Twenty-five years ago today, the Sony PlayStation 2 released in Japan, instantly selling out amidst a wave of enthusiastic press, fans and critics alike marvelling at the PS2’s impressive specs and murderers’ row of launch titles, including Dynasty Warriors 2, Midnight Club, Ridge Racer V, and SSX.
A quarter century later, it’s impressive how many of those names still carry weight, whether it’s the recent Dynasty Warriors: Origins which has earned comparisons to its PS2 forebear, or in the loving nostalgia elicited, for a certain generation, by the mere mention of a name like SSX (of which more in a moment).
To celebrate this anniversary, and at the risk of ageing ourselves too badly, here are our picks for the top twenty-five PS2 games of all time. We have tried our best to focus on games which remain essential experiences today, largely avoiding titles for which there are other, better sequels presently available. It’s not a strict rule – Gran Turismo 3 makes the cut, even if it’s since been surpassed by Gran Turismo 7 – but our goal here is to argue for the enduring vitality of these decades-old titles. (We’ve also restricted ourselves to one game per series, explaining the absence of the totally brilliant Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.)
We have also done our best to note where these games are available on modern systems, hopefully reducing the need to dust off your old PS2s.
1. Shadow of the Colossus (2005, remake available on PS4/PS5)
Twenty years later, giant-slaying simulator Shadow of the Colossus remains my favourite video game of all time. As I’ve written before, Colossus is not only the best example of gaming as art, but in the very specific virtues of gaming as an interactive art form, capable of things no other medium can accomplish. Aesthetically breathtaking, it’s the storytelling – the details gradually unveiled to you, the shocking revelations that only work because it’s a video game – which elevates Colossus above and beyond anything that’s come before or since.
2. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004, HD remaster available on PS4/5, remake due out later this year)
When MGS3: Snake Eater released, I did not yet own a PS2, necessitating a (well-planned in advance) hardware rental from Blockbuster the day this hotly-anticipated prequel came out. While its immediate predecessor was a delightfully subversive blockbuster of a game, Snake Eater easily surpasses both MGS2 and the original MGS as the definitive entry in the oeuvre of auteur Hideo Kojima. Part James Bond homage, part meta-commentary (one of the first things MGS3 asks is whether you liked its controversial predecessor, MGS2: Sons of Liberty), it’s a joy to play from start to finish, with some of the best storytelling, and best combat scenarios, ever devised. Case in point: one of the bosses, a centenarian sniper, can be defeated by shutting off your PS2 for a week and returning after he dies of old age.
3. Ōkami (2006, HD remaster available on PS4/5 and Switch)
Friends and readers alike will tell you I can be annoying about Ōkami, a game which I insist on referring to as the “best Zelda”, a stance I have not changed in nearly twenty years. Visually, Ōkami is a stunner, a Japanese watercolour painting come to life, built around the player’s ability to draw directly on the game world with a magical paintbrush. Whether it’s pausing mid-combat to hastily sketch a sword-slash through an enemy, or painting over a dead tree to make flowers blossom, there’s nothing quite like it. Its epic scale – what, in any other game, would be the final boss turns out to be the quarter mark of the game – rivals any of the great mythologies.
4. Final Fantasy X (2001, HD remaster available on PS4/5, Xbox One, and Switch)
The very first JRPG I ever played, FFX has aged poorly in some respects (the cheesy voice acting), but remains impressive overall, with a surprisingly sophisticated narrative touching on questions of identity and fate, and a rock-solid turn-based combat system that improves meaningfully on its 16- and 32-bit predecessors. It’s not the best Final Fantasy, but it’s the best RPG on PS2 and an essential experience for fans of the genre – and with a killer twist to rival FFVII’s fabled reveal.
5. Rez (2001, HD remaster and virtual reality versions available on PS4/5 and most VR headsets)
Rez is one of only a handful of museum-piece games, the kind that regularly show up in the collections of austere institutions like the Museum of Modern Art or the Smithsonian. Seen in action, it’s easy to understand why: inspired by the perceptual phenomenon of synesthesia, it invites players, through a blissfully simple control scheme, to “shoot” floating musical notes in time to its soundtrack, each successful contact introducing additional layers to the music. Visually dazzling and, more recently, a virtual reality mainstay, it’s psychedelic, esoteric, and altogether wonderful.
