10 PS2 Games That Still Blow Our Minds

In 2013, an end of an era came when Sony announced that it was stopping production of the PlayStation 2. After twelve years, this was one of the longest innings that a home console had ever been graced with.

It's Video Game Trivia 101 that the PS2 is the most successful console of all time. There are many contributing factors to this, including timing and it's brilliant built-in DVD Player. Beyond it's financial victories though, the PS2 is well-remembered and beloved by literal millions for one having one of the best game libraries of all time.

After the initial experiments and some awkwardness in the 3D space, gaming was truly figuring itself out as it matured. As such, new innovations were happening every few months. The quality of electronic expression was at an all-time high, and many games that pushed the medium forwards called the PlayStation 2 their home.

Nearly 23 years on from it's launch, the PS2 is still capable of providing hours of entertainment thanks to these games. Here are just a few from a very long list that continue to impress, even after all this time.

A very close runner-up for this list was 2001 adventure title Ico. Team Ico's debut still looks gorgeous today, demonstrating some of the best graphics that the PlayStation 2 has to offer.

And whilst Shadow of the Colossus perhaps looks a tad rougher, it's remarkable that it runs at all considering the demands that the game is making to the console. Colossus' world is sizeable, but what's most important is that it's wildlife is also. In fact, Colossus was perhaps the first game that almost ensured that most players would stop and stare at least once at what they were beholding.

"Wait, you mean... I have to fight that?". Large-scale bosses like this, with full body autonomy, had previously been unthinkable.

The sixth generation of consoles was absolutely where the conversation of "video games as art" picked up and chief amongst titles that people were pointing to as evidence was Shadow of the Colossus. The game was not about instant gratification. Whilst climbing the hulking Colossi was exhilarating in it's own right, it also felt humbling to play because of it's sense of scale and the player's place in that world.

Shadow of the Colossus took big risks by avoiding what most expected out of video games of the era, telling its own tale and forging a path that many games have followed but rarely bettered.