Best ps2 underrated games

Even now as one of my favourite underrated PS2 games, it still feels unique. The title casts players in the role of a rotating group of dogs. Your dogs can do tricks, coax humans into giving them snacks and even urinate as well as defecate! This isOne of the best PS2 horror games that is truly scary, placing you in the position of the zombie-like bad guys. Yes, Forbidden Siren takes the 5th spot in this list of the most underrated PS2 games of all time. It was pretty overlooked upon release in , receiving lukewarm reviews in the West.

Sounds cool right? The catch; they left themselves exposed and vulnerable as they do so. It was terrifying to view the world through the rabid eyes of the gibbering Shibito. They shriek and call their fellow creatures to attack when they found humans, for crying out loud! The game was well supported by Sony — receiving two sequels and even a loose film adaptation.

Still, it does somehow seem to have been forgotten in favour of the bigger budget, more famous horror franchises such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

This determines whether or not NPCs will assist the player in tackling the horrors they encounter. Plus, game events and even environments have an effect on the state of mind of non-player characters. That means that the player can also be in the dark about who is an alien impostor at any time. Though seen as a sales success at the time of release, critical reaction was fairly muted. Still, the game has been subject to a much warmer reappraisal in the years since it emerged.

Despite all this, it still feels as if it needs highlighting as an underrated PS2 game. Perhaps a sequel would have meant it had more time to shine. Sadly, the collapse of its developer caused the second game to be killed before it was completed.

Despite the premise of the cartoons, toy line and films, there have rarely been decent games featuring the Cybertonian warrior factions; the Decepticons and Autobots. Not too long after, it seemed like everyone was scrambling to find their own copy of the game, and the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series and Atlus enjoyed the spotlight.

This eighth installment is yet another quality adventure with a well-developed world and storyline. You even have a 2 player option during battles and a friend can play one of your sub-characters. The dialog can be really hilarious and there are tons of side quests, that are actually worth doing.

However, some linear plot directions, long load times and a quirky battle system that sometimes degenerates into button mashing bogs down what is otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable RPG. At its heart, the game is a mix of role-playing and adventure with a good bit of Pokemon -type fighting sequences thrown in as the battle system.

As your skills and experience improve, however, the things you can do with the paint program become enormously elaborate. And while your only limitation is the confines of a multi-speed cursor and a total of 64 body parts, skilled artists will be able to create some seriously beautiful images. As an added bit of strategy, the types of colors in use, thickness of your brushes, and placement of certain body parts affect the power and attributes of your drawings.

Add a touch of blue, and your luck goes up a few notches. Artists are going to love it. The games feature an isometric perspective, squad-based battles between diverse parties, a complicated system of cause and effect as fights play out, and customizable character development. Growlanser also boasts enormous campaign worlds and open-ended stories that distinguish it from many more familiar strategy role-playing games.

The need for good tactics is compounded by certain stages, which change dynamically and often for the worse. Fights can have multiple outcomes, and the level to which you complete a stage has a direct impact to the rest of the game. It dictates who you meet, how the story unfolds, and ultimately which ending you receive.

The world map for GII is just like Final Fantasy Tactics, where you move from town to town through a series of checkpoints. Shops and conversations all happen by way of menu choices at said checkpoints.

There is a subtle difference in area-of-effect type magic between the two, and GIII also allows the use of items in battle, where they are unavailable in GII. La Pucelle Tactics is surprisingly deep and has plenty of hours worth of adventure and battles. The tactics in the game are fun and advanced, however most players can easily enjoy the system. The only time you may complain is when you do not get the good ending. However, as opposed to only having end-of-game endings in Disgaea, La Pucelle has different endings for each chapter.

With its better storyline, heavier emphasis on characterization, and stronger verbal and musical approach, it can be a lot more endearing than its more technical younger counterpart. Small issues aside, La Pucelle: Tactics is still very much a powerful gaming experience and serves as a terrific companion piece to Hour of Darkness.

In its favour, the battle system is easy to pick up and many happy hours can be lost in strategy; it has an addictive quality that makes you want to keep on playing, levelling up, customizing and battling the hours away. Fans of this type of game will not be disappointed and it should be considered as a good point of entry to first timers too. The what-if scenarios that the game presents are quite intriguing and the gameplay can be equally engrossing.

I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who enjoyed the Front Mission series or Carnage Heart, and other wargaming fans should get a kick out of it as well, both its combat system and the involved world-building that surrounds it. The 2D masters at Vanillaware followed up their underground action RPG hit, Odin Sphere with this real-time strategy title that is equally as beautiful.

The gameplay and perspective are significantly different from what veterans might be used to — the levels are all vertical, and the main focus is on the combat rather than resource management and building. Grim Grimoire is not a deep RTS, but it is a fun one. With multiple difficulty levels, it can be easy enough to attract newcomers to the genre and cater to hardcore RTS players at the same time.

