Platinum Games’ Delayed Sol Cresta Finally Arrives February 22

Platinum Games’ Sol Cresta was an unexpected project from the studio–to the point that it was believed to be an April Fool’s Day joke at first–but the retro-inspired shooter is very real and will be here in less than a month. As revealed during a developer livestream, Sol Cresta will now arrive on February 22.

The stream, which took place over the weekend and also includes information on vertical mode for Nintendo Switch and a look at gameplay, comes about a month after the game’s initial release date. Planned for December 9, 2021, the game was pushed to 2022, but now we know the new date wasn’t actually that far away from its original one. Platinum Games’ stream description said “technical problems” were responsible for the delay.

Hideki Kamiya, who is perhaps the most famous game developer working at Platinum Games, served as chief game designer and creative director on Sol Cresta. The game is a spiritual successor to another shooter, Moon Cresta, which released almost 42 years ago. That game got its own series of sequels, and it’s included in the upcoming Astro City Mini V arcade system alongside loads of other great shoot-’em-up games.

Sol Cresta is far from the only game Platinum Games has in the works, either. The studio is also making the long-awaited Bayonetta 3 as a Nintendo Swith exclusive, as well as the cooperative action game Babylon’s Fall. The latter includes members of the Nier development team, including producer Yasuke Saito.

Sol Cresta will hit Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PC on February 22. Check out the full video above for more information and a glimpse of gameplay.

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Battlefield 2042’s Free-To-Play Report May Only Be For Portal Mode

Battlefield 2042 has struggled to find a large audience since its launch last year, which came just as Halo Infinite‘s free-to-play multiplayer beta began. According to a report by industry insider Tom Henderson, EA is considering making a part of Battlefield 2042 free-to-play, and in a follow-up video to his earlier tweets, Henderson spoke about EA’s potential plans for the game.

While discussing the state of Battlefield 2042 developer DICE, Henderson claimed that EA is looking to make at least one of the game’s modes free-to-play, possibly Portal or Hazard Zone. Portal regularly sees a higher number of players than Hazard Zone does and the idea is that by giving players free access to it, more people would be interested in paying for the full Battlefield 2042 experience.

Portal is one of Battlefield 2042’s more creative modes, as it allows players to create all kinds of custom game types and delve into Battlefield’s past with maps pulled from Battlefield 1942, Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 3. Hazard Zone is essentially the game’s battle royale mode and focuses on multiple squads of players competing to secure data drives and extract before a deadly storm destroys the map.

EA’s next earning’s call is also scheduled to take place on February 1 according to Henderson, which will likely see the company report on Battlefield 2042’s financial performance and reveal if it has any changes in store for the game.

The recent 3.2 update for Battlefield 2042 went live earlier this month, and added a refreshed scoreboard UI that fans had been asking for since launch. Time’s also running out to take part in a community-made mode called Zombie Survival, which ends on January 27.

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Interview with Intel’s Dan Ragland, Head of Overclocking: Tuning Alder Lake For Performance

The topic of overclocking has been an interesting one to track over the years. Over a decade ago, when dealing with 2-4 core processors, an effective overclock gave a substantial performance uplift, often allowing a $200 processor to perform like the one that cost $999. However, core counts have increased over the last couple of years, but also companies like Intel are getting better at understanding their silicon, and are able to ship it out of the box almost at the silicon limit anyway. So what use is overclocking? We turned to Dan Ragland, who runs Intel’s Overclocking Lab in Hillsboro, Oregon, to find out what overclocking now means for Intel, what it means for Alder Lake, but also how Intel is going to approach overclocking in the future.

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Watch Dogs: Legion Has No More Updates Planned

Ubisoft has confirmed that Watch Dogs: Legion’s 5.6 title update from September 2021 was its last. While the game’s online mode will still receive content for its upcoming fifth season, that mode will see the content from seasons 3-5 placed on a rotational schedule.

“TU 5.6 was our final update for Watch Dogs: Legion. However, you can look forward to reward tracks in the Online Mode, containing both new and returning rewards,” the game’s developers wrote in an update. “The game has grown by leaps and bounds, with a ton of content to explore, from a sprawling near future city to an action-packed Online Mode. We couldn’t be prouder of the game we’ve created, and we appreciate all of you who’ve joined us on this journey in London over the year. We look forward to seeing more of your adventures in Legion.”

