PS2 Collecting: Ten Overlooked, Forgotten, and Inexpensive Titles Worth Adding to Your Library

Sony's PlayStation 2 is the best-selling home video game console in history. With over 155 million units moved worldwide and a library of nearly four thousand distinct games, it's safe to say if you didn't own a PS2, you at least knew somebody else who did.

Much of Sony's success in this area can be attributed to two things: building on the franchises that made the original PlayStation the star of the 32-bit genre, and a built-in, hardware-based backwards compatibility mode that allowed gamers to enjoy those PS1 originals alongside their beefier, more graphically-impressive siblings. Much like my article devoted to PS1 software, I'm assuming you've secured the must-haves for this console generation: you've already got your Grand Theft Auto trilogy, the God of War duology, the Metal Gear Solid sequels, Jak and Daxter for days, and enough Silent Hill and Resident Evil titles to give you nightmares for the next ten years. Now you need to fill in some more gaps, preferably without emptying your bank account. That's where I come in, with this list of ten fun yet overlooked and underrated titles that won't make you choose between them and your next car payment. That means no Rule of Rose, no Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, and no Marvel vs. Capcom. Your wallet can relax. I got this.

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10) Hunter: The Reckoning - Wayward (2003, High Voltage Software)

In the 90's and early 2000's, White Wolf seemed unstoppable. Going toe-to-toe on the pen-and-paper shelves with the likes of TSR's Dungeons and Dragons, the company shot out core rules and splatbooks for their variety of storytelling game properties like there was no tomorrow. Every White Wolf property was infused with supernatural elements, allowing players to stalk the night as vampires, werewolves, mummies, wizards, faeries, or spectres, all of whom carried their personal baggage into their battles, and all of whom strove to keep their conditions secret from the humans among which they walked. Then there came a turning point when designers began to ask themselves, "What happens when the humans learn they aren't at the top of the food chain and go on the offensive?"

The result was first published in 1992 as The Hunters Hunted, a sourcebook for their Vampire: The Masquerade lineup detailing the types of foes bloodsuckers could face who were not only human, but capable of dishing out the pain. It wasn't until 1999 when this sourcebook was expanded into its own World of Darkness core rule set as Hunter: The Reckoning, but this was a revolution for fans of the storytelling system created by White Wolf tired of playing fiends and ached to purge the world of them instead. Three years after rolling out this ruleset, White Wolf licensed the Hunter property to High Voltage Software, which released Hunter: The Reckoning for the Xbox and GameCube. One year later, to much head-scratching, High Voltage put out the sequel, Hunter: The Reckoning - Wayward, as a PS2 exclusive. A few months later in 2003, High Voltage pushed out the last title in the trilogy, Hunter: The Reckoning - Redeemer as an Xbox-only title, and that was that.

Hunter: The Reckoning - Wayward may be the second game of a trilogy, but it stands alone just fine if you've not played either of the other two. It's an action RPG similar to Diablo, only instead of a high fantasy setting, the game takes place in the present day town of Ashcroft, with character archetypes to match: a biker, a cop, a priest, and a raver girl who hold the key to Ashcroft's salvation...along with an assortment of guns and melee weapons with which to beat back the undead, created, mutated, and resurrected hordes. With two-player simultaneous play (a step down from the other games' 4-player chaos, yes, but the PS2 only shipped with two controller ports, remember!) and a relatively simple control scheme, Wayward succeeds at virtually everything it sets out to do. It's been fifteen years and two console generations since the Hunters have graced our television sets, but you can bring them home for less than five dollars.

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9) Deus Ex: The Conspiracy (2002, Ion Storm)

Yes, I know the Deus Ex franchise survives today thanks to Square/Enix, but when was the last time you thought about the game that started it all? If you're a PC gamer, you've likely had this one in your library forever--it's one of the highest-rated and best-loved hybrid FPS/adventure titles ever published. But that's on PC.

The PS2 version of Deus Ex, by contrast, received very little fanfare upon its release, despite the game it was adapted from winning damn near every Game of the Year award the industry could throw at it. It may not have helped matters that the studio which programmed it was named "Ion Storm", noted at that time for the abysmal failure of John Romero's Daikatana. This is something of a misnomer, since there were actually two Ion Storm studios: the one responsible for producing Deus Ex was actually Ion Storm Austin, which was founded and run by Warren Spector. Ion Storm Dallas, run by Romero, was the more infamous sibling for reasons every gamer already knows.