Instead, each mission is a castle cross-section that at first glance makes it look like a side-scrolling platformer. Every map is an amalgam of hallways and stairwells that most units must traverse to get from one point to another. While each one looks much the same as the last, the placement of various features like mana crystals and barriers make each map functionally different. Thus you need to take into account the path your units must take to their destinations, which may involve climbing stairways and crossing enemy territory.

Top-level units like chimeras cross the map without such concerns, but come with their own sets of needs and strategies. Much like that wonderful series, Sky Odyssey makes the flight simulation genre more accessible to beginners but has enough depth to give even experienced players enough to keep them busy. Players are given 40 missions that range from landing planes on aircraft carriers to navigating caverns and waterfalls, rescuing an out-of-control hot air balloon, and refueling on a runaway train.

The controls are tight and the planes handle as you would suspect they should in real life, but the mission objectives are so over-the-top sometimes that things can be nuts but in a good way. With some nice visuals and a soundtrack that is oddly swashbuckling in a satisfying sort of way, it all adds up to a title that PS2 owners should look into. Well, except for that first submarine mission, anyway. Ratchet the difficulty level down to easy for that stage, blow through it, and then come back when you have some better hardware.

If you can stomach the arcade style physics, and you find the ship-building entertaining, you may find Warship Gunner 2 a pleasurable way to pass a few afternoons. If nothing else, this could be an intro into naval games for sub-teens.

I love baseball, but its one of those sports that is hard to translate effectively into video games. Much like its successors, Power Pros features big-headed, characters and addictive arcade-like gameplay. Power Pros is definitive proof that baseball can be recreated on a console.

The game is fun, consistent, accurate and is, in every way, baseball. Often mentioned on lists of the weirdest games of all time, Mister Mosquito is all about using your stealth and strategy to suck blood from a family of humans.

The result is a game that is strangely compelling and credit must be given to the developers for creating something so original. Gregory Horror Show? A Mark of the Wolves port? Sign me up! Great list mate. Loads of goodies for me to track down. Both are worth their budget price. I meant to put Downhill Domination in that list as well — you race bikes in open ended downhill courses, and multiplayer allows up to four players. Racketboy, you rock! I love your articles and the suggestions you give.

Most, if not all, are spot-on! E-mail if so! Regardless, let me know and keep up the good work! Dude, Red Faction totally deserves a spot on there. Epic article! And I thought I knew most of the PS2 games worth playing. Rocketboy u rule! Mosquito got a spot in this Hidden Gems article.

Great Article as always. What an article! It makes me want some of those games soooo badly! I looove this site! Fantastic game. Your email address will not be published. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. Guides Journal Together Retro Forum. Robot Alchemic Drive The main difference between R. April 9th, at pm. Playstation 2. November 23, at pm.

Ack says:. Droid party says:. Andrew Kuehler says:. It did not disappoint as the game gave us much of the entertainment factor from the first instalment, and added in a variety of pulsating levels and sequences that made God of War II epic in so many proportions. It still holds up more than a decade later even speaking in terms of graphics and contributed toward setting up God of War III for the PS3.

The boss fights in this game stand out as the best. Many point toward Shadow of Rome as an example for a time when the PS2 received random, and enjoyable, games on what seemed to be a daily basis. That is true for the most part as now exclusives are a thing of uniqueness, and are touted as system sellers.

However, Shadow of Rome has been greatly romanticized for what it represents. In the heart of it, the game was a sloppy serving by the developers with terrible graphics and frustrating gameplay that shifted from action to stealth at the worst of times.

After the awful story and gameplay we got from Devil May Cry 2 , the follow-up prequel represented the greatest of comebacks from Capcom. Seemingly, they had become the perfect developers and their first two games were venerated to gaming royalty. However, when asked how Ico entertained them, a vast majority of gamers would respond they never did get around to playing it, but knew it was a quality game. Grand Theft Auto V has sold a combined 90 million by San Andreas had the feel of a real state, with every city presenting a different outlook for the player and separate experience distinct from one place to another.

The cheats in this game were enough to occupy gamers for endless hours. All we had to was follow the train, after all. Those old enough to have played this game when it was originally released will remember to disregard the positive reviews it is now known for and recall the false marketing Konami had done to make us believe Solid Snake would be the protagonist for Metal Gear Solid 2.

Raiden was the main character instead and while the game itself was by no means a letdown, people tend to forget we didn't get what we paid for. The story isn't bad, but Solid Snake was the protagonist whom gamers wanted to follow. The Tekken series has never been the same quality wise since Tekken 6 went multiplatform. The multiplatform games don't have the same originality or storytelling that PS exclusive Tekken games had to offer. Tekken 5 is the peak of the series and featured the best to showcase.

The gameplay was amped up to be more interactive with the environments, the graphics upgraded, and the style had a real pumped atmosphere. Since Tekken 5 's story, Namco hasn't even tried to give us a good plot. The roster for this game made sense as opposed to later ones which only mean to fill out the number of characters.