Since its launch back in October 2020, Watch Dogs: Legion saw a steady stream of content released over several months. Besides several patches, the game’s DLC saw the return of original Watch Dogs protagonist Aiden Pierce, an Assassin’s Creed crossover, and a zombies mode allowed players to live out their own 28 Days Later fantasy.

Ubisoft’s still got several new games to focus on in 2022, having kicked off the year with Rainbow Six Extraction. As for the rest of 2022, the company still has Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, a remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland expected to release this year.

Beyond those games, development on the next Splinter Cell is being headed up by Ubisoft Toronto, the main studio that produced Watch Dogs Legion.

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Top 10 Best-Selling Games On Steam Last Week — God Of War Sets A New Record

The Top 10 best-selling games for the third week of January (ending January 23) have been announced, and God of War reaches the top of the chart for a second week in a row. That’s a very notable achievement because it is the first PlayStation-published game on PC to hit No. 1 two weeks in a row.

As analyst Daniel Ahmad reminds us, previous PlayStation releases Days Gone and Horizon Zero Dawn started at No. 1 during their launch weeks before falling off. Death Stranding, meanwhile, was published by 505 Games, not Sony (and it was at No. 1 for one week before dropping to No. 3 in week two).

“God of War is performing better than both,” Ahmad said of God of War’s sales performance relative to Days Gone and Horizon Zero Dawn.

God of War sold 19.5 million copies on PS4 before coming to PC, so it seems likely the game will cross the 20 million mark soon, but that’s yet to be confirmed.

For more, check out GameSpot’s gameplay video above to see God of War in action on PC. You can also read GameSpot’s updated God of War review and see what other critics think of God of War for PC.

The next God of War game, Ragnarok, is scheduled for release later this year on PS5 and PS4.

Steam Top 10 Best-Selling Games Week Ending January 23

Via SteamDB

God of WarMonster Hunter: RiseRead or NotDying Light 2 Stay HumanElden RingTotal War: Warhammer IIIProject ZomboidValve Index VR KitWarm SnowRed Dead Redemption 2Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Fortnite Arcane Vi Skin Brings The Piltover Enforcer To Fortnite

Following leaks and rumors of another skin from the hit Netflix series entering the game, Arcane: A League of Legends Story is once again partnering with Epic Games, this time dropping the Fortnite Arcane Vi skin into the Item Shop.

Vi is the elder sister of Jinx–who was previously featured in Fortnite–and fights crime as an enforcer for the city of Piltover. The two’s tenuous relationship now carries over to the Fortnite island starting January 22 at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET.

The Piltover’s Finest loading screen, available as part of the Arcane Vi bundle.

The Arcane Vi skin comes bundled with the Memories of Zaun back bling, while her massive Piltover Warhammer pickaxe and unique Punching Practice emote. All of these items will be available in an Arcane Vi bundle as well, which also adds the Piltover’s Finest loading screen seen above.

Arcane Vi will not enter the Item Shop alone, as Arcane Jinx makes her triumphant return to the shop. All of the items Jinx debuted with will be available again, including Jinx’s Dream Monkey back bling, Pow Pow Crusher pickaxe, and the Playground (Instrumental) lobby track. The Arcane Jinx bundle–which additionally included the Jinxed spray and two loading screens, Wreaking Havoc and Katchoo!–has also returned.

The two League of Legends-themed skins are part of a major partnership announced between Epic Games and Riot Games when the Jinx skin first debuted in November. Part of that agreement included League of Legends’ debut on the Epic Games Store, the first time the game could be downloaded outside of the game’s official website.

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Halo Infinite Credits Will Be Earnable In Battle Pass For Season 2

Microsoft has confirmed a new detail regarding Halo Infinite’s live-service elements, announcing that Credits will be earnable in Season 2’s Battle Pass.

In a blog post, developer 343 said this change is being made in response to community feedback. “That means you will be able to earn Credits as part of your Halo Infinite progression. We’ll have more to share on this as we get closer to Season 2,” 343 said.

Season 2 is not expected to be here for quite some time, as 343 is planning to end Season 1 in May 2022, with Season 2 coming sometime thereafter. Campaign co-op and Forge–two fan-favorite modes that didn’t make it in for launch–are expected to be debut beginning with Season 2 as well.