6. Killer7 (2005, HD remaster available on Windows)
The most Lynchian of video games, Suda51’s go-for-broke bonkers action-adventure is dizzying, hallucinatory, and aggressively weird. Wrongly maligned at release as unplayable, its deceptively brilliant design choices – like the hilariously clumsy interface – are all part of a broader scheme meant to subvert the very tropes it plays around in. With an open mind, Killer7‘s story of a team of assassins (who may or may not be the same person) swept up in a global conspiracy is one of the best, albeit strangest, games you’ll ever play. (And, for what it’s worth, long overdue for a warts-and-all re-release on modern consoles.)
7. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002, HD remaster available on PS4/5 as part of GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition)
Different gamers will have different favourites, but there’s no denying the outsized influence of this, the second in the modern series of GTA games which began with Grand Theft Auto III (2001). Edging out the other PS2 GTAs by sheer force of vibes, Vice City is a leaner, funnier, more compelling experience than both its immediate predecessor and the subsequent San Andreas (2004). Blessed with the best licenced soundtrack in gaming history, Vice City neatly balances an over-the-top cartoonishness (the voice cast includes Dennis Hopper and Gary Busey) with a compelling storyline that plays like Miami Vice by way of Goodfellas.
8. Fatal Frame (2002, unavailable on modern platforms)
Still one of the scariest games of all time, Fatal Frame benefits from its timeless, deliberately grainy aesthetic, meant to invoke the old-fashioned camera obscura which serves as the primary weapon in this game. Though “weapon” is probably too strong a word, the camera functioning more as a tool to solve puzzles and temporarily ward off the ooky-spookies, as you wander helplessly through the incredibly realized Himuro Mansion. All these years later, it’s the unpredictability of Fatal Frame which still evokes terror: seemingly safe rooms betray you by unleashing spectres when you least expect it, while areas which, in any other game, would be infested with hostile foes remain eerily silent.
9. Katamari Damacy (2004, HD remaster available as Katamari Damacy REROLL on PS4/5, Xbox One, Switch, and Windows)
One of the unexpected virtues of being the best-selling video game console of all time is that the PS2 could afford space for the weird and the experimental, with droves of oddball Japanese and European titles which, in any other era, might never have been localized to North America. Case in point is Katamari Damacy, truly one of the wildest gaming experiments to go mainstream, in which the player controls a magical ball which expands by rolling up everything around it, from thumbtacks to doghouses to, eventually, roads and bridges and entire cities. The earworm of a soundtrack is dangerous.
10. Amplitude (2003, unavailable on modern platforms)
Before Rock Band, before Guitar Hero, there was Amplitude. Insanely addictive, Harmonix’s “rhythm shooter” allows up to four players at a time to pilot beat-blaster spaceships along a series of interconnected tracks, denoting different musical instruments. By tapping buttons in time with on-screen icons, the song – whether it’s Weezer’s “Dope Nose” or the lesser-known “Super-Sprøde” by Harmonix in-house band Freezepop – evolves as instruments are added. At its highest difficulties, Amplitude requires lightning fast reflexes, something we honed over too many late-night sessions until the walls began to melt before our eyes. A 2016 reboot, also named Amplitude, can be found on PS4, though it lacks some of the charm of the original.
11. Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000, remaster available on PS4/5, Xbox One, Switch, and Windows as part of Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics)
Twenty-five-years later, MvC2 remains a mainstay of fighting game tournaments worldwide, thanks to flawless gameplay and a wildly diverse roster featuring everyone from Thanos to Wolverine, Ryu to Mega Man.
12. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (2001, unavailable on modern platforms)
Though supplanted by GT7 (in particular, its virtual reality mode), GT3 remains a benchmark for quasi-realistic simulation racing, with a still-impressive attention to detail.
13. Ico (2001, available to stream on PS4/5 through PS+ Premium subscription)
The predecessor to Shadow of the Colossus, Ico is another artistic marvel from visionary auteur Fumito Ueda, with extraordinary world-building – a crumbling, interconnected fantasy landscape which anticipates Dark Souls by about a decade – matched by a minimalist approach to storytelling which rewards the attentive player.
