Five Years

The phrase "time flies" sounds like a cliche until you start to look back at a particular date. Today marks the fith anniversary of PlayStation 2's launch in Japan. The North American launch didn't follow until October 26th 2000 (and I didn't get mine until December 24) but either way it marks a milestone in the system's lifespan. Even at five years of age, there are still many great games coming out now and in the near future. I hope publishers continue to support the platform as long as it can be sustainable.

The best way, perhaps, to mark the date is to list my top five PS2 games. Hooray for originality. Here they are, in descending order:

05. GTA San Andreas - GTA3 will probably go down as the landmark game of this generation, much in the same way games like Mario 64 and Virtua Fighter would so incredibly influential last generation. It just did a whole lot of things that had not been done in games before. The original 2D, overhead GTA games seem prehistoric in comparison. The ill-fated Shenmue series helped contribute to these open ended "sandbox" games with its attention to detail, but GTA is unmatched in scale. Vice City added a great deal of production value to the formula, although the mission structures were not as entertaining and Vice City itself was a pretty flat, lifeless terrain. Fortunately San Andreas takes everything the previous two games did well, adds a great deal more to the mix, and multiplies it all by three. Games this enormous and long take me forever to complete, and San Andreas is no expection. I'm in the second city so far (San Fierro) but the entertainment value of the Los Santos and countryside missions alone are enough to put this onto a top five list. Rockstar North managed to come up with even more great ideas to put into the game's formula, and did most of it exceedingly well. While the size of environments and the way the game streams everything to avoid loading times between outdoor areas is impressive, the technical aspect of the series is all that Rockstar North really needs to improve going into next generation. With EA assimilating Criterion and the Renderware middleware tools that have been used for the three GTA games (and countless other games as well), I can only hope that middleware is ditched for next gen. With the money that Take 2 has rolling in, liscenscing something like the Unreal or Source engine would inch the franchise even closer to perfection. Imagine a game like San Andreas with the texture detail of Half-Life 2, and even better modelling and physics. You could very well have yourself the best game ever made in that situation. The possibilities are endless, and I have faith in Rockstar North's ability to continually improve what was already a terrific series.

04. Tekken 5 - Having just commented on this terrific fighter there isn't too much to add at the moment. The variety of fighters and techniques, as well as the customability of your characters just adds a tremendous amount of replay value. The quality of the core fighting engine is what makes it fun to play for a mere fifteen minute jaunt, or for a thumb blistering three hours straight. It's a simply a great game that is going to age extremely well.

03. Ratchet & Clank - Having yet to play the third installment (it's still in plastic, along with numerous other titles), I can at least say that the first two are the driving force in the 3D platform game genre right now. The scale of the game worlds, the inventiveness of the platforming challenges, the "full game quality" mini-games, the weapons, the gadgets, the characters, and the... well, it would take one hell of a run on sentence to sum up what Insomniac has been doing the past two and a half years. Mario Sunshine pretty much failed on every level. The Sly Cooper games are great and take a unique stealh approach to the genre, but they're not directly comparable. Andy Gavin & company at Naughty Dog get my respective for the engines they've made and allowed Insomniac to use. But you can't really tell me that the Jak & Daxter games are anywhere near as good in terms of design and gameplay. As for third party platformers and the drek that Microsoft has published... not worth discussing. The fact remains is that Insomiac have pretty much snuck up on everyone to claim the platformer throne. Maybe Miyamoto and the folks at EAD will put up a better fight over the next few years, but there has really be no competition this generation. Fortunately, even if they're too humble to admit it, Ted Price and the fellas at Insomniac probably know they're the best at what they do at this very moment. Also fortunate is the fact that they don't let success keep them from continually improving what they do. "Up Your Arsenal" is the first online platform game every, and by most accounts, is a pretty unique experience. If the the single player is at least as good and lengthy as "Going Commando," than its no surprise as to why this game, in a genre that really isn't as popular as it was last generation, managed to squeak into gamerankings.com's top ten list for 2004. Insomniac are keeping my second favorite genre alive singlehandedly, and they're a model of how development teams should be run these days. Now if I could just get around to playing the third one... :-)

02. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution - What can be said? Virtua Fighter 4 had already stolen the crown from Soul Calibur's polygonal head as the best 3D fighter on the market. AM2 went back and added the most in-depth single player mode in the history of fighting games, two new characters, exact recoveries, unmatched customization options, new arenas, and the single best "special feature" in video game history: 10th Anniversary Mode. Playing through the gouraud shaded greatness of the original Virtua Fighter with current move sets and the characters from every sequel (minus ofcourse Taka Arashi) was a blast from the past like no other. To top it all off, it was released as a Greatest Hits title with an MSRP of $19.99 USD. Best deal ever? "Wolfenstein Enemy Territory" being released for absolutely free on the PC probably takes that title, but the console release of VF4 Evo is an exceedingly strong second place.

01. Metal Gear Solid 3 - It's hard to quantify how much this game caught me off guard. Metal Gear Solid was my favorite PlayStation game, but the fifteen hour episode of the "Twilight Zone" that was MGS2 had me wondering where the series could go in the future. Add in the fact that the steal genre itself was getting pretty stale. Tenchu hasn't been good since the series like Acquire's hands. Thief III was half the travesty that DX Invisible War was, which is pretty damn bad. Splinter Cell might as well be renamed to "insomnia pill." So perhaps it is fitting the mind that created stealth gaming would come back to save it in one fell swoop. Metal Gear created the mold back in 1987. Metal Gear Solid ushered it into the 3D era, along with the original Tenchu and Thief titles. While MGS2 still seems like sheer insanity pressed onto a DVD-ROM, Metal Gear Solid 3 is the game I've been wanting to play since 1998 and then some. Without mentioning for the third time in this entry how a developer did everything right, I'll simply say that Hideo Kojima and the fine folks at Konami JPN West listened to what fans had been asking for, and created many facets people couldn't have thought up before playing the game. The phrase "everything you hoped for, nothing you had expected," comes to mind. The graphics and audio are top notch and show just how much juice can be cranked out of a five year old piece of hardware. The story is perhaps the best yet in a game, and shows that the quality of the original MGS' narrative was no fluke. The setting and environment are awesome. The CQC abilities are a godsend and pump much needed life into a category of games that have been declining in popularity in this action packed, adrenalin fueled era of gaming. The villians and characters are nearly as good as those of the first MGS, which is an accomplishment tremendous signficance. The stamina, health, and injury management are pure genious. The camoflague index and accompanying uniforms are the best addition to "stealth" in gaming since those panning decapitation camera angles in Tenchu. The number of easter eggs and hidden secrets for diehard fans is tremendous. It doesn't hurt that Big Boss is the greatest badass in the history of gaming. What you do in the game and the story that is revealed in the process confirms this as fact. Add all of this together with many other fantastic aspects that I'm most likely failing to remember at the moment, and what in my mind is tied as the greatest final hour yet seen in a game along with Gordon Freeman's final act in City 17, and you've got what I consider to be the finest console game of the past five years. It could take a while to run comparison's back and forth in my mind, but it is also a strong contender for the single best "single player campaign" ever in a game. From to start to finish, and everywhere inbetween, the game just kicks 1024 degrees of ass. Lesser games should feel priveledged to share shelf space with it... whenver optical media discs get around to developing such abilities.

To sum it all up: PlayStation 2 has been a tremendous system with an unbeatable library of games. The best of the best have just sprung up recently, and with Sony not jumping the gun on a PS3 release this year, some of the best may be yet to come.