In other news, 343 recently made some changes to Halo Infinite’s in-game shop to make items less expensive. “Our focus with these changes is on reducing pricing across the board, providing stronger values in our bundles, starting to put individual items outside of bundles, and more,” 343 said. “This week we focused on reducing the prices of our weekly bundles, while next week will have individual items starting to appear on their own.”

343 also mentioned that it continues to try to fix Halo Infinite’s Big Team Battle mode, which has been in a less-than-great state since before the holidays. A new patch came out this week, but it did not improve the experience in the way 343 wanted. The studio is still investigating, it said. And while this week’s hotfix didn’t fix the issues outright, it did provide “promising data” to the team.

As 343 attempts to fix the problems with Big Team Battle, the studio said it will remove Big Team Battle-related challenges “for the time being.”

“We don’t want to alter Challenge decks when they are live (as it would removing people’s progression on those Challenges), so these changes will start next Tuesday when the Weekly Challenges typically rollover,” 343 said.

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Friday ‘Nite: Fortnite’s Most Unlikely Inspiration Is This Popular Science Book

In last week’s Friday ‘Nite, my weekly Fortnite lore deep dive, I took a look at how much shared DNA there is between Epic’s gargantuan battle royale game and the former zeitgeist-dominating TV series Lost. The conclusion, which hopefully I made obvious, is that higher-ups within Epic’s storytelling department are Lost fans. In particular, it seems like Donald Mustard, the chief creative officer at Epic and de facto Fortnite lore-bible scribe, clearly nerded out for the show a decade ago, like so many of us did.

But Mustard is multifaceted, and this week I want to highlight another of his apparent influences, even as this one seems all the more unlikely for a game that is made up, in no small part, of teenagers buying avatars of their favorite Marvel superheroes.

In 2011, professor and historian Yuval Noah Harari published what would go on to become his career-defining work: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. A nearly 500-page primer on our species from its bloody beginnings to the modern day, the text went on to become a bestseller. To this day, it remains atop many public figures’ recommended reading list, and Harari’s subsequent books, Homo Deus and Lessons For The 21st Century, have become bestsellers of their own.

What does this have to do with Fortnite? Well, Mustard, famous for tweeting vague teases to Fortnite’s story and future events, is clearly a fan.

Incompatible viewpoints and contradicting beliefs are the cognitive dissonance that fuel the creativity, myth making, and invention vital to humankind and our continued existence.

And our ability to conceive, and believe, in Imagined Orders our ultimate evolutionary superpower.

— Donald Mustard (@DonaldMustard) November 14, 2021

What Mustard is referring to in his somewhat cryptic tweet seems to be the exact thesis of Sapiens. In it, Harari argues that homo sapiens survived to become the singular human species because of a cocktail of controversial reasons. Ultimately, the author lays out our survival as the result of our ability to lie. We lie to ourselves, lie to each other, lie about what we know about the world, and lie about what we don’t. Harari says that it’s this important and unique ability to tell stories, make promises, and plan for an unclear future that has been the inextinguishable flame of progress in human history. Harari put it best when he wrote:

“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.”

Our consciousness, however confounding its origins, granted us this exclusive ability and ensured we would outlive (and in some cases slaughter with our own hands) some of the other six species of humans over the last 70,000 years.

While the pop anthropology book has sometimes been criticized for lacking evidence for certain claims about what early humans may have been like, it’s nevertheless won over many thousands of superfans, and apparently, Mustard is one of them. Unexpectedly, this is important to the colorful, often ridiculous Fortnite not just because it provides insight into the mindset of its writers, but because it may reveal story details that the always tightlipped Epic Games doesn’t intend to share yet.

In Sapiens, the phrase “imagined order” comes up a lot. Harari defines this as a power structure that doesn’t exist in nature, but is, rather, one we invented as homo sapiens in order to maintain structure on Earth. In Fortnite, the Imagined Order is the apparent villainous faction that seeks to control the Zero Point, the life-giving energy at the heart of the island. The Imagined Order is presented as the bad guys, and though I have my doubts, maybe that will end up being true.

In Fortnite, the Imagined Order is, well, an imagined order.

