True Crime: New York City on the PS2- A Review From a Nobody

In 2007 or 2008, I was browsing the clearance rack at my local Walmart, and I happened to see True Crime: New York City sitting on the shelf with a $10 price tag attached. Previously, I had no interest in ever owning or playing this game, but for $10 I decided what the heck, I can get my $10 worth out of a Quote-unquote GTA clone.

I had previously played a little portion of of True Crime: Streets of L.A. At a friend's house, and I was rather underwhelmed by it at the time. I know the game still has a cult-following among it's fans, but, even going back to play it for this footage, It feels a little janky, and glitchy, and the mechanics don't feel fleshed out as far as they should have been. The episodic nature of the missions also feels a little out of place in a sandbox game. Yes, I'm going to use the older term Sandbox game instead of open-world game, as we used to use it parallel to GTA style games.

When I finally got to playing True Crime: New York City I was actually taken aback at how good the mechanics in the game were. Many of the mechanics in the game like the hand-to-hand fighting, and the aiming and shooting feel better to use in this game than even San Andreas. There are also a lot of other additions to the game that I really enjoyed. While, like the previously mentioned San Andreas, you can buy clothes and a new haircut, you can also go to a dojo and buy new fighting techniques to switch to on the fly. For example, you can switch from the brawler to taekwondo or Karate on the fly mid combat.

You can also use your in-game cash earnings to buy new cars, new driving techniques, new guns, and even new songs for the games excellent soundtrack which consists of licensed music (which I had to mute for this review footage). Top that off with the fact that almost any door to any store, hotel, or apartment complex can be entered in the game, and you have a game that feels incredibly expansive considering the hardware it runs on. While being able to walk into random buildings in a large, sandbox style game might not seem like a big deal in the modern age, even with the game using only a couple of different templates to simulate the inside of the buildings, this was an incredibly impressive feat on the PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox.

Being able to walk into any open store in the game really helps bring New York city to life in this game. It's a small touch, but it adds an extra layer of interactivity and exploration to the city. I remember being blown away by the fact that you could enter a large percentage of buildings in the game. I thought it was an awesome design idea, especially since I was used to building doors mostly being there for decoration in other sandbox games of the generation.

would say, however, my favorite mechanic is the random active crimes. Carried over from the original True Crime, Marcus is constantly being notified of various crimes being committed in his vicinity. You can either choose to engage in stopping the ongoing crimes (either arresting or killing the perpetrators as needed), or ignoring the calls. This is one of my favorite design ideas instituted in the game, because it gives the player something engaging to do in the times between missions. The crimes vary in variety from stopping a domestic disturbance, a bomb threat, a car jacking, and many more. In fact, the crimes, at first, have a good variety to them. Eventually, they start to repeat over and over, but, at first, they feel quite varied.

Later, when I finally played Marvel's Spiderman Remastered on the PC, I realized that Spiderman used a similar city-crime system in it's design where Spiderman would intercept police chatter about active crimes being committed in the area, and players could choose to respond to the calls, or ignore them. I know Spiderman 2 on the PS2 had a similar system, but I've still yet to play Spiderman 2, even though I have owned it for years. For me, when I first was Spiderman's active crime system, it was a call back to True Crime in my mind. It's an ingenious design idea that helps bring the crime-fighting portion of each game to life, and gives the city more life, feeling less static and lifeless as a whole in each game.

True Crime: New York City follows the story of Marcus Reed, the son of a New York Crime Kingpin, who, as the manual states: After a life of hard Crime, has turned to Law Enforcement, only to watch his mentor die in front of his eyes. Marcus is now drawn into a story of deception, conspiracy, and double crossings.

The introduction mission of the game introduces a young Marcus while he was still in his life of crime, taking revenge for an attempt on his father, and his lives. After that, the timeline shifts forward five years where Marcus is now a police officer who's about to be promoted to the organized Crime unit. The game sets up the story, and has a quick forced training mode that does a good job at teaching the basic combat and riving mechanics. Normally forced training modes annoy me to the end, but this one isn't too bad as far as training modes go. There are quite a few complex mechanics to the fighting and gunplay in particular, but the training goes by pretty quickly overall. I still hate forced training modes, and prefer the good old days where they were an optional mode on the title menu, but this one isn't too bad.

I've found that whenever I play this game, my usual GTA urge to go on crazy rampages isn't there. True Crime is actually kind of unique in that you play as a cop. Now, you can certainly go an rampages if you so choose, but the game does punish you for doing so. Players can even choose to play the game as either a good cop or bad cop if they choose. Choosing to do things like sell any crime evidence the acquire at local pawn shops for cash instead of turning it in for career points, extorting local store clerks for cash, or just shooting every perpetrator when responding to crimes. The game grades you with good points and bad points throughout.

In the game, you can stop and frisk any of the NPC characters you want, searching for drugs, weapons, and etc. his brings up another addictive mechanic in the game. The more pedestrians you arrest who are carrying these items, the more the crime rate goes down in each neighborhood. When you get the crime rate down enough in each neighborhood, stores that were previously boarded up are reopened, as they were forced to close because of the high crime rate. There is also less trash a debris floating around in the neighborhood as well. I found myself kind of addicted to cleaning up each section of the map. Plus, the stop and frisk feature allows me to be evil in other ways beside going on a rampage.