Deus Ex: The Conspiracy may be a stripped down version of the PC original, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. While levels are smaller and loading screens more frequent, the game still packs an incredible story into that single DVD, and offers the player multiple ways to approach its missions thanks to fantastic level design and player upgrade options. Controller jockeys with a need to shoot everything in the face can approach the game as a standard first-person shooter and build up a main character into a virtual tank. More finesse-seeking gurus can elect for sneakier, stealthier options, and it's possible to complete nearly all of the game's missions without firing a shot if you're exceptionally skilled. Still as solid today as it was fifteen years ago, Deus Ex: The Conspiracy is one of those $5 marvels nobody remembers, but everybody should play at least once.

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8) The Suffering (2004, Surreal Software)

Nobody ever said doing time was easy, but there's "cruel and unusual punishment", and then there's...whatever Torque's been sentenced to in this prison-themed survival horror masterpiece. Placed on Death Row in Maryland's infamous Abbott State Penitentiary for the murder of his wife and children, Torque's not exactly what you'd call a model citizen. Unfortunately he's about to become the Maryland Department of Corrections' greatest asset, as all hell breaks loose in Abbott and Torque discovers he one of the few people who has what it takes to fight the demonic nightmares loosed among the population of hardened convicts and DoC officers.

Surreal Software sculpted Abbott State as a cross between two other now-defunct prisons in the US: California's infamous Alcatraz island, and Pennsylvania's Eastern State Penitentiary which opened its doors in 1829 and closed down 142 years later in 1971. With its gothic architecture, creatures designed by Stan Winston studios, and a soundtrack to rival the best Silent Hill had to offer, The Suffering is a lean, mean dive into terror that nevertheless is mostly forgotten today. The Evil Within and Outlast used similar settings for their scare-a-thons, but The Suffering still stands out as an exceptional action horror excursion that you can take home for around $10 today. The PS2 version even comes with "The Haunted Prison", a History Channel documentary included on the DVD which you can watch from the special features that takes the viewer through Eastern State's history. One creepy game plus one excellent documentary for one low price? Sign me up, bro.

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7) BlowOut (2003, Terminal Reality)

Made by the same studio famous for the PC-only survival horror game Nocturne and the first two titles in the Bloodrayne franchise, BlowOut is a psuedo-3D action shooter similar to Metal Slug and Contra in terms of difficulty, but aping the classic DOS game Abuse for its control scheme, and Nintendo's own Metroid franchise for level design.

Being a shooter, the story is on the light side: you control Dutch, a heavily-armed jetpack-equipped commando called in to pacify an alien outbreak on the battle cruiser Honor Guard. While all the characters, enemies, and levels are rendered in 3D, the game itself is essentially a 2D platformer, with Dutch crawling, jumping, ducking, and running through corridors presented in a third-person side-view format. Dutch carries with him a variety of heavy weapons including his standard assault rifle, a shotgun (for close encounters), flame thrower, grenade launcher, and more. The left analog stick performs dual functions in this game, since with it you both move and control the angle of your gun by directing a target reticule with a 180-degree firing arc. Since you can shoot at all angles, expect attacks to come from all angles as well. You'll probably get your butt handed to you a few times until you work this out, but once you do, it becomes second nature and you'll find yourself blowing apart the insect-like alien hordes with finesse. Unlike Contra though, all your weapons except the standard assault rifle come with limited ammunition meaning you'll need to ration the big guns for when you need that extra oomph.

Much like Metroid, you'll find items and keycards that allow you further progress through areas you aren't initially able to access. There are also hidden areas all over the Honor Guard, accessed by blasting the walls, floors, or ceilings in different spots. These caches hold weapons, ammo, health, and other goodies, so finding them is a great way to keep yourself alive.

Originally released as a $9.99 budget title for the console, you can pick up BlowOut today for a buck or two. This isn't a mind-blowing game by any stretch, just a simple run-and-gun shooter with rather limited replay value once you've finished it off, but if you want to eschew complexity for the chance to blast everything in sight, and you loved Abuse, you can't go wrong for the price.