But the faction’s name reveals at least one thing: Its power is as theoretical as the persistent fan pipedream that the Chapter 1 island is coming back. The Imagined Order’s dominance of the Fortnite island, Artemis, is not bestowed by nature. The group has simply planted its flag and decried all others as annoying interlopers.

From that point, what can we infer? For starters, it’s possible, and I think very likely, that we haven’t met the true grand rulers of the Fortnite world. Maybe the oft-mentioned but never seen Geno serves this role. Maybe Dr. Slone does not represent the tip of the IO’s spear and other more powerful levels exist within the shadowy group who better understand the island. Maybe the Zero Point itself is conscious and pulling the strings of loopers, the IO, The Seven, and everyone else who journeys to the island.

While we don’t have this particular answer yet, what we can assume is that the Imagined Order, be it good, evil, or something in between, is not the be-all and end-all ruler of the Fortnite multiverse. If it was, apparent Sapiens fan Donald Mustard would’ve given it another name. Instead, Epic is slyly nodding to the IO’s fragile balance of power–its need to satiate its own questions of the omniverse by pretending everything is neat and tidy.

The IO is meant to be the instrument by which Dr. Slone and others make order out of chaos, but like in Sapiens, we Fortnite players may come to understand that these once-seemingly foundational structures are quite bendable, even breakable, in the end. Well, either that, or Epic is just teasing a Yuval Noah Harari skin coming soon to the Item Shop.

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Iron Banter: This Week In Destiny 2 – Readying For Raid Day And A Merciful Respite From Blue Engrams

A little less than five weeks remain before the launch of The Witch Queen in Destiny 2, meaning we’re now in the clean-up portion of the Season of the Lost. It’s a chill time, at least, when players get to finish up seals like Moments of Triumph or farm Grandmaster Nightfalls for a bit. I still haven’t seen a lightning round in Dares of Eternity. Whatever.

The real draw of the next few weeks (other than the final culmination of the Season of the Lost happening in there somewhere) is the trickle of information about everything that’ll come with the next expansion. We’ve gotten a few teases in the form of trailers, and we’re getting new tidbits in each This Week at Bungie blog that comes out along the way. This week, we found out about the new Power level cap coming with the Witch Queen, as well as the launch of its new raid. The date on that one is 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET on March 5. We’re planning to stream our Day One attempt at clearing the raid when it goes live, so stay tuned for more information on that.

As for the Power cap, it’s jumping up another 200 levels to 1560. The new Power floor is 1350, a touch higher than it is now, and all players who jump into the game will find themselves at that level–even if they’re new to Destiny 2 or they’ve lapsed for a while. So the good news is, you don’t need to do any grinding right now to get in position for The Witch Queen. However, you are going to need to play the new story campaign and the activities of the expansion in order to get ready for the raid.

All that said, get ready for blue gear drops to matter again–you’ll need them to push up to the new Soft Power cap of 1500. After that, you’ll need to pursue “Powerful” gear drops from specific activities to climb up to 1550. To get to the final Hard Power cap of 1560, the highest number your gear can attain, you’ll need to chase “Pinnacle” gear drops from endgame activities. If Beyond Light and the Deep Stone Crypt are any indications, expect to need to hit around 1530 to be ready for the raid.

Speaking of blue drops though, Bungie also announced it’s making some changes to gear drops in The Witch Queen, while also altering the economy some. It’s a bunch of quality-of-life changes that sound excellent.

Remove these from the game, Bungie.

Blue Blues

There are a lot of little things being altered about the gear economy in The Witch Queen, but my favorite is a reduction in Rare weapon and armor drops–the ones that are colored blue. Those drops occupy a very specific place in Destiny 2’s gear grind: They’re only really necessary when you’re leveling up with a new expansion. When The Witch Queen drops and everyone starts at Power level 1350, every piece of gear they pick up will be of a higher level, and equipping that gear is how you raise your character’s overall Power. Blue drops, the most common in the game, will come fast and furious as you kill enemies out in the world. They’ll allow you to boost yourself up to 1500.

Once you hit 1500, though, only purple Legendary drops matter–Prime Engrams and Powerful gear rewards are what you need to increase your overall level toward 1550, and those are only Legendary. Blues only ever drop at your current level once you’ve hit the Soft cap, which means that for anybody who’s playing the game regularly, blues become items you instantly dismantle for their parts.

