01. GTA: Vice City (2002) - PS2Without any doubt my alltime favorite PS2 game, and surely among top 5 of the ones I love the most.
I have absolutely now idea of how many hours, days, weeks or even months I might have spent on vacation in Vice City soaking up the atmosphere and cruising around listening to all kind of great 80s music, taking in the beautiful neon dominated scenery all while I do a little mowing down some random gang bangers, hookers, old timers, fat tourists, and pimps to the sweet sounds of songs such as REO Speedwagon - Keep On Loving You or upbeat power pop classics like Hall & Oates - Out of Touch.
Also the re-playability is immense, I cannot think of many games I would return to over and over, so many times as with Vice City.
When the mission and game is done, there is still so much more to do and I specially enjoy the street races, always trying to beat my own records and so on.
I first played it back in spring/summer of 2003 and I am still hooked.
02. FIFA 2003 (2002) - PS2I began my "love" affair to these fun football games back in 1998 with I think the official Fifa World Cup 98 edition, and began collecting every release from then on and up til 2004, which for me was sadly a big disapppointment as I thought the controls and a lot of other stuff had been changed too much and not for the good.
For me the peak when it came to controls and handling for the PS2 games came in 2002 with Fifa 2003, the one with Roberto Carlos, Clarence Seedorf and Ryan Giggs on the cover. Not just that but that period was to be my all time favorite Premier League season, where I loved the intense rivalry and fantastic football played out by Arsenal and Manchester United and I get very nostalgic when I play this game, looking up all those immense lineups to teams like Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Juventus, Liverpool and so many othersin the period of 2002-03.
As with Vice City, half of the fun is through the atmosphere of music, noises and sounds, colors and of course the replay value.
What I liked most to do, was taking over a small team and playing on the hardest level, getting them into Champions League and then competing against the top clubs and beating them on their own game.
03. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Tutles in Time (1992) - SNESWould easily have been numer one on my list if I had just bought that damn used and dirt cheap SNES player from a friend of mine back in summer of 1998.
However all of my attention was already set upon PS1 and when I finally got one, I had completely forgotten the older SEGA and Super Nintendo games, or at least for a period of time. I really do regret not buying the Turtles in Times along with the SNES player, as it would surely be a bargain of a lifetime.
Very frustrating that the SNES Classic edition did not bother to include one of the all time classic games, but hopefully someday it will be brought back again.
As a huge Turtles fans, growing up in the early 90s when the Turtle mania was a its absolute peak (1990-93), no game would ever make me feel so much like one of the pizza eating butt kicking ninja turtles as this awesome piece of perfection.
The music alone made you all ready and pumped up, and I really miss that in most of todays video games, where the soundtrack is often just so dull and forgettable, but back then it was like your very own night club in some of these great beat em' up classics.
Again, the atmosphere had everything to say, the music and scenery was like from another dimension and my favorite mission has always been the futuristic themed one called: Neon Night Riders.
I love that cyber-space New York skyline background along with the
fantastic theme song.
04. Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves (2004) - PS2I did not know what to expect, beside that I had first played a short demo of the game through a bonus feature that was included on the Ratchet and Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (2004) back in autumn 2004 and I really wanted to see more of this adventurous and fun game, so I bought it just a few weeks after the Ratchet game.
Turned out it was to be one of the best "impulse" purchases I have ever done.
I had not played the first one, but it is of no big deal, you instantly get drawn into this beautiful and very fun world which is just as fitting for kids as it is with adults.
While Ratchet and Jake and Daxter was far more action filled, here in Sly you have to rely on stealth and cunning movements in order to survive, for the most part that is.
Also I enjoyed that is brought along not just one main character, but three and a very impressive storyline which was full of twists and turns and again with the atmosphere, that seedy, downbeat
late night jazz soundtrack is always a highlight to hear over and over.
The game was far bigger and longer than any of the other Sly titles, and it also was an very big improvement on almost every level compared to the first one.
Sadly, this great PS2 trilogy (2002-05) by Suckerpunch never seemed to get on as much with the older audience as Ratchet and Clank or Jak and Daxteter, and while the franchise did hit back in 2013 with Thieves in Time, it was this time on PS3 and by another company which I thought did not do the original series much justice, and there has been little new information about a new game, but I will always come back to the trilogy and specially the remastered PS3 edition which was one of the main reason to why I ended up buying a PS3, just so I could play my old favorite PS2 games in HD.
05. Quake II (1999) - PS1This was a huge game changer for me when I first played the demo that was included in the PS1 magazine back in novemeber of 99 and one of the first things I did when we hit millennium, was to pick up a brand new copy of this super violent and extremely atmospheric first person shooter action classic.
I was not let down as I went up against an entire army of these horrific looking alien race called the Stroggs, which were like some nightmarish cyborg/terminator looking beasts, and some of them would scare the shit out of me with their intimidating appearances and the horrible noises they make along with the creepy but
insanely upbeat and cool music.
Another important thing was the co-player where one could battle against your buddies and where the coolest piece of weapon was the BFG (Big Fucking Gun).
Whoever got their hands on that one first, would 9 out of 10 times win, no question about that.
06. Ratchet and Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (2004) - PS2My first adventure with Ratchet and Clank, and surely the most fun of all the games.
I think the second one and fourth is almost up there with the third, but I always seem to come back to where I began.
The
music and atmosphere is still very impressive and the action and weapon upgrades in the challenge mode along with the multiplayer option is a neat bonus to secure lots of extra bonus time to be added.
07. Killzone (2004) - PS2I really got interested in this one back in 2003, I think when the hype seemed to be at its most fullest, however when it finally got released I remember that most of it had gone away. While some of the controls were at times very uneven and annoying, I loved the scenery, music and story in there and I did not get along that well with the sequels which I thought were too "action dominated" and I missed the old gang from the first one.
08. Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009) - PS3I do not think I have ever played a Batman or in fact a superhero game until Arkham Asylum, well okay beside Turtles in Time that is.
This one however was something very different, I felt like I was in a movie and the atmosphere and storyline was truly something special, and for me the best Batman game I have played, much because of the tension and scenery which was more claustrophic and in tone with the Tim Burton films rather than the modern ones.
I liked Arkham City but it felt too "big" and I lost interest halfway through, while the first one was almost the perfect autumn video game to play at those dark cold nights.
09. Spyro: Year of the Dragon (2000) - PS1I fell in love with this franchise through a demo version which was included in the monthly PS1 magazine in summer of 1998 but never got around to pick up the first two titles, however I did so with the third one, which turned out to be one of the best and most memorable games of my PS1 collection.
The beautiful scenery in the games along with the
rich and upbeat melodic score done by Stewart Copeland was just one of many things I loved with them. However, I do remember it was at times a little bit frustrating, as some missions where incredible tricky, but when I finally beat the game it was all worth it.
10. Carmageddon (1999) - PS1My earliest memory of this game was when I stayed over a few nights at my uncle and aunt, and was hanging out with my older cousin who owned a computer and had lots of new and very adult themed PC games in his collection. One of them was this incredible looking "hack and slash" title named Carmagedddon and several nights in summer of 1997 we would sit up all night long, drinking Dr. Pepper and eating Pringles chips until we almost puked, all while playing for countless hours this highly addictive game.
I ended up purchasing it on PS1 in autumn 2000, it was still lots of fun but I never really got to complete it, as I always ran out of time as I could not find enough zombies to kill. However, I would love to play it again some day.