming PS3 and XBox 360 were going to, so they went all in on their motion controls and easy to pick up and play library. It seemed like a great Christmas present for the family, so we got a nice shiny red one.

This served its role for us very well for several years. Everyone in the house had some fun with it. Together we played Lego games, Mario Kart, Kirby, Toy Story, Smash Bros, Batman: Brave and the Bold, and many others in fun co-op and vs. action. Tron: Battle Grids was probably the one me and my boys spent the most time on together, and made it one of my top games for the system just for the play-time we racked up. It’s definitely the system that provided the most memories of our family playing together.

There were also some solid single-player games that were just for me. Whenever the option presented itself, I would tend to use the pro-controller on the Wii and ditch the motion controls. However, games like Red Steel 2 show how it’s done, and can make it into my top-3 Wii games, with some of the best action on the system.

Yes the motion control gimmick did lend itself to an onslaught of shovel-ware, and Nintendo seemed to be the land of the brand, in that there were so many licensed games that were cashing in on the console’s success. Some of them did make a decent effort to not be a cash-grab though. Cars 2 was a good racer with lots of game-play options, and Ben 10: Cosmic Destruction put together a good beat-em-up for fans of the franchise. I’m not sure where else to call it out in this post, so I’m just going to say it here: I also enjoyed the divisive Metroid Other M.

Another common trait of the Wii was how it would often get trimmed-down, feature-weak versions of cross-platform games. War for Cybertron comes out for the PS3? Well, the Wii has the much inferior Cybertron Adventures. But this wasn’t always the case! Prince of Persia: the Forgotten Sands is a completely different game than what appeared with the same name on other systems of the time, but it’s still a great addition to the franchise and another one of my top 3.

In spite of the stand-out titles we played, the Wii did end up being a product of its time in our household. I still play old PC games, and even pick up the occasional PS2 game, but by comparison the Wii has been more stagnant. There’s not a lot I bother to go back to, and I don’t feel compelled to keep sneaking games in to my collection. We still have it though! I think Nintendo succeeded at what they set out to do. Microsoft and Sony seemed to believe it was the motion controls that made it a success, and attempted to compete at that level, which I think was a mistake. I like to believe Nintendo set their goal on having the system be about the experience of playing with the people in your home, and that was where the success was. I look back on the Wii fondly, and wouldn’t change having it in my collection.

I Love Video Games – Part 7: Playstation 2

We’ve got a house. We’ve got some job security. I’m in the back-half of my twenties. I’m going to treat myself. I was debating between the GameCube and Playstation 2. I mean, Metroid Prime is out for the GC, so maybe it was worth going back to Nintendo. As the title suggests though, I gave the Playstation brand another shot and picked up a black PS2 slim with Star Wars Battlefront. I set up my new system on our 27″ CRT TV and was immediately amazed by the experience. I am taken in by the system so quickly, and play so frequently, that in less than a month my wife is saying “we’re going to have to get you some more games.” She knows what I know: I’m ready to move on from my PC as my main machine, and invest in console gaming again.

I followed up the amazing Battlefront by the superb Spider-man 2. I couldn’t believe my luck. To think that this is what the PS2 would deliver brought such playful joy, not to mention it made me a sucker for Spider-man games like never before.

The PS2 kicked off a lot things for me:

• Renewed love of platformers. The Precursor Legacy, Sly Cooper, Psychonauts, Kya: Dark Lineage, Klonoa 2, Ty: The Tasmanian Tiger, and my favourite of the group, Ratchet and Clank. So many choices, so many styles of a genre I didn’t spend much time with on the PC.
• Expanding the types of games I tried out, with oddball entries like Dog’s Life, Katamari Damacy, as well as RPGs that I would’ve otherwise overlooked like Okami.
• Peripherals! I don’t think I’ve ever collected more peripherals for a system than this one. The Taiko Drum Master drum, Buzz! controllers for trivia games, the EyeToy, a Guitar Hero guitar, DDR dance pads, and an arcade fight stick to round things out.
• Collecting! I’ve mentioned a few times that while I did purchase games, a lot of my libraries on C64 and PC were obtained via other methods. The PS2 was the first system I would really collect for, and the first system I would hit 100 legit titles for. This was in part thanks to it being a solid time for both eBay and EB Games, not to mention a huge library of great games for the system.
• Completion. 100%’ing wasn’t quite as big yet, but my mindset changed at some point during my time with the PS2. I started focusing on one or two games at a time, and doing my best to beat a game (or at least decide if it wasn’t for me and I could resell it and forget it) before moving on to something new.

Some additional favourites that show just how excellent the catalog is include just some of the God of War games, the Prince of Persia trilogy, Shadow of the Colossus, Beyond Good and Evil, and my new all-time favourite racer – Jak X Combat Racing. Plus a lot of underrated and overshadowed games, like Predator: Concrete Jungle, Star Trek Encounters, Gun, and Rygar. I was also finally feeling like the consoles caught up with the First-Person-Shooter genre with games like Dark Watch, Timesplitters, Black, Project: Snowblind, and Killzone. A wide breadth of games covering so many genres with so much fun.

It also made for a great system to expose my kids to the joys of gaming (oh yeah, because it was around this time we started our family). Solid children’s titles like Wall-E, the Buzz! Games for kids, and the family friendly Lego games. My eldest and I would also play one-on-one games like World Destruction League: Thunder Tanks.

Loads great stuff. I had a remarkably positive ratio of hits to misses. Of course I can’t pretend that there weren’t some misses for me. Jak 2 is probably the most stress and anger inducing experience on the system for me, in spite of my love for the other entries. I did two YouTube videos about that divisive game.

Watch the video linked above on YouTube to be brought to my PS2 Game-play Playlist

Even disappointments like that couldn’t dampen my spirits with this top ranked system of mine that had astounding longevity. Before I moved to another system, I had bought a second PS2 (this time the silver one). It revitalized my love for love for the gaming console, and the Playstation has been my go-to platform since. Although, one rival did manage to sneak it’s way in.