So Bungie is reducing the number of blue drops players have to contend with–although, since blues are necessary for leveling, they’re not going away entirely. Once you hit the Soft Power cap, though, you’ll stop receiving blue drops from playlist activities like Strikes and Gambit and Crucible matches. Instead, you’ll only receive Legendary drops, or a smattering of the materials you’d otherwise get from breaking down blue gear, essentially saving you the step of deleting all those useless weapons and armor pieces yourself.

This is a thing that I’ve been waiting for, personally–I’m a person whose inventory is constantly full, and blue drops often find their way to the Postmaster, where lost items and inventory overflow wind up, as a result. And I don’t clean out my Postmaster, because I need that space since my Vault is perpetually full. So when a bunch of stupid blue drops wind up in my mailbox, they crowd out the other gear I’ve been holding there, hoping to hang onto (or that I still haven’t decided if I want to keep or not). When your mailbox is full, the oldest items in it get deleted first. Thus, stupid blue drops I’m just going to delete anyway literally rob me of guns I want. (Yes, I know this is the fault of my own disorganization and inability to stop hoarding items–I don’t care.)

Please, no more random kinds of currency that you can only spend with one guy in the Tower and take up two inventory slots.

So anything that gets rid of extra blue drops is awesome. In fact, it’d be great if we could just eliminate them altogether once you’re at the Soft cap, if you ask me. Barring that, anything that reduces the amount of inventory management I have to do at any given time just to play the game is a positive change. I’d love to see Bungie do more quality-of-life stuff like this, automating the deletions I’m going to make anyway. Just give me the Glimmer, that’s all I really want.

There’s other unnecessary stuff being knocked out of the economy, too. Gunsmith Materials and Telemetry are gone in The Witch Queen, another boon to my bloated inventory. Instead, the Gunsmith vendor will function like other vendors in the Tower–you’ll gain reputation points by doing their thing (in this case, smashing apart guns, I guess), and earn rewards when you do enough of that.

The reputation system as it stands isn’t perfect, necessarily (it takes way too many Strikes to get stuff from Zavala, for one), but if you ask me, these systems are better than having tens of obtuse currencies that have limited uses and are scattered throughout the game. In fact, anything Destiny 2 can do to cut back on the number of crystals, tokens, prisms, cores, materials, and bones and worms that are their dollars, would be great. They feel like stop-gap solutions for introducing new mechanics, but they always needlessly complicate the game. There’s plenty to keep in mind already. We don’t need to feed piles of gun parts to a robot in the Tower to get more guns.

So I’m all for anything that streamlines Destiny 2. Of course, that’s an ongoing process and the feeling I get is that it’s a lot easier to complicate the game to make it work a little better than it is to de-complicate it. But there have been positive steps of late, and this is another one. Anything that lets me gather less junk while I’m trying to shoot people.

It’s been a light week, so that’s it for me. Don’t forget to visit Xur and grab his high-stat ST0MP-EE5 and Phoenix Protocol, because he has some pretty solid rolls this week. And as always, feel free to leave your own impressions about Destiny 2’s upcoming changes, and anything else, in the comments below.

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The 25 Best PS2 Games Of All Time

Sony’s PlayStation 2 established a library of quality games during its run, building up a collection of software that has stood the test of time. Whether you were looking for simulation driving at its very best, wildly imaginative adventure games, or thought-provoking journeys into mystery, the PS2 had it all. We’re taking a look back at the best of the PS2 library, and across the console’s monumental sales and the sheer volume of games released on it, we’ve narrowed the list down to the 25 best PS2 games.

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Read on to discover which PS2 classics made the cut (in the alphabetical order).

Burnout 3

Burnout 3

While Criterion’s previous Burnout games had always skirted with turning your car into a destructive wrecking ball, Burnout 3 was the game that fully embraced a destruction derby flavor. Crash Mode was the highlight of this arcade racer, a drive down Road Rage Boulevard as you put the pedal to the metal in an attempt to cause as much collateral damage as possible while you reveled in the slow-motion carnage. Being an absolute menace was the driving force behind Burnout 3’s success, with the rest of the game being racing bliss as you earned crashes and cash during your grand tour.

Read our Burnout 3 review.