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6) Mobile Light Force 2 (2003, Alfa System)

I'm hard-pressed to think of another game from this generation where the cover does such a terrible job of explaining what the game is actually about. Judging by the artwork (which is itself recycled from the PS1 game Mobile Light Force), Mobile Light Force 2 appears to be a mashup of Contra and Charlie's Angels, where three heavily-armed women fight to bring a robotic army to its knees. This is all lies, and nothing could be further from the truth. Mobile Light Force 2 is actually a vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter in the Castle of Shikigami franchise. How's that for a bait-and-switch?

While the likes of Gradius and R-Type are well-known today, Mobile Light Force 2 wasn't talked about even in 2003 when it was released. Savvy gamers knew to give it a pass from the cover alone, and that's really not surprising. Unfortunately, just like World's Scariest Police Chases on the PS1, doing so means overlooking a damn good (not to mention damn challenging) piece of software. If you've played a vertically-scrolling shooter before, then you know what to expect: tons of action, enormous enemies, outrageous weapon power-ups, and sanity-shredding boss fights. If you like those sorts of things but hate the idea of throwing down the money commanded by the likes of Ikaruga and other better-known titles, Mobile Light Force 2's $6 price tag should be all the convincing you need to put this one on your shelves.

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5) NeoGeo Battle Coliseum (2007, SNK Playmore)

SNK Playmore released a slew of NeoGeo classics for the PS2 in the mid-2000's following the North American debut of the PS3 in '06. While their 'Anthology' collections are great ways to enjoy older arcade titles, the crowning gem of their PS2 onslaught easily goes to NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, an arcade port of a brand new one-on-one brawler which redefined the genre and took its rightful place in fighting game history nobody cared about because it didn't have "Street Fighter", "Marvel", or "Capcom" in its title.

NeoGeo Battle Coliseum isn't just a great fighting game, it's practically every great fighting game ever released. It's the Battle Royale of fighters, featuring characters from virtually every SNK property you care to name: World Heroes, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, hell they even threw in a fighter from Aggressors of Dark Combat to see if you were paying attention. With a whopping forty characters, some of whom are newly-introduced and unique to this game, and all of whose sprites have been lovingly redrawn and re-rendered in higher resolution, NeoGeo Battle Coliseum is SNK absolutely dunking on everybody else's crossover fighting franchises. No one noticed because the Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3 were hogging the spotlight, but it still happened. That's the bad news.

The good news is, because nobody remembers this swan song fighter, you can pick up a copy for less than ten dollars and settle all those nerdy "Who would win in a fight between Geese Howard and Mai Shiranui" debates from your high school days.

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4) Justice League Heroes (2006, Snowblind Studios)

If I was going to sell you on Justice League Heroes in one sentence, I'd say, "Ron Perlman voices Batman." That may not be enough for everybody, but holy heck, does he bring a unique gravelly growl to the Dark Knight's dialog. JLH uses the same engine created for the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance games, and plays like a two-player version of X-Men Legends or Marvel Ultimate Alliance, where you take control of the biggest stars of the DC universe and mix it up in a story that puts you face to face with the likes of Darkseid, The Key, Braniac, and Doomsday. Along the way, you rescue people, earn XP, and boost your already-considerable super abilities. There's a slew of unlockables as well, everything from new costumes (which alter the hero's stats/powers and aren't just simple changes of clothing) to hidden characters. It'll take multiple playthroughs to open everything.

Another victim of the "I was released after the PS3" disease, Justice League Heroes is a forgotten and overlooked gem of a game, being one of the few titles to ever give players control of a Superman who didn't feel de-powered and sluggish. While the story is played relatively straight, there's a lot of comic book fun to be had, and it's clear writer Dwayne McDuffie had a blast putting together a story that pulls from not just the A-list bad guys, but gives a platform to some of the lesser-known B- and C-list heroes and villains as well. When was the last time you got to play as Zatanna or Huntress in a video game? I paid $40 for my copy when it first came out, but you can put this in your collection for about 1/10th of that today. Had this sold better, we might have seen a sequel. As it stands, this is the only Justice League game we got, but it's the only one you need to play if you're a DC fan.

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3) Gladius (2003, LucasArts)

Perhaps best described as Final Fantasy Tactics meets Gladiator, this 2003 tactical strategy RPG from LucasArts is surprisingly deep and surprisingly good, with tons of replay value across its two separate stories. Players begin the game as either Ursula, a barbarian tribeswoman battling for the honor of her brother, or Valens, a valiant warrior fighting to avenge the death of his father, who was one of the greatest gladiators in the land.

