One of my all time favorite consoles, almost everyone I'd ever known had a PlayStation 2. I believe it's one of the best selling consoles as well so maybe this is a shared experience for many people. Mostly as a DVD player but they were everywhere.
I tended to wake up early as kid to go play it in our basement, the red light glowing on the controller and the loud startup cause I forgot to turn it down when I went to bed :P
On the last edition of this page I focused on some games that I played recently that I think held up and ones I remember liking. For whatever reason it was mostly what I'd played recently. I'd like to add on by starting off with the games that I have the largest attachment to. It feels more personal and then covering everything I liked on all PlayStation systems.
--PlayStation 2--
The thing always starts with the shows intro, I've heard the first couple seconds of this thing so many times. This is based on one of my favorite TMNT shows. It's not even the first one I watched either. The game went through the second season of the 2003 show. My favorite things in the show happen here, I will technically be spoiling this of all things. Skip the next paragraphs if you so please.
The turtles go to destroy new york, this is a fake spoiler on the off chance that you didn't actually want spoilers but you're eyes went and read this anyways. But you should look away. On wards, They go to space and my half of favorite levels are in the second area. You meet the Fugitoid, a scientist trapped inside a robot he created. "Peblak Alley" the level name and song name. The song is one of the best and the cops saying "The fugitoid is with the green men" is stuck in my mind. Immediately after that you have this chase level through the sewers, it's a nice breather compared to Fugitoid but it seems so stressful as a kid. The boss themes hit. Slashuur was made just for this game and he's got a sick design. The arena fight with some monster is pretty tricky. After feduel japan shredder fight (which by the way nice :>) the game gets easier for awhile.
The game supports four players, I hunted relentlessly for a multi-tap to play this atleast once with four people. The controls seem strange so they weren't all used to it. It's a team game, you share a large health bar but you are also competing to see who did the most in the game after each level.
My favorites to pick were Leonardo and Casey/Raphael, my brother usually picked Mikey and Donatello. Mikey has the most movement options in the game. If you play single player, some levels can be skipped entirely as they gave him a hover.
The oringal TMNT arcade game is playable and the main feature of this game is the Battle Nexus, an arena battle mode with waves of enemies and a boss or two. The arcade game is hidden in a city level on some roof if I remember right. I know you have to fight like three gangs the whole time in that level so it's a late game New York level for sure. Some bosses are unlockable, I like to switch out Leonardo with Slashuur when I get him.
--PlayStation One--
One of my favorites, I like the music here the most. The Gems and Relics offer an always welcome reason to go back. Too many levels are my favorite. It'd be shorter to say the levels that I don't like :P
I like the hub rooms design, really simple and you could run in an infinite circle when you're really bored. There's the I think 30 live secret if you jump on the polar bear on one of the floors of the hub room. Has some memorable secrets that I can situationally remember in-levels.
There was one summer where I only played Crash Bandicoot until I beat it; That was pretty cool. Took awhile, don't think I ever got all the best relics though.
My favorite boss is Tiny in this game. As for the whole series, Dingodile is hands down my favorite, not to mention the cheese to beat him quick.
--PlayStation One--
To mention just one Crash game would be a crime, Crash 3 offers fun levels a bigger level hub and abilities. Besides that, I prefered Crash 2. Those abilities offer a lot compared to the rest of the playstation trilogy's movement options.
--PlayStation 2--
Jango! Jango! You play as the prequel Fett just before Episode 2. This game is an origin story, if you can unlock the whole thing. To unlock them you have to do your job and bounty hunt as a side objective. Finding them with your scanner and thinking of killing them or taking them alive, whatever offers the highest score.
My favorite levels are the Coruscant ones and the Prison ones. My favorite bosses are really any of them. My favorite Montross fight is the Freezing Chamber one. That whole level is super chaotic, the fun kind of chaotic after you figure out the timing on the platforms.
The combat is lock on based but you have so many movement options you'll be flipping, rolling and shooting as fast as you can press the button (honestly, try it with turbo/auto-fire if you can, it'll come out as a solid beam.)
You have all of his on-screen gadgets, you don't feel like Jango Fett you feel better. So many front flips and he makes that sound everytime he moves, "OYE!" "OYE!" then you start spamming or chaining things and it's just "OYEOYEOYEOYE!" and blasters assaulting your ears. I love this game. You unlock concept art, trading cards, and a full comic book, page-by-page. It's based on the amount of credits you earn.