Capcom vs. SNK 2

Capcom vs. SNK 2

Bringing together many of the most popular characters from Capcom’s and SNK’s fighting games for a rematch, Capcom vs SNK 2 was one of the best 2D fighting games available on PS2 during the early 2000s. The follow-up added more characters, features, and refinements to the package, creating the definitive crossover of its time that saw it become a cult classic in the years after it was released.

Read our Capcom vs SNK 2 review.

Devil May Cry 3

Devil May Cry 3

After a lackluster follow-up in the form of Devil May Cry 2, Capcom went back to the drawing board for Dante’s next demon-slaying adventure. The solution to reinvigorate the series? A prequel that charted the early days of Dante, a new antagonist in the form of his identical twin brother Vergil, and an arsenal of demonic tools that could be used to banish devilish foes back to the underworld. Devil May Cry 3 didn’t just recapture the magic of the original game; it easily surpassed it with blockbuster levels of action and a story that wasn’t short on twists.

Read our Devil May Cry 3 review.

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

Dragon Quest VIII felt like the sum total of every Dragon Quest that came before it: a lavish and epic adventure for the ages. It was a role-playing game with an absurd amount of content, giving fans a constant supply of enemies and side quests to grind through. At a time when Japan’s best RPGs were producing groundbreaking and experimental work within the genre–look at Square’s Final Fantasy games from that time–Dragon Quest VIII was staunchly traditional, never wavering from its path and sharpening the elements of its formula that had made it so popular over the years. A safe RPG to dive into, but one that exemplified the very best of the genre.

Read our Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King review.

Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy X

The original PlayStation era of Final Fantasy games had raised the bar for what the series was capable of, and for its first mainline foray on the PS2, Final Fantasy X had some hefty expectations to meet. The RPG rose to the occasion, crafting a story that may have been more mechanically linear when compared to previous games, but was loaded with impressive visuals, satisfying turn-based action, and full voice-acting for its main cast. An underappreciated gem of a game in comparison to other Final Fantasy titles, Final Fantasy X is still an emotional odyssey that’s packed with pure character chemistry, imaginative world-building, and a certified banger of a tune in its soundtrack.

Read our Final Fantasy X review.

God of War 2

God of War 2

How do you live up to and surpass a game that is widely hailed as one of the best action titles of all time? If you’re God of War 2, you deliver an Olympus-smashing adventure that smooths out any rough spots from the original, gives its main character a good excuse to commit some more deicide, and awe-inspiring environments to explore. God of War 2 delivered on those ideas, pushing the PS2 to the breaking point with its ambitious gameplay, and giving the console the sendoff that it deserved as the PS3 era began gathering steam.

Read our God of War 2 review.

Gran Turismo 4

Gran Turismo 4

Gran Turismo games are like the Halley’s Comet of video game releases: rare, they take a while to appear, and they’re absolutely worth observing when they do appear. The series’ fourth mainline entry, Gran Turismo 4 pulled out all the stops for its arrival on PS2. With the genre getting more competitive now that Forza Motorsport had arrived on Xbox, Gran Turismo’s shift into a higher gear saw it take first place with a game that contained hundreds of cars, improved driving physics, and an expanded career mode. B-spec mode introduced some managerial fun to the title, making it one of the definitive driving games to own on PS2.

Read our Gran Turismo 4 review.

GTA San Andreas

GTA San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto games in the PS2 era helped form the foundation for the modern era of sandbox titles, and after a tour of Liberty and Vice City, Rockstar games were ready to raise the bar in GTA: San Andreas. A playground of gangland violence modeled after Los Angeles and Las Vegas, San Andreas was a leap forward that added RPG elements to the GTA formula. Players were given the opportunity to create a version of protagonist CJ that reflected their own playstyle, while the sandbox was in peak digital condition for all the chaos that could be caused inside of it. Every GTA game is a classic, but San Andreas stands tall as the best of the bunch on PS2.

Read our GTA San Andreas review.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

The 2000s were an era of plastic instrument peripherals, and you can thank Guitar Hero for making everyone feel like a rock-‘n-roll superstar. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater developer Neversoft handled development duties on this title, crafting a game that retained the basic and accessible gameplay while adding a new co-op career mode and competitive challenges for grand rock-offs against the legends of rock. The soundtrack was pure fire of course, and mastering solo career mode would unlock DragonForce’s “Through the Fire and Flames,” a merciless gauntlet of sick licks and heavy metal riffs that few players were ready for.