I like to stop and risk random pedestrians, hit them once, and then let them go. If they turn to fight me, I beat them down, then arrest them for assaulting an officer. See, there are other ways to be an evil A-hole in this game that aren't rampage sprees. I also like to randomly walk up to NPC's and punch them to see if they will attack me, then I arrest them for it. It's my own way of being diabolical in this game. Granted, most of them pull out tazers to taze you with for attacking them, but I still find ways to skirt the rules and be a little evil in the game.

I also like other small touches in the game like, since Marcus is under cover and in street clothes, if he is shooting or openly carrying a gun, he has to identify himself as a cop to other police officers or they will attack him. You can also randomly search the trunks of parked vehicles for contraband if you want. There are a lot of small details and quirks in the game's design that combine to a extra layers of immersion to the game. Luxoflux really thought outside the box on this game, and there are a tons of seemingly small design choices that, when added together, give this game it's own unique feel. It wouldn't be nearly as good without them.

The main story missions can be beaten in 7 hours or less which is relatively short. One thing I did notice in this run is there aren't a lot of timed driving missions in the main story mode. There are a couple of scenes here and there, but, to be honest, I didn't really miss the Driver or Smuggler's Run style missions. There are still a couple, but the game focuses more on the parts it excels at, and that's the hand-to-hand combat and gunplay elements.

Coming back to the hand-to-hand combat in the game feels rather clunky if you're used to more fluid fighting systems. The hit detection feels off, and it's best not to bother with the lock on system. For the time, it was impressive for a GTA clone. It had a lot more depth than the hand-to-hand combat in the GTA games. Coming back now, it might feel janky to most modern gamers, but it still mostly works well enough.

The gunplay also feels better here than in GTA outside of the clunky weapon switching interface on the D-pad. However, unlike San Andreas where you have to hold down the lock-on button to get dual-stick aim, True Crime has dual-stick aiming by default. You can also lock onto enemies for fast targeting. Again, compared to the fluidity of modern games, certain aspects of the combat and gunplay will feel a little janky, but compared to it's contemporaries, there was a lot more depth to True Crime's fighting system than even in the GTA series of the day.

The driving in the game is alright. The physics engine does a decent job. The cars control decently. A lot of people complained about the driving physics in the game, and while it's true that the GTA games feel a lot better in this department as well. The driving isn't terible in my book, but also doesn't feel great either. It's in the middle of the road. There are also framerate issues in the game, but I didn't notice them much. For some reason, when I am playing old games on old systems, I barely notice framerate issues inless there is massive slowdown. I just kind of already expect them to be there by default. It is there, but, considering the hardware, it would be more surprising if it wasn't.

The main story missions have five major cases. Once you complete the first major case, the Magdalena Cartel, you can then choose which of the other three major cases you want to play next.

Outside of the main story missions, there are side story missions like your typical racing missions, taxi driver missions, and even a fight club you can partake in. Completing the game 100 percent, or putting in the cheat code like I did for this footage also unlocks a hidden mini game called Redman Gone Wild.

The original True Crime had an unlockable mini game featuring Snoop Dog, but the one in New York City features the Rapper Redman. I haven't actually played this mini-game until this playthrough. The point of the game is to help Redman escape New york against an entire city of people who are trying to kill him. You have pedestrians that try and attack you hand-ton hand, armed NPCs, and even vehicles that try and run you over. Every kill adds extra seconds to the timer, and life and weapon pickups abound. Redman Gone Wild is actually really fun to play. I was surprised at how much fun I had playing this mode. It's a great addition to the game.

Graphically, from a quality and polish standpoint, you'll have a hard time recognizing that True Crime New York City was released in the same generation as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, let alone the same console. In San Andreas' defense, it's is gigantic in scale, even when compared to True Crime, but True Crime New York City, aside from being on the list of being one of the small handful of PS2 games that support progressive scan, looks amazing, and is as faithful a recreation of New York city as possible on the PS2. The map in the game is said to be GPS accurate, but as I don't live in New York, and have even even visisted, I have no idea how accurate it is to the minute details in the city. Either way, for the size and scope of the game, the graphics in the game look amazing for a PS2 game.

You can tell that, by 2005, developers had really started to learn all the little tricks of the PS2's architecture to either use certain effects, or how to convincingly fake them. I guess the modern word would be optimize, but in the olden days, it was less optimization, and more how to think outside of the box to get a system with as weird an architecture as the PS2 to produce things like say, the beautiful, by PS2 standards, reflective surfaces when it rains, or just having a shiny, reflective sheen on the roads that occur whether it's raining or not.

The texture quality is also excellent, as are the lighting effects, and even the shdows after they stream in of the disk that is. Overall, the game offers top-tier PS2 visuals. This is a great example of what the system was capable of, graphically, in hands of the right developemtn team.

However, once area that falls into the graphics is the biggest flaw of the game, and that is the abundance of technical glitches in this game.