There's a ranking system based on your play style that has no actual impact, I like that it doesn't ruin the playthrough if you are just messing around. There's a boss fight, Longo Two Guns; You have to fight through his goons the whole fight or just kill him as soon as it starts, I like that you can just gun him down and skip the goons but the lock-on doesn't always get him first. I still go out of my way to play this game sometimes. I once attempted to learn the speedrun tricks to this game.
--PlayStation 2--
This game served as my introduction into the series. A rental place near me carried it years ago. They kept their boxes facing the window and they were SUN-BAKED like completely washed out colors. It always messed with me to see them in such a state.
I was terrible at the time, like I used to think this game was really hard to catch the monkeys. I know they don't have tails but they are called monkeys by the game itself. Speaking of, did the monkeys in Super Monkey Ball have tails either?
I never made it far in this game but I did play the other monkey game.
--PlayStation 2--
Basically the best one, you get tons of mini-games, a story mode I'll never play and the usual monkey ball mode.
I liked hearing the announcer say "Monkey Bowling" and "Monkey Boxing". "Monkey Flight" or whatever it was called was cool too. The mini-games were what made this so fun with friends and my brother. Gon-Gon and Baby were my favorites to play as. I have a favorite song in the series, "Sky High" from the first game is an absolute BANGER. of a song. I refuse to link it to avoid it possibly being taken down, find it on your own you won't regret it B). NO they did not have tails either by the way...
--PlayStation 2--
"CLONE WATCH YOUR FIRE!" "JUST LIKE THE SIMULATIONS" "GLAD YOU'RE ON OUR SIDE" "WATCH THOSE WRIST ROCKETS!" "HOO-RA!" The 501st just keep talking. Fun game, liked messing around in conquest for hours or weeks. Large battles, playable heros, not to mention the hero only mode or hunt. Essential Starwars game. Space combat is okay but the ships don't allow you to just eject yourself in this one. Movement is way better than the first game, the modding scene for PC offers so much. The heros are all over-powered but are balanced enough that you can just pick whoever you want without it being a problem. Pick who you think is cool or want to hear talk the most.
I like all the dark-side users for the cool looks. Anakin is a villian in this game. He's never light-side ): All the lightside users are okay. Obi-Wan and/or Luke are my favorite to use.
Darth Maul has the best animation for villian attacks, Dooku second Grevious third. Jango and Boba are completely strafe attackers and just go off at the drop of a hat.
Obi-Wan is like perfect as always :))), Luke is second place but has a really neat dash attack you can chain, Mace has a decent ground pound thing but he ain't anything cool besides that and a few voice lines.
I regret to inform you, Bossk is not in this game... A sad day I know, I know. This is blasphemy but the game is fine without him :P
My favorite ground units accrossed eras are the Super Battledroid, Rebel Smuggler and just Stormtroopers. Heavies for stormtroopers are a must. The Jetpack Clone is of course just Jango Fett without a time limit so he's OP beyond belief. You need to grind out the upgraded weapons, they are optional and just make it so much more insane. Play on easy/normal to get them out of the way then go to the harder difficulty afterwards.
In Ship-to-ship you have like so many ways you can play it just is the best part of this game. You can win in like three ways. The Banking Clan ships just go down so fast due to terrible design you can fly around in it and be safe from those defending it. My favorite ships are the interceptors or bombers, depends on how aggressive I want to be and how I want to go about it. Drop Ships allow you to be really aggressive if you do it right but it's only worth it if you plan on dying at all. The Droid Army has the best drop ship due to it's turret it can control areas on it's own. Second is the Imperial one. The Republic... LAATs are supposed to be LOW ALTITUDE assault transports and they are too annoying to use cause of their almost all foreward facing weapons they are only good for getting in there. I forget what the rebels use, is it the same ship?
--PlayStation 2--
Platformer collectathon, great game. Soundtrack just continues to go on and on with fantastic songs. The story is, ghosts break a seal and Spooky is set free. You gotta get the stuff to reseal him. The story barely exists after that.
The undersea levels are alright, the skates levels are really fast paced. Speedrunners just go off, if you've played the game before it's really something to see.
I want to mention a few more games but don't have anything I'd really like to say about them that hasn't already been said. I just think they're cool so you get this.
Dance Dance Revolution: I don't have a favorite, I remember seeing them as a kid in arcades, never played them but seen others. Finally got a dance mat in 2020. I'm still figuring the game out.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Fun game, you make a team and level characters up. I liked the amount you could select and they all had voice lines.
ATV Offroad Fury: Love the soundtrack and the level of customization for the quads and tracks. Late 90's, early 2000's hard rock the whole way. First game offers more tuning options for quads.