14. God of War (2005, unavailable on modern platforms)
It unilaterally reinvented the action genre, with cinematic set-pieces – like the opening Hydra fight on a choppy Aegean Sea – which remain highlights of the gaming canon.
15. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (2001, unavailable on modern platforms)
Still, the best skateboarding video game ever made, THPS3 combines addictive (albeit absurdly unrealistic) gameplay with a capital-P Perfect selection of levels, including a very snowy Canada Olympic Park.
16. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001, HD remaster available as part of the Jak and Daxter Bundle on PS4/5)
Naughty Dog helped launch the original PlayStation with Crash Bandicoot, and is better known today for Uncharted and The Last of Us, but in between, its nigh-perfect Jak trilogy represented some of the best times we had on PS2, this first entry still our favourite for its incredible blend of classical platforming and ingenious level design.
17. Beyond Good and Evil (2003, HD “20th Anniversary” remaster available on PS4/5, Xbox X/S, Xbox One, Switch, and Windows)
The prime example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, BG&E combines RPG-style worldbuilding with stealth-puzzle gameplay and a surprisingly addictive photography minigame to tell a funny, offbeat story of alien abductions and talking pigs. Too bad its sequel, announced seventeen(!) years ago, is unlikely to ever see the light of day.
18. Maximo: Ghosts to Glory (2001, unavailable on modern platforms)
A sadly forgotten bid to translate legendary masocore series Ghosts ‘n Goblins to 3D, Maximo – and its even-more forgotten sequel Army of Zin – is one of the great old-school adventure games: challenging but fair, wonderfully designed, and with a winking sense of humour about itself that makes all those Game Over screens more tolerable.
19. Silent Hill 2 (2001, slightly inferior remake available on PS5/Windows)
A masterpiece of mood and atmosphere, SH2 is actually less scary than its reputation suggests, but what it lacks in moment-to-moment frights it makes up for with an incredibly unsettling world where nothing – the environments, the monsters, the characters – are what they seem.
20. Sly 2: Band of Thieves (2004, available on PS4/5)
Long before it perfected the Spider-Man formula on PS4, developer Insomniac Games had fun with this similarly nimble, rooftop hopping comic book adventure starring an anthropomorphic raccoon and his band of merry thieves.
21. Hitman: Blood Money (2006, HD remaster available on PS4/5 and Xbox One as part of the Hitman HD Enhanced Collection)
While the latter-day Hitman trilogy ranks among the best titles on PS5, it’s the fourth entry, 2006’s Blood Money, which holds a special place in my heart, with brilliantly imagined missions, of which the clear highlight is the on-stage assassination of an operatic tenor mid-aria.
22. NBA Street Vol. 2 (2003, unavailable on modern platforms)
A proud inheritor to the arcade tradition of NBA Jam, the NBA Street series reached its high point with this, its second entry, featuring an impeccable sense of style and peerless, over-the-top, gameplay.
23. Red Faction (2001, unavailable on modern platforms)
Probably the most obscure choice on this list, Red Faction’s impressively destructible environments – you can literally burrow holes between floors by unloading a rocket launcher into them – made for some of the best home multiplayer since GoldenEye.
24. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003, remake scheduled for release on modern platforms in 2026)
It’s easy, in retrospect, to mistake Prince of Persia for a test run ahead of the massively successful Assassin’s Creed series, but that would be a mistake: between its still-engaging parkour gameplay and excellent magic-infused story, it’s one of the great action-adventure titles.
25. SSX 3 (2003, unavailable on modern platforms)
It’s striking that two decades on, we still haven’t seen a worthy successor to the original SSX snowboarding trilogy, which concluded – and peaked (pun intended) – with this entry, which resituated all of the courses to a single mountain, overflowing with races, challenge tracks, and other, hidden areas.
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The PS2 isn’t the only Sony console celebrating an anniversary this year. Stay tuned to the Toronto Guardian for our celebration of thirty(!) years of PlayStation later this year.