There are so many bugs in this game. For this run, I didn't have a lot of glticthes occur while recording this footage, but in the past, I have glitched through walls, fallen through floors, had tons of completely other wonky things happen, like guys walking in the air. This is a game you definitely need to save often in, because the game can just freeze up on you at random.

I've actually heard that the PS2 version is the least glitchy version of the game. I remember when I posted this as an Underrated Gem in 2008, one of the commentors informed me that the other two console versions are even worse when it comes to glitching out. It's so bad that there is even a in-depth glitch/error guide for the Xbox version on Gamefaqs.com.

So even though I really enjoy this game, I enjoy it despite it's glitches. The game might be too glitchy and flawed for most people. It's a shame that Luxoflux didn't spend more time trying to iron out the glitches before the game shipped. I don't know if the game was under a strick publishing deadline, so they shipped it in good-enough state just to get it out the door on time, or if it was laziness on the developer's part. Maybe they spent more time trying to make he game look good than trying to get it to run good.

No matter what the reason, it's still an utter shame the game has so many technical problems. Constantly having to save your game after everything you do out of fear of losing your progress isn't a fun way to spend your time. Luckily, the game prompts you to save after every completed mission, and you can also save anywhere from the pause menu.

It's just unfortunate that this is a game that you will either hate because of, or enjoy despite of It's technical issues. When I see the low review scores at the time for the game, I can certainly understand why a lot of outlets heavily panned the game. That, and they were probably directly comparing it to San Andreas at the time. GTA isn't glitch free, but by comparison, True Crime: New York city seems like a sloppy rush job.

Plus, there's always a reviewer slant in each generation where sometimes games get low review scores because they are being compared to games like San Andreas instead of being judged on their own merit: Similar genre, but doing different things. Yes, gamers would have been more suited spending their hard earned cash on a GTA game over the clone game that's riddled with bugs, and not nearly as much stuff to do. Comparisons are helpful in reviews, but sometimes reviewers had a tendency to go a little overboard in the comparisons and the entire reviews come off as, “Game A is bad because it's not game B.”

There are other glitches in the game like wonky AI, and NPC's that randomly crash their cars into other cars or run you over when you are trying to arrest a perp. There's enough here for someone to write a full guide on Gamefaqs of bugs. As I mentioned earlery, there is slowdown in the game to the point that a lot of user reviews complained about it, but, again, I didn't notice it much. Yes, the cars move slower in True Crime than they do in GTA, and you can tell the framerate doesn't move as fast overall, but I didn't notice many large framerate dips, just that the game, overal feels a little more sluggish than GTA overall. Maybe that's where the framerate complaints come from, or maybe the ones who complained were playing the Gamecube or Xbox versions of the game.

It really comes down to whether or not you can look past all the bugs and enjoy the game, hoping you don't run into any game ending bugs along the way, or if the myriad of other technical issues, or if the technical problems are a deal breaker. I guess it comes down to your tollerance of glitches. Even the user reviews for the game are split on this issue. Some people, like me, really like the game despite it's problems, while other absolutely hated it.

I guess it also depends on whether you spent $50 on it when it launched, or a mere $10 like I did. For $10, I really enjoyed my time with the game, but those who paid full price for it when it hit, I can understand why they might have enjoyed it as much as I do. Plus, there were no day-one patches on the PS2. You got the game on the disk and all the glitches were cemented in stone. No patches, not fixes, the game was eternally in it's launch condition.

One place the game doesn't lack in it's the sound department. It has an excellent soundtrack with a variety of genres of music from rap to punk rock, from Redman to the Misfits, the Ramones to blue oyster cult. The music selection had songs for all musical tastes. I believe the Xbox version of the game will even let you use custom soundtracks. Remember, we used to rip CD's to our Xbox hard drives, and some games would let you use them as background music in the games.

The voice acting is excellently done, and even has an all star cast with names like Christopher Walken, Mickey Rourke, and Lawerence Fishburne. The sound effects are decently done as well. The car sounds, gun sounds, and other effects are all good. The only annoying effect is that weird buzzing noise when the game freezes up on you. The constant quips by NPCs in the game can also get annoying to some people. Overall, the voice acting and soundtrack are the star of the show, while everything else is good as well.

The Bottom Line- True Crime: New York City has a ton of technical issues, bugs, and glitches. This is a game that I've always found the fun and interesting gameplay design outweighs the it's problems. I've always really enjoyed this $10 clearance rack buy of mine, and I think that forgiving gamers, who can look past the technical problems should really look into this game if you've never played it before. I really enjoy it's exploration elements, and the mixture of good design ideas that I think improve the gameplay experience. I always play as a good cop, but it's cool to have the option to play as a bad cop if you choose.

I find the stop and frisk elements where you get to troll the NPC's in the game, the city crime system where you get calls for local crimes being committed, as well as the ability to enter most shops in the game to be addictive touches that add a lot to the core gameplay on top of the story-driven missions and side missions. I really like True Crime: New York City and I always have. That being said, I can't suggest it to everyone because of it's myriad of problems that will put many gamers off to it. It's many elements combine to make a great quote-unquote GTA clone in my book. If San Andreas it a 10 on the scale, True Crime: New York City is in the 7 to 8 territory by comparison. It's a good game in my book, and I always have fun with it. If you can look past the overall bugginess of the game, you might want to look into this game. It's a flawed, yet still fun underrated gem.