Ridge Racer R4: Really fun when you get drifting down. I really like one of the maps think it took place in Tokyo. My favorite songs; Pearl Blue Soul, Naked Glow, Lucid Rhythms, Thru, The Objective, and Moving in Circles. The last song goes with my favorite stage so well.
Mr Driller: Really nice game to zone out and play. Same kind of zen state as tetris if you catch my drift.
Ratchet and Clank: Love the weapons, story, and voice acting here. Funny dialog and character interactions.
Rayman: I was too young to remember anything, I know the music is still amazing and the graphics look great still but nothing else.
Metal Gear Solid (series): I won't be seen explaining why I'm including Metal Gear, everyone I've ever talked to loves Metal Gear or thinks something about it is cool.
Spider-Man 2: The events are really important to this game, I know it's realy good swinging. I like the ability for the random encounters to just happen.
--PlayStation 2--
The events are way more interesting than Spider-Man 2. The graphics are still fine due to the cell-shading looking great. I like that Venom is seperate from Spider-Man. Beetle seemed really cool, Shocker is an event. The Rhino fight I remember being really hard.
The X-Men are in the game for a minute. Johhny of the Fantastic Four is here for the races. Smaller area yet, felt more alive than Spider-Man 2 to me. Also collectable comics and suits, tons of content. Swinging is not as dynamic, I personally didn't care too much back then. Not to mention I loved the Ultimate run of comics too.
--PlayStation 3--
The last Call of Duty I was completely interested in for awhile. My favorite weapons were the Scorpion EVO and the Remingtion 870 in multiplayer however I could use anything, just really liked when I could get away with using my favorites.
First time I liked a game enough to get DLC for it. I remember none of it. I can't tell you anything else that happened in that year. Mob of the Dead was my favorite of the DLCs. I never cared to do the Zombie's storyline but could with a whole team if prompted and told. I just knew how to get to what I wanted to do.
Transit was an interesting concept but I don't remember anyone saying anything positive about it. Origins had the original crew playable, I stopped playing before that.
--PlayStation 4--
Zombies in spaceland and the campaign. That's it. My brother got this one, it was really fun. The music was unexpected but makes the map, I knew how to do most of the things in the Zombies story and liked the Atari Arcade for including my favorite, Chopper Command. The main campaign was interesting for allowing you to do the missions in any order but you still needed to do them all I believe I remember nothing about the story. A robot was named Ethan though, I can tell you that.
The things I do remember from this; Dogfighting, ship-to-ship and of course boarding enemy ships. It was cool. I remember none of the here guns at all.
--PlayStation 4--
"HEY RICO!" and "VIVA LA REVOLUCION!" helping the NPCs and freeing them from dictatorship, it's so fun to just wreck havoc on the enemy forces. The first military plane demolishes everything and is too fast for enemies to target if you fly low enough. You only have to do three story missions to get the starting movement options, then you can just go off.
Some of my favorite things to do; Get a cool vehicle and drive at the top speed as long as possible or until I see something bad going on. The other thing is getting a tank from a heat level and trying to survive as long as I can while keeping it safe, going to bases and towns in my path. Alternatively sniping military assets from like a providence away so I never get a heat level and clearing it without ever being discovered.
Wingsuit is good, tethers are great, all vehicles handle differently. The parachute works :/
I like that rebels talk about things to you, even if they are all like one of two rebel NPCs. Six civillian voices. The best civilians are the band guys and the ones that yell your name from a town away, they are so fun to interact with and help out.
--PlayStation 4--
You aren't having deja-vu, this is just another clone trooper, with a million more on the way. Battlefront II for the PS4 has gameplay I can shut off and play or get really invested in with no inbetween.
Heroes vs Villains is pretty good, I like playing all darksiders except Palpatine and BB-9E. For Lightside it's basically the same thing except I play them all a little bit besides BB-8.
I play all classes besides sniper because I find it too situational. Officer has some nice squad and defensive options to make up for it's low HP.
Enforcers are nice and Jet-Pack Troopers are over-powered normal Troopers. Maul is my go to currently for darkside as I haven't completed Vigilant. Yoda is my reluctant Light-Side main until I get Serenity and max him out, I neglected him.
In a perfect world :P my mains are Dooku (Bossk if I can get away with it) and Obi-Wan for prequels. I don't have a preference for light side in the OT but Bossk or Vader for the OT villains. Kylo Ren or Phasma for villains and Chewbacca for Sequels.