PlayStation 2: 26 Years Later, Still My Favorite Console

On 26 October 2000, Sony launched the PlayStation 2 in North America, introducing a new generation of gaming to millions of players. Twenty-six years later, it’s still my absolute favorite console.

And that’s saying something. I’ve owned and played a lot of consoles over the years, and there have been plenty of great ones. But there was something special about the PlayStation 2 era. The games, the variety, the excitement of discovering something new. It was a time when developers seemed willing to try just about anything.

Sometimes those experiments turned into masterpieces. Sometimes they were complete disasters. But man, it was fun finding out.

A New Generation of Gaming

I didn’t rush out to buy a PlayStation 2 when it launched. I was perfectly happy with my original PlayStation and the other consoles I already owned. There were still plenty of games keeping me busy, and I wasn’t in any particular hurry to upgrade.

But when I finally did get my hands on a PS2, I was blown away.

The jump from PlayStation to PlayStation 2 was impressive. Characters had more detail, animation was smoother, environments were larger and more complex, and developers had considerably more room to work with. Games could feature more elaborate cutscenes, richer sound, and much more ambitious worlds.

The original PlayStation had already made 3D gaming a household experience, but the PS2 took things to another level.

And it wasn’t just about gaming. The PlayStation 2 also played DVDs, which was a pretty big selling point in 2000. Dedicated DVD players weren’t exactly cheap, so having a game console that doubled as a movie player was a fantastic bonus.

It was also backward compatible with most original PlayStation games. You could upgrade without abandoning the library you’d spent years building.

Sony launched the system in North America for $299, with early games including SSX, Tekken Tag Tournament, TimeSplitters, Ridge Racer V, Armored Core 2, and Summoner.

That was just the beginning.

An Incredible Library—and Developers Willing to Take Chances

What really made the PS2 special to me wasn’t simply the technological improvement. It was the library.

It was enormous, and the variety was incredible.

There was plenty of overlap between the PS2 and Microsoft’s Xbox, which arrived the following year. But Sony also had some fantastic exclusives, including God of War, Gran Turismo, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, and several major Final Fantasy adventures.

There were racing games, platformers, action adventures, shooters, strategy games, RPGs, fighting games, and just about anything else you could imagine.

And then there were the games that didn’t fit neatly into any category.

The PS2 was home to titles like Katamari Damacy, where you rolled up practically everything in sight, and Mister Mosquito, where you played a bloodsucking pest terrorizing an unsuspecting family.

How do you even pitch some of these ideas?

I loved that developers were willing to experiment. Not everything worked, and there were certainly plenty of terrible games on the system. But even the failures were often interesting.

You never quite knew what you’d find.

From Liberty City to Fantasy Worlds and the Wild West

The Grand Theft Auto games were probably the games I spent the most time playing on PS2.

GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas each brought something new to the table. Liberty City showed us what a fully 3D GTA could be. Vice City gave us an incredible 1980s setting and soundtrack, and San Andreas took the formula to an entirely different scale.

But I also spent a lot of time with RPGs.

The Final Fantasy series offered some fantastic adventures, and the PS2 had no shortage of other RPGs worth exploring.

One of my personal favorites was Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits. I loved its tactical RPG combat, interesting mechanics, characters, and story. It’s one of those games I remember fondly that doesn’t always come up when people discuss the PS2’s greatest titles.

And there were plenty of others.

Ring of Red combined tactical strategy with enormous walking war machines in an alternate-history Japan. La Pucelle: Tactics offered another enjoyable tactical RPG experience, while the Wild Arms games brought together two things I’ve loved since childhood: Japanese RPGs and the American West.

Shadow Hearts mixed traditional RPG mechanics with supernatural horror and unusual settings. Culdcept was another wonderfully strange combination, blending a collectible card game with a fantasy board game. It sounds a little ridiculous on paper, but that’s exactly the sort of thing that made the PS2 library so much fun.

And speaking of the Old West, there was GUN and Red Dead Revolver. I’ve been a fan of cowboys and Westerns since I was a kid, so naturally, those caught my attention.

Then you had Darkwatch, which decided that ordinary cowboys weren’t enough and threw vampires and supernatural horror into the mix. Why not?

XIII offered a stylish first-person shooter that looked like a playable comic book, while Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy delivered an Egyptian-inspired action adventure.

Some of these games were exclusive to the PlayStation 2, while others appeared on Xbox, GameCube, or PC. But together they represent what I loved about that generation.

There was always something different to play, and some of the most interesting games weren’t necessarily the biggest releases.

Weekly Trips to the Game Store

Another thing I remember fondly about those years was going out and finding games.

By the time the PS2 came around, I was no longer in the position of having to trade in my old games whenever I wanted something new. That made building my collection a lot more enjoyable.

I visited GameStop just about every week, and I’d stop by Hollywood Video and several local game stores a few times a month.

I’d browse through the used games, check out titles I’d never heard of, and reserve upcoming releases that looked interesting.

There was something exciting about walking into a store without knowing what you might discover. Maybe you’d find a game you’d been looking for, or maybe you’d take a chance on something you’d never seen before.

You could read magazines and reviews, of course, but there was still a certain amount of mystery surrounding many games.

Sometimes you simply had to bring one home and play it to find out whether it was any good.

Taking the Adventure Online

Most of my early PS2 gaming was single-player, although I frequently shared those adventures with friends.

We didn’t jump heavily into online console gaming right away. I played SOCOM a few times with friends, but the game that really drew me into online gaming on the PlayStation 2 was Final Fantasy XI.

I had to buy the extra hard drive and keyboard to get set up. Looking back, it’s funny how much additional hardware was involved in something we take for granted today.

I played a Red Mage, and I still remember setting up macros for my spells and coordinating skillchains and other combat mechanics. There was a lot to learn, but that was part of the appeal.

It wasn’t my first MMO, but it was my first real online gaming experience on the PS2, and it was fantastic.

The fact that a console could connect me to such a large, persistent online fantasy world was another reminder of how far gaming had come.

What I Miss Most About That Era

Today, the PlayStation 2 stands as one of the most successful consoles ever made, with more than 160 million systems sold worldwide and a library containing thousands of games.

And I still have my original console, along with many of the games I bought back then.

But when I think about why the PS2 remains my favorite, it isn’t just the hardware or even the individual games.

It’s the excitement.

Back then, you could pick up a game and experience it for yourself without already knowing practically everything about it. You might have seen a few screenshots, read a preview in a magazine, or watched a commercial for it, but so much of the experience was still waiting to be discovered.

These days, it seems like everything about a game is online before it even releases. Social media, YouTube, gaming websites, endless previews, gameplay videos, and people arguing about games they haven’t even played yet.

By the time something finally launches, half the surprises have already been revealed.

The technological jumps don’t feel nearly as dramatic anymore, either. Games certainly continue to improve, but going from one modern console generation to the next rarely feels like the enormous leap we experienced moving from the original PlayStation to the PS2.

I’m not saying modern games aren’t fun. There are plenty of fantastic games being made today, and I still spend a ridiculous amount of time playing them.

But I do miss that sense of wonder.

The excitement of walking into a game store and discovering something unexpected. The thrill of seeing what a new console could do. The feeling that developers were constantly coming up with new ideas, even when those ideas were a little crazy.

Twenty-six years later, my original PlayStation 2 is still part of my collection, and I have a lot of great memories attached to it.

It wasn’t just a great console. It came along during a great time to be a gamer.

What about you? Did you own a PlayStation 2? What were your favorite games, and which forgotten gems do you think deserve more recognition?

I’d love to hear about them. Maybe there’s something out there I still need to add to my collection.