The turn-based combat takes place using the grid system familiar to anyone who's played a tactical RPG before, but Gladius ads its own unique touches with differences in terrain height and unit facing influencing the amount of damage handed out or taken. There's an element of skill included as well, with each unit having its own 'swing' meter, almost like a Tiger Woods game: swing early and you'll do a normal attack; swing too late and you'll inflict minimal damage; get your bar right in the sweet red zone, however, and you'll perform a maximum damage critical strike. This spot is in different places depending on the unit, and the swing speed varies between units as well, so you really have to pay attention during every fight. Beyond this, Gladius also introduces a weight class as well, giving a sort of 'rock-paper-scissors' aspect to combat: heavy hitters do massive damage to medium-weight fighters, medium-weight fighters do best against lightweight opponents, and lightweight units squirrel their way past heavy fighters' defenses better than anyone else.

There's a lot going on with Gladius, and while the game's first few fights are easy enough to overcome, you'll quickly find yourself thrown into the deep end and expected to sink or swim on your own merits as you buy new soldiers to replace defeated ones and strategize on unit placement to give your forces the best chance of success in battle. Hours of fun (and agony) await the would-be warrior who inserts this disc into his system. Gladius used to command a fairly high price on the second-hand market. I'm not sure what happened, but over the years the price has dropped to the point where you can pick up a copy for $7. Tacticians rejoice!

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2) Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005, Pandemic Studios)

One of the most consistently enjoyable, and, in my opinion, best sandbox shooters to date, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction puts you in the boots of one of three different mercs hired to enter North Korea and depose the military dictatorship now running the country and pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Initially dropped into the De-Militarized Zone with an assault rifle, a few frag grenades, and a small armored jeep, it's your job to sow chaos, capture the villains depicted on your "Deck of 52" playing card set, and earn a fortune doing work for the Allied Nations, Chinese, South Korean, and Russian forces who all have their eyes set on a piece of post-dictator North Korea. Whether you take on missions directly, or just drive around the countryside earning cash by blowing up NK vehicles and artillery, Mercenaries is the sort of go-anywhere, do-anything, hijack-anyone game you dream about playing.

What separates Mercenaries from other open-world sandbox titles is your PDA and access to the Russian mob's black market. As you complete jobs for the various factions (and especially the Russians), more and more options open up which are limited only by your bank account. For a small (or not-so-small) fee, the Russians will deliver anything you like: transportation, weaponry, even heavy ordnance. Want the Chinese to perform a live-fire exercise from across the border on your target, the AN forces to provide air superiority, or the Russians to deliver a 2.5 ton package of explosive love via FROG-7 missile? Dial up the 'Merchant of Menace' and let your fingers do the walking.

After a disappointing sequel on next-gen systems, and the underwhelming performance of their final open world WWII-themed The Saboteur, Pandemic Studios closed, leaving a Mercenaries-sized hole in the gaming community yet to be filled. Fortunately for all of us, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is still there, and for under $5 you too can do your part to rid North Korea of its evil dictatorship once and for all!

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1) Rumble Racing (2001, Electronic Arts)

Don't let the realtively weak graphics fool you--behind the tame textures and lower-poly scenery is a viciously fun racing experience. Rumble Racing is the sequel to 2000's NASCAR Rumble on the PS1, minus the NASCAR license. The premise is the same though: pick a car and drive it through a variety of tracks containing plenty of shortcuts and offensive weapon powerups (think oil slicks and hand grenades), all while performing epic rolls, flips, and other stunts to boost your score and standing within the race.

Rumble Racing is flat-out insane. It's cartoonish driving melded with cartoonish physics and a real-world aesthetic which is played more for laughs than anything else. The tracks themselves contain so many jumps, twists, turns, and obstacles they'd make a Naval fighter pilot pass out from all the G-force your driver would sustain due to course corrections. The AI cheats worse than a six-year old tasked with being the banker in a game of Monopoly. But none of this matters. If you want the absurdity of Mario Kart mixed with the balls-to-the-wall difficulty of San Francisco Rush for your PS2, Rumble Racing will be happy to deliver all of that for around $8. Put that in your exhaust pipe and smoke it!

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So, did your favorite overlooked and forgotten game make the list? Any surprises on there you weren't expecting? Did I leave off a cheap-but-fun title you think people ought to know about? Let me know in the comments. Until then, enjoy the nostalgia and game on!