Read our Guitar Hero 3 review.

Jak II

Jak II

Jak and Daxter’s introduction on PS2 was a vibrant and energetic romp through alien worlds, and for the sequel, developer Naughty Dog looked to turn everything that worked up to 11. Bigger and more ambitious in design, Jak II’s foundational gameplay was enhanced by non-linear exploration, terrific voice-acting, and satisfying action. The story had a few twists up its sleeve, the graphical design made it a showcase title for the PS2, and a constantly rewarding gameplay loop kept fans coming back for more.

Read our Jak II review.

Kingdom Hearts

Kingdom Hearts

Kingdom Hearts might be best known for having an overarching plot that’s denser than a white dwarf star with all of its various narrative threads, but back in 2002, the first game was heralded for being an ambitious merger of worlds. Throwing Disney’s greatest characters into worlds inhabited by heroes and villains from Square Enix’s Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts was effortlessly charming and boasted some stellar design with its superb visuals. Future sequels and spin-offs may have further polished its various ideas, but as far as first impressions go, the original Kingdom Hearts was hard to beat.

Read our Kingdom Hearts review.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

The original Max Payne was a game-changer in the action genre, merging bullet-time gunplay with a hard-boiled detective story of revenge and tragedy. For its sequel, Remedy Entertainment dialed up the noir influences, atmosphere, and action that had been a highlight of the first game, polishing these elements into a gritty gangland story. An admittedly short game, Max Payne 2 is still a stylish and cinematic experience that provides blockbuster fun from start to finish.

Read our Max Payne 2 review.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

While Metal Gear Solid 2 was a gigantic leap forward for the stealth and espionage series, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater took those advancements and used them to craft a cunning prequel that put players in the shoes of a young Big Boss. Codenamed Naked Snake, Metal Gear Solid 3 was a departure from the series’ conventions as it introduced new camouflage, close-quarters combat, survival systems, and injury gameplay mechanics to the franchise. Packed with a lengthy story and epic moments, Snake Eater’s Subsistence edition is the definitive version of the prequel that irons out any lingering issues while also adding an impressive amount of extra content to the package.

Read our Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence review.

Okami

Okami

2006 was a great year for the PS2, but it was Okami that helped close the curtain on the PlayStation 2 with an unforgettable adventure. While its core gameplay riffs on Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series–complete with dungeons, boss fights, and puzzles–Okami was still very much a unique beast to play. On the surface, the cel-shaded aesthetic made Okami look like a Japanese ink painting come to interactive life, but beneath that gorgeous veneer, there was a game that embraced the very idea of art, using it to paint a masterpiece of epic design.

Read our Okami review.

Persona 4

Persona 4

Released on PS2 well after the PS3 had succeeded it, 2008’s Persona 4 hasn’t lost any of its magic over the years. If you enjoyed Persona 5, then Persona 4’s mix of modern-day Japanese high school drama, dungeons, and monsters that need to be taken down a peg is going to be an instant dealmaker for you–especially when you add a lengthy murder-mystery story that drops plot twists on your head when you’re least expecting it. One of the very best Persona games out there, the good news is that you won’t need to track down a PS2 console to play it, as its Persona 4 Golden edition was ported to PC in 2020.

Read our Persona 4 review.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

While a Prince of Persia reboot had popped up in 1999, it was Ubisoft that proved that it had the right stuff for a fresh take on the iconic property. Embracing the third dimension, Prince of Persia was a groundbreaking fusion of parkour and time-bending magic that helped players survive numerous deathtraps. Constantly challenging and filled with exhilarating moments of triumph, Ubisoft’s first foray into the Prince of Persia series helped spawn a new franchise, one that’s due for a revival as soon as the current remake of the 2003 classic finally escapes from the development dungeon.

Read our Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time review.

Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal

Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal

Almost two decades later, Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal is still widely considered to be one of the very best entries in the series. That’s no small feat for the Insomniac-developed game, especially when you factor in 2021’s superb Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart into the rankings, but Up Your Arsenal simply had the right stuff back in 2004. The primary gameplay pillars of the series felt better than ever before, the selection of weapons that Ratchet could wield against Dr. Nefarious made the action constantly fun, and the online multiplayer turned the game into an all-time classic.

Read our Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal review.

Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4

After the mainline games had thoroughly explored every corner of the Spencer Mansion and Raccoon City, Resident Evil 4 was a breath of fresh air for the series. Transplanting the bioweapon horror of the series into a Spanish village that was infested with a new breed of viral antagonists, Resident Evil 4 took a more action-packed approach but still had plenty of terror to unleash on players with its collection of spooky Los Illuminados enemies, atmospheric locations, and a behind-the-scenes betrayal of Nintendo that makes for a fascinating story.

Read our Resident Evil 4 review.

Rez

Rez

An absolute mind-trip of a game from Tetsuya Mizuguchi and the team at United Game Artists, Rez had you hacking mainframes to the beat of the music and the flow of an on-rail shooter. Fighting back against hostile programs, learning the rhythm of a stage, and constantly upgrading your avatar as you worked your way up the digital food chain made for a unique ride that was strangely cathartic as well.

Read our Rez review.

Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus was a unique and thought-provoking masterpiece of its time, arriving during the final days of the PS2 to definitively prove that video games could be art. Using both style and substance, Shadow of the Colossus hooked fans with its unique design and wildly ambitious concept of traveling the land to slay more than a dozen titans. The game felt even better to play, tasking players with working out strategies for dealing with each Colossi and augmenting those epic battles with a sublime soundtrack. A colossal challenge that still managed to deliver a gigantic twist near the end. A remake would arrive in 2018, but the original game still stands as developer Team Ico’s finest hour.

Read our Shadow of the Colossus review.

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill’s first sequel still stands as a masterpiece of terror, taking the ideas of the first game and executing them on a grand scale. It’s unnerving, and decades later, it still has a razor-sharp edge that’ll stay with you long after you’ve put a sweat-drenched DualShock controller down. A nightmarish journey filled with abominable monsters, plot twists, and multiple endings, Silent Hill 2 never gives you a chance to catch your breath as it constantly keeps you on your toes. Plus, how many other video games can lay claim to having the best ending of all time?

Read our Silent Hill 2 review.

Soulcalibur II

SoulCalibur II

Soulcalibur II’s greatest triumph was that it leveled the playing field for both fighting game experts and novices alike. Striking a balance that allowed for anyone to feel like a master of the blade, the end result was a game that allowed for flashy combos, hard-hitting attacks, and some of the best couch co-op you could have on Friday nights with your friends. Each character had a style that made them a viable option for combat, the game looked like a million bucks, and even the story mode was worth investing your time in, just to see who would resist the sweet temptations of a demonic sword that was thirsty for souls.

SSX Tricky

SSX Tricky

The early 2000s were the golden age of extreme sports video games, and when it came to the fine art of snowboarding, EA’s SSX was in a class of its own. 2001’s SSX Tricky refined the formula of its predecessor while creating a benchmark for all future titles to be judged against, delivering pure downhill excitement and amplifying the experience with a few neat tricks. It was adrenaline-charged entertainment, every combo you pulled off was a slap in the face of gravity, and each track was brilliant to replay as you hunted for extras.

Read our SSX Tricky review.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4

An overlooked chapter in the Tony Hawk series, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 was an earnest attempt by developer Neversoft to create a new foundation for the franchise. Gone were the two-minute runs that had formed the main template for THPS games, with Neversoft opting to embrace a more open-ended design where time was on your side. Career and Free Skate modes gave players time to explore the beautifully crafted stages, the introduction of spine transfers made the gameplay smoother than ever, and street tricks got a much-needed upgrade with new grinding and lip trick enhancements. All that, and it had a killer soundtrack that added a terrific atmosphere.

Read our Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 review.

Viewtiful Joe

Viewtiful Joe

What happens when you combine the power of cinema with pure Japanese Tokusatsu action? You get one of the best beat-’em-ups of the 2000s, a love letter to the art of film that’s written with punches, kicks, and visual effects powers. Viewtiful Joe’s challenging action made it stand out, but the tools that players had access to made overcoming each obstacle an absolute blast. From slowing down time to zooming in to deliver powerful haymakers, Joe’s Viewtiful Effects arsenal made each run through multiple episodes an Oscar contender. It also looked great thanks to some colorful cel-shading, and clearing the game on a certain difficulty would even unlock Dante from Devil May Cry as a playable character.

Read our Viewtiful Joe review.

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