 

 

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Video Tags: True Crime: New York City,PS2 review,True Crime review,PlayStation 2 games,action-adventure games,open world games,crime games,gaming nostalgia,retro gaming,video game review,PS2 classics,True Crime series,gaming commentary,game mechanics,story analysis,character development,2000s video games,gaming history,crime drama games,video game nostalgia

Deus Ex: Invisible War on the PC and Xbox- A Review from a Nobody

 

 

So I bought an Xbox for four games, none of which were Halo. A friend had Halo, and by the time I picked up an Xbox in 2003, I had already played enough Halo that the game didn't really interest me. My friends never played lan parties or anything like that, and what little split screen multiplayer we played, they were always trying to stack the deck so they can win. By the time I picked up my Xbox, my first PS2 had already died due to the dreaded disk read error, so the Gamecube was the only current gen system I owned that worked. The Xbox had dropped to a $150 price, so instead of picking up a new PS2, I picked up and Xbox instead out of annoyance about console unreliability.For a while during the 6^th generation, I was a Gamecube and Xbox gamer. I wouldn't pick up another PS2 until I picked up my first slim in 2005.

Previously, I had played Deus Ex on the PS2. This was my first exposure to the Deus Ex series, which is why I still have a soft spot for the PS2 port of Deus Ex, I still love this version of the game, and there are things I like about it more than even the original PC version which I would later acquire used at EB games, and would get the game of the year edition with a bunch of cheap Eidos games like Thief 2 that I want to say were at Big Lots or some other dirt cheap store. The PS2 version was the version that first introduced me to my love of this series, so I will always love the PS2 port of the game.

My PC at the time was the first PC I ever owned, it was a hand-me-down HP office PC with a slot 1 Pentuim 3 running at700 mhz. If you don't remember, slot 1 processors were processors that clipped onto your motherboard through a slot one socket like you would clip on a stick of Ram or a graphics card. It was also passively cooled with a heat sink and no fan. By that time my graphics card was an AGP slot Radeon 9000, the one I talked about in my Slave Zero review that my brother bought for me at Walmart. Yes at walmart, which by the way, select Walmarts have started to sell PC components again. I'm not sure how many are, but it was trippy to walk into a Walmart Electronics section and see Motherboards, power supplies, and 7800 X3D processors.

So while my Radeon 9000 would have run the game, and I had 512 mb of DDR in the system so I had the Ram, however, the recommended CPU for Invisible War was a 1.3 ghz processor. My dinky 700 mhz processor had absolutely no chance of running running the game. My dinky little hand-me-down Office PC wasn't capable of running the game, and I couldn't afford a new PC with left me with one option.

Deus Ex: Invisible War was one of the four games I bought an Xbox for, along with Shenmue 2, Jet Set Radio Future, and Panzer Dragoon Orta. As you can tell, it was Sega who mostly influenced me to buy an Xbox.

Personally, I love Invisible War. I always have and always will, but it is definitely a controversial sequel to one of the greatest games of all time due to certain design choices made in the game. I think the reason I loved it, despite, obviously, loving the original better is that I played the Xbox version of the game and had the console experience with it verses the PC experience. Eidos forced Ion Storm to make the Xbox version the primary focus in development- meaning the PC version felt like more of an afterthought, feeling more like a console port rather than a PC sequel to one of the most celebrated PC games of all time. The PC version came out buggy, having mouse lag that made it, basically unplayable and a whole list of other problems also making the PC version unplayable out of the box. I don't own the physical PC version of the game, so I didn't go though to frustrations that PC players went through with the game. With the main focus on the Xbox port, and various technical problems, it's no wonder that PC gamers are still the most ticked off at this game to this day. Eidos really did do them dirty by prioritizing the Xbox version over the PC version, but they were just a couple of years ahead of the curve in that regard.

As I said in my Doom 3 review, in the 7^th gen, developers started prioritizing consoles over the PC, even for long running PC only franchises. The main reason was the rampant piracy taking place in PC gaming. At one time, there was speculation that PC gaming was going to die because of piracy. They were saying it wasn't even going to exist in a couple of years time. Developers started shifting toward the consoles as they weren't yet cracked or hacked, at least not on a large basis, meaning that piracy wasn't going to interfere with game sales. Luckily for PC gamers, Steam came along and pretty much single-handedly saved PC gaming.

This what I meant when I said the Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Quake 4, F.E.A.R., to Crysis era in PC gaming is, to me, the last great era in PC gaming where the PC still had tons of great exclusive franchises that, even if they did later get console ports, they were still primarily PC-focused franchises. The console ports were hand-me-down ports, not the primary focus. If you wanted to Play Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Quake 4, Diablo, Command and Conquer, Civilization, Crysis, and so many more in their best and right way to be played, you needed a PC. PC gaming had a separate, and distinct flavor from console gaming. It was definitely a more sophisticated feeling platform with tons of deep western RPGs, the best shooters around, the best real time strategy games, and so many other golden era franshises like Civilization, and Black and White. PC gaming had it's own seperate and unique vibe.

