Retro|Spective 199: The Final Tour of PlayStation 2

[Hirst]

Rule of Rose is actually the most expensive PS2 game that Cex sell, I saw it the other day doing a "low to high" search out of sheer curiosity. £440!

[wakka]

And when you try and buy it, they can't find the disc anyway.

[Neon Ignition]

Edit - Wrong Thread

[Hirst]

And when you try and buy it, they can't find the disc anyway.

And the cover is a colour photocopy stuffed into a random DVD case, manual long gone.

[chopemon]

Shadow of Rome is cool. The stealth sections are tedious but the combat has a great feeling of taking enemies to pieces. Lopping off limbs and really dismantling fools.

[Tobal]

none mainstream titles i really enjoyed not mentioned from A to S

Fire Pro Wrestling Z and Returns
King of Colosseum 2 (red/green)
.Hack originals
Klonoa 2
Bujinagi
Maximo series
Drakenguard/Drag-on Dragoon
Gungrave

[Neon Ignition]

I've skipped a lot but typically it's because they're titles that have already been covered as part of threads 001-198, particularly things that are part of a multi-entry franchise


Thursday:


Shadow Tower Abyss
Released only in Japan, though a fan translation exists, the game was a sequel to Shadow Tower and contains elements that in effect mark it as a precursor to Demon's Souls. A first person title, players explore a citadel in order to ascend a tower, facing difficult enemies along the way.




Shox
Another racing effort from EA Big, this was another arcade style title with a focus on player skill displayed when racing through Shox Zones. It was well received but thanks to the usual sales benchmarks EA demands it failed to generate a sequel.





Sky Odyssey
A game based on flight, with no combat, players take one of 10 aerial vehicles to complete complex missions to then gain access to the Tower of Maximus. Natural weather events also try to stop you from completing your objectives as you work through each mission.





Did any of these disappoint or shox you?

[Neon Ignition]

Gonna throw in there, Shox deserved more attention than it got, great little racer


We turn to the stars for Friday:


Star Trek: Encounters
A space shoot em up based on the five series that existed at the time, with single and multiplayer battle options. The game also featured single player story missions with each era of the show getting a self contained storyline for its missions.




Star Wars Racer: Revenge
A sequel to the pod racing game, very much an expansion on the concept with more planets and pilots as well as the ability to continue racing after your pod has crashed.





Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing
Not content with already having a racing focused entry into the franchise, this Mario Kart styled title was also put out placing big headed versions of the characters against one another on themed world tracks. Poor sales meant a raft of ports were cancelled.




Any of these a gift from the stars or rather a black hole of despair?

[Asura]

Shox
Another racing effort from EA Big, this was another arcade style title with a focus on player skill displayed when racing through Shox Zones. It was well received but thanks to the usual sales benchmarks EA demands it failed to generate a sequel

Star Trek: Encounters
A space shoot em up based on the five series that existed at the time, with single and multiplayer battle options. The game also featured single player story missions with each era of the show getting a self contained storyline for its missions.

Wow, gonna track down both of these.

EDIT: A tenner later and both of these are on their way!

[Neon Ignition]

We're now in what will be the final week for this thread:


State of Emergency 2
Notable largely because the original game drew some attention to itself and was published via Rockstar. The sequel expanded on the gameplay and enhanced the engine but wasn't as well received.




Stretch Panic
Treasures first 3D playing game, players can stretch and pinch items as they pick their way through several worlds. The game was notable for the ideas Treasure had put into it but their lack of experience working with 3D titles meant it also had a level of clunkiness reviewers didn't like.






The Sword of Etheria
Released by Konami, this hack and slash action game skipped a US release taking away a lot of its chance to appeal to western audiences. Well received in reviews, the game was worked on by team members who had previously worked on Suikoden and Castlevania.




Did you enjoy any of these and WTF happened to Treasure?

[fuse]

Stretch Panic got on my radar recently from another thread talking about obscure releases, as I'd totally missed it before.

That description of Sword of Etheria also puts it right onto my "investigate further" list too.

[Asura]

Totally missed these. And I remember the hassle over State of Emergency; remember when Rockstar made the occasional videogame that wasn't sequels to GTA & Red Dead?

[Neon Ignition]

Tuesday:


Tourist Trophy
Gran Turismo but with bikes, pretty much literally. Polyphony's attempt to branch out failed to gather anywhere near as much attention to itself. The game generally scored well but reused too much content from Turismo.




Transformers
Based on the Armada cartoon, this title was a third person shooter and one of the earlier entries to score decent reviews. Despite its success the franchise would move onto other iterations and also never port this one elsewhere.





Under the Skin
An action adventure game by Capcom, you play an alien here to cause havoc. The game also includes numerous nods to other Capcom titles.




Urban Reign
Another Namco title, this is a beat em up with two Tekken characters as unlockables. The game was deemed to generic against other titles of the time





Do you have a history with any of todays titles?

[Asura]

Transformers
Based on the Armada cartoon, this title was a third person shooter and one of the earlier entries to score decent reviews. Despite its success the franchise would move onto other iterations and also never port this one elsewhere.

This is one of those licensed games that's weirdly technically proficient.

Firstly, it has huge environments, which benefit from how you're able to transform into a vehicle to traverse them; but that goes with an engine which carries them really well. The performance is surprisingly good.

Secondly, it has this unusually evolved explosion physics system where explosions bounce - so if you fire a rocket and it hits an open area, it'll explode as normal, but if you fire it into a cave, it'll fill the cave and flow out to the opening.

I just remember it was a surprisingly good game.

This is on PCSX2 so it doesn't really show off the performance on hardware but I really remember being impressed:

[chopemon]

Yea, that transformers game was pretty good and like you say, impressive.

Under the Skin by Capcom is really cool. If I remember right, they were open sandbox levels and you could disguise yourself as other characters. I had no idea what it was when I bought it, I saw the Capcom logo and got it. Very pleasantly surprised.