Nowadays, outside of the Switch, PC and consoles are flavorless download boxes with all the same games available with few standout exclusives. People playing the most popular PC games probably first played them on consoles, but then wanted higher framerates so they could be even sweatier in online games.

The 7^th gen is the era of gaming where this flavorless blending of platforms started. If you don't agree, that's OK, but tell me, what was the first system you played Call of Duty 2-4 on? What was the first system you played Fallout 3, Oblivion, or Skyrim on? What about Diablo 3 or Red Alert 3? Instead of getting offshoot ports or watered down ports, the consoles started to get direct versions of mainline PC franchises developed alongside the PC versions in the 7^th gen which is a practice that has largely carried on to this day. Invisible War was just a couple of years early on this.

That being said, beyond the technical problems and the console-first focus, there were a lot of watering down, or “consoling up” as PC gamers would call it, of the deeper RPG elements established in the original. For example, instead of giving players skill points to spend on various skills like lock picking or swimming, on top of the augmentations like life recovery, and fast movement, Invisible War simplified both the skills and augmentations into a single biomod system. Hacking is no longer a skill to learn and level up through skill points, it's simply reduced to a bio mod now. In order to make the game more mainstream accessible, they stripped out a lot of the more complex depth that made the original so good. I would say it's definitely more streamlined, but yes, not as much depth, and, without awarded skill points, there's a lot less reward in finding secret paths in the game now. I would say it's definitely a valid complaint against Invisible War, and it's not like xbox gamers who were already versed in Morrowind couldn't handle more depth to the game, but mainstream appeal means streamlining the depth out of a lot of games.

Some of the other complaints PC gamers had, I didn't share in, because, remember, I played the PS2 version before the PC version. In many ways, the PS2 version of Deus Ex was the prototype for Invisible War because a lot of the changes made in Invisible War first showed up in the PS2 port. For example, moving to a simple health bar instead of having individual limb damage was first done in the PS2 port. PC gamers complained about this, but I, personally, don't miss having no legs in the middle of a hostile area while being out of healing items and having to snail crawl across the floor. The individual limb health system was a cool idea, don't get me wrong, and it did lead to some hilarious situations, but I've never found it to be that practical. You can use a health pack on your entire body, or you can use it entirely on your left leg so you can move again. Again it's a cool idea, and I understand why some people really liked it's implementation in the original, I just didn't miss it much in Invisible War, personally.

I also liked the simplified inventory system in the PS2 version and the ability to install augmentations on the fly instead of needing to find a medical bot to do it. In the PC version, I feel like I have to stop every 30 seconds and drop the stupid combat knife everyone carries in the game out of my inventory. The PS2 version has one slot for every weapon in the game, once picked up, you never pick it up again. The inventory is expanded and once you pick up the combat knife, you never pick it up again, meaning there is no need to constantly pause the action for inventory management. The ability to install bio mods on the fly instead of having to hunt down a medical bot was also very nice.

The PC version is, obviously still better than the PS2 version and is geared more toward realism with it's health and inventory system, but I will always love the PS2 port of the game as well, even with it's smaller areas that are redesigned due to Ram limitations, and a lot more and longer load times. The PS2 port is still one of my favorite PS2 games. It's still a master class in great game design.

As I said, the PS2 port was the stepping stone for Invisible War which was also hampered by Eidos' insistence that development focus on the Xbox first, with the PC version being the hand-me-down port. I'm not trying to make light of valid complaints fans had against Invisible War just because I've always liked it. I can understand how and why the game was a huge letdown to a lot of fans of the original. I'm not trying to be dismissive of those complaints. It's not just the watering down of the deeper elements, but also being a much shorter game with smaller areas with more load times in between because the game had to cater to the Xbox which had less ram and more limitations to work with, and also the biggest, most valid complaint with the universal ammo system where every weapon uses the same ammo gauge, meaning that if you run out of ammo for one, you're out of ammo for all of them, the game just doesn't feel like the original in most ways outside of the multiple-path, open exploration elements in the game.

The exploration isn't open in a Morrwind sense, but that each level is honeycombed with multiple paths that lead you to the same place. The game is linear in the sense that the story narrative will take you to the same areas in every playthrough, but your route to get there and what other areas you explore along the way is entirely up to you. You can stealth through vents, picking locks and hacking terminals, you can enter the front of an area, going rambo if you choose, or you can do multiple combinations of each. If you need to open a door, you can pick the lock, blow the door up, or often times, there's is a hidden back way into the room.

If Invisible War in no other way maintains the feel of the original, it's open-level designs do capture the spirit of the original Deus Ex. In the end, there was no way Invisible War was going to live up to the original. The original is one of the greatest games ever made and following it up was going to be a tough task no matter what Ion Storm did. None of the games in the series since can live up to the original either. The original was as close to perfect as a game can get. Invisible War didn't have a chance of holding a candle to it no matter what they did. It was an impossible task.

That being said, I still love this game. First and foremost, I associate it with getting a brand new console. My early Xbox playing, outside of playing games at a friend's place, was Invisible War, Sega games, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein which was on sale for cheap when I bought my Xbox. I would say that, those who first played Invisible War on the Xbox probably have a higher opinion of the game than those who first played it on the PC just on the merit of having a working game out of the box. The game was also designed with the Xbox in mind.

The original Unreal engine had an amazing atmosphere to it. I can't really describe it, something about the way it looked. The original Unreal had an amazing gothic sci fi art direction, which is still visually appealing to me to this day. The original Deus Ex also has a uniquely different atmosphere about it. There's something about the graphics in Unreal Engine 1 that seems to give every game that runs on it an extra atmospheric look to them. Unreal 1 is still a beautiful engine to me and it represents a golden age of PC gaming. The original Deus Ex has an amazing atmosphere, helped along with an amazing soundtrack to go along with it.

Invisible War runs on a heavily modified Unreal 2 engine, and while the atmospheric feel is definitely different from the original thanks to the jump in technology, I also very much enjoy the atmosphere in Invisible War as well. It doesn't capture the same atmosphere of the original, but I still love that dark, sci fi atmosphere. That blade runner aesthetic if you will. Dark, but futuristic. I love the atmosphere in this game. There is little to no music in the game, more ambient tracks at best, but maybe that helps the atmosphere. It's a quiet, dark, dreary, futuristic world presented in the game. While I would have loved more awesome tunes, like the amazing title screen music in the game, the more low key soundtrack helps the ambiance of the game in my opinion. As much as I would have loved having as good a soundtrack as the original Deus Ex, I do like the more low-key sound design of Invisible War.

Deus Ex: Invisible War follows the exploits of Alex D, and takes place 20 years after the events of the first game. It continues the story-line of one of the three choose-able endings of the original game. Like the original, the game tells a tangled web of multiple, invisible, factions at war with each other, allowing players to choose which one to ally themselves with. The beginning of the game starts out with a cool cut-scene where the entire city of Chicago is wiped off the map in a terrorist attack, and starts from the safety of the Tarsis academy in Seattle where Alex is evacuated to which quickly finds itself under attack by a terrorist force. Alex escapes the facility, and thus starts the rest of the journey. Like the original, the story climaxes with multiple endings chosen by the player depending on which faction they choose at the end of the game. There is a possibility of four different endings in the game.

The story telling is well done, and easy to follow, with multiple mini-stories intertwined through NPC characters offering new side missions throughout the game. For example, in Seattle, the pequads coffe shop manager offers to pay you money to go down to lower Seattle and destroy the coffee inventory for the rival Queequeegs coffee shop. When you get down to lower Seattle, the Queequeegs manager offers you a reward to hack the WTO zoning computer to allow a Queequees shop to be opened in upper Seattle. This is a completely optional side mission in the game where I like to go and destroy the coffee supply of Queequegs to collect the reward from the Pequads manager, but then I also screw over the Pequads manager by allowing the zoning of Quequegs in upper Seattle. That way they all lose, but I still get paid. The game is full of fun, but optional side missions like this with each city center acting like it's own hub-world to explore and interact with NPC characters, while also exploring and finding hidden areas and secret paths to take.

While I do agree with the complaint that the city areas feel way too small and cramped, thanks to the Xbox-first focus of the development, featuring small, cramped-feeling cities, instead of feeling like major metropolitan areas, there is still a lot to explore and find in this game. So while the game does fail to successfully simulate large city landscapes, feeling more cramped and cozy in nature, the areas are still honeycombed with hidden areas to explore. The level designs are still excellent, and a lot of care and thought went into them. If nothing else in Invisible War felt like the original, the level designs did, even if they were smaller in scale.

The story design also feels a lot like the original as well. I'll just be straight, I am not a storyline gamer, especially as of late. If anything, I suffer from what Gamepro forum alum Rade Six rightfully pointed out to me was Story-Fatigue. Modern games are such over-produced productions that throw hours upon hours of overdone story sequences your way. Maybe I've gotten less patient as I've gotten older, but I have quit playing whole games because they slow-roll into the gameplay elements throwing overdone story element after overdone story element your way. At which point, I find myself yelling at the game “JUST LET ME PLAY THE FREAKING GAME ALREADY!” So yeah, story-fatigue is a good name for it. I'm sick of the overdone production, just let me play a game, especially since most gaming storylines are forgettable anyway.

However, even though I am not a story-focused gamer, the games that make storyline a gameplay mechanic, taking advantage of the fact that gaming is supposed to be an interactive medium, and not a static form of visual story-telling like movies, are the games that do story line right in my opinion. Like the original, how the story plays out depends on which the decisions the player makes throughout the game. The story is linear in the fact that you will always end up back on liberty island at the end of the game, however, the story in between is up to the player to uncover. Like the original, there are whole side stories, and whole areas of the game you won't see or find in your first or even second playthrough of the game. So while the main narrative does end up in the same areas, it's all the smaller sortylines or sidequests in between that the player must discover, that make the storyline an interactive part of the game i.e. a gameplay mechanic in itself. I prefer the games that offer an active story experience instead of a passive one, making the player an active participant in how the story unfolds verses passive storyline that unfold identically every time. The kind that take the player out of the gameplay experience and lay one thick, forced, overproduced melodramatic story cutscenes, or piss-boring walking sims thrown on otherwise mediocre third person shooter gameplay.

After you escape tarsus, and are released upon Seattle, the open story choices start appearing through each faction contacting Alex and trying to get him or her depending in which player model you choose at the beginning of the game to run missions for them. It is up to the player to decide on which missions they take or what actions they take on those missions, and even choose which missions or actions they consider moral or not. An example of this is in Cairo where the WTO asks Alex to destroy the Nassif greenhouse because it is producing what they consider to be illegal food, that is, food production they have no control over, yet it is the main source of food for the local population. You can be the corporate stooge, and destroy the food thus giving the WTO sole control of food production in the area, or you can break into the greenhouse to explore it, and pilfer any items you want, but choose not to destroy the food production at the end.

Like the original Deus Ex, another big factor of the open-choice design is the freedom to make moral choices or not. You can choose to be evil: killing everyone and everything, or try to play the game with a mostly no-kill run: choosing to knock enemies out with the stun baton or tranquilizer darts. I say a mostly no-kill run, because the enemies at the end of the game give you no choice but to kill them because they explode when their life is drained. I guess that's one bad part about the game is, those who prided themselves on doing no-kill runs in the original Deus Ex were unable to reproduce it in the sequel.

On top of the choice to kill or not kills, players can choose to be stealthy, run in guns blazing, or a combination of both. The game's level designs and specific problems also provide a multitude of choices to the player. While I have played through the game enough I have my own farovite bio mods and favorite routes to take, not only do the bio mods allow the player to customize their attributes, using either the official bio mods or black market bio mods which give you things like hacking or having melee attacks that cause emp damage against bots, but they also allow the player to cater to a stealth approach verses a non stealth approach, or play as a good guy or bad guy. Like the original, you can play it as a good guy, or as a bad guy, going full GTA killing spree if you want. If you go the mass murder route, the game will still prevent you from killing story-important characters by protecting them behind glass or putting them in areas where your weapons are disabled, thus preventing players from not being able to progress the game by killing a story-important character.

The level designs also cater to how you choose to play. As I already mentioned, there are always multiple routes into every area of the game, so you don't have to take the most direct route if you don't want to. There's usually a hidden ventilation shaft, an underground sewer entrance, or a window you can use to enter any building secretly. The choice is up to the player, and it adds a reward for full exploration of each area, and a reason to play through the game multiple times to see everything the game has to offer. The level designs do recapture the open exploration elements that made the designs in the original so good. Similar care and thought was put into this game as the original.

Some of the other specific problems in the game are also up to the player to decide. As a quick example, the game may present you with a locked weapon cabinet. You can use your multi-tools (which combine both the multi-tool and lock picks from the original into one tool now) to pick the lock on the cabinet, or you can just throw a grenade, and blow the top off the cabinet. Doors can be blown off their hinges or lock picked for stealth. Sometimes the codes to door keypads or computer logins can be found in data cubes lying around, or computers can just simply be hacked if you have the hacking ability. Like the PS2 port, Invisible War takes away the requirement to manually enter computer logins by hand, a feature that was a fun interactive element of the original on the PC, they just automatically get entered in if you find the data cube with the logins on them. This was another stepping-stone feature the PS2 port of the original did that was carried over to Invisible war. It definitely makes entering logins a lot more convenient for the player, but I can sympathize with fans of the original in how it kind of made you feel like a hacker to manually type in logins and passwords in to a computer. I just always found hacking more convenient myself. I guess it depends on how much you liked this aspect of the original game as to weather automatically filling in computer logins is a plus or a strike against Invisible War.

Now the biggest complaint against the game among fans is one I do agree with. While I still love this game despite the watering down of the deeper elements of the original and because I experienced it on the Xbox and not the buggier PC release, I do agree that the universal ammo system in the game is a terrible design idea. This was one of the largest complaints, and rightfully so. Every firearm in the game uses the exact same pool of ammo. If you run out of ammo with one firearm, you run out of ammo with all of them, making guns like the flame thrower impractical to use because of how fast it drains ammo. The idea was to make it so players didn't have to juggle between different ammo types for each individual weapon in the game and could just use one ammo pool for all of them. This can lead to frustration in the game, being completely out of ammo for your firearms in the middle of a hostile environment, especially at the end of the game where enemies are complete bullet sponges.

The universal ammo was a dumb idea, however, it's never been a deal breaker for me in the game, because, I tend to play the game as a mostly no-kill experience meaning, I tend to run up on enemies, and use the baton to thump them in the head until they are unconscious. In fact, the melee weapons, the baton and Sword are the most effective weapons in the game, and when paired with the EMP bio-mod, which does damage to bots, makes them even more effective against bot enemies than even human opponents. The EMP bio-mod, when fully leveled through finding more black market canisters to upgrade it, not only does damage to bots, but instantly reprograms them to be an ally. Walk up to a turret or walking tank, tap it once with the stun baton, and then watch as it takes out any enemies in the vicinity. Generally, I save the ammo for shooting tranquilizer darts at enemies to knock them out over a distance, or to use the SMG that's been modded with a weapon mod that delivers EMP damage to quickly take out turrets or patrol bots from a distance.

The weapon mod system in the game is another cool feature which allows players to add extra abilities to the firearms they find in the game. For example, I like putting the silencer and a glass breaker mod on my sniper rifle in the game. The silencer is self explanatory, but the glass breaking mod silently disintegrates glass window panes when they are shot. Certain windows in the game are setup will alarms that go off when shattered, so adding the mod to the sniper is a silent way to slip through windows in the game without arousing suspicion. By the end of the game I do tend to collect more weapon and bio mods than I have use for, however, this means that there is ample opportunity in the game to change your mod choices multiple times before the end.

Overall, yes, this game doesn't live up to the original and didn't include a lot of the features the devs were planning to implement during development thanks to the Xbox version being prioritized. That being said, I've still always enjoyed Invisible War. The Xbox version is the most stable way to play the game. The load times are quite a bit longer than the PC version, there are still some wonky physics here and there, and the Xbox version freezes for a second every time a spider-bot is thrown in the game, but, even when comparing it to the PC version I bought off Steam, it is by-far more stable than the Steam version of the game which is a shame because it was never given backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360 or Xbox One. The Xbox version still remains only on the original Xbox to this day. Even Thief: Deadly Shadows is at least backwards compatible on the 360, but Invisible War never got the same treatment.

I'm not sure if there have been driver improvements that have made a difference, but when I first bought Invisible War off Steam, the game would black-screen after the intro video when starting a new game. I was like, “Great, I just bought a broken game off Steam.” This is why I laugh when I see tech channels, (which if you watch one tech channel video, youtube will then forever suggest tech channel content to you forever) in their PC verses console videos toute backwards compatibility to thousands of old games as a giga-chad feature of PC's verses plebeian console backwards compatibility (which is as simple as holding onto your old consoles). Yes, there are still plenty of old PC games that work just fine on modern hardware, for example, Winquake which is Windows 95 Quake that installed and ran just fine on my Windows 10 PC. However for every Winquake, there's an Invisible War, a Knights of the Old Republic, or a Timeshift where you purchase a game, and then have to scour the internet finding ways to get the game to actually run on modern hardware.

Luckily, Knights of the Old Republic has been patched recently and runs OK now, and Invisible War has started running. I don't remember a patch that fixed it, so maybe it was GPU driver updates that fixed it, but it at least runs now on all my rigs whether I'm using and Nvidia or AMD card. I even tried it on my Linux Mint PC I'm using to experiment with Linux, and it runs now under the Proton layer. However, the display is stretched too far, so I was unable to do things like drop items from my inventory. It runs though.

On all my three Windows 10 computers, it runs just fine now with two caveats: No matter the rig I am running (the exception being the Linux PC), the game now changes my desktop resolution to the game's resolution, so 1600x1200, and with the exception of my laptop, it also default changes the refresh rate to 30 frames per second. I took me a month to figure out the refresh rate change the game made to my windows settings, I could tell something was different with my screen, I just couldn't tell what exactly it was when playing other games or watching youtube. On my current rig, when running on my RX 7900 GRE with Radeon Super Resolution upscaling the game to 4K, I've never seen the game look so good. The unfortunate thing being, it doesn't run as good as it should because of the 30 hertz refresh rate it defaults to. I haven't played around with the available visual tweekers for the game to see if I can stop it from changing that setting. I still find it perfectly playable in this form, because it's not a fast-paced shooter. In fact the combat is pretty straightforward and basic, but the combat wasn't great in the original either, it was all the other stuff that made it great.

The PC version of the game still does occasionally shut off for no good reason, and has even wonkier physics than the Xbox version in parts. Overall, it's less stable than the Xbox version, but with way faster load times. Generally, I didn't run into a lot of freezups of the game, it just randomly shut off on me here and there when recording this playthrough. I am happy the game runs now, because I was super bummed out when I first bought it and all it would do is black screen after the intro. While there is still plenty of room for improvements to be made in how it runs on modern hardware, I'm just happy it at least runs.

It runs well enough, it plays well enough, even with a lesser framerate, and with modern GPU Upscaling whether Nvidia's upscaling or Radeon Super Resolution it looks better than I've ever seen it look.

Graphically, on the Xbox version, when I first got the system and the game, I thought this was a beautiful game. I've seen some people comment that it's an ugly game nowadays, but, for the time, a modified Unreal 2 engine with it's detailed textures, excellent lighting effects, and all that glorious bump mapping or normal mapping, I was incredibly impressed with the visual quality of the game. Aside from quality, I really loved the atmosphere. It feels like a more quite, reflective game than the original.

Invisible War is still one of my favorite Xbox games to this day. And speaking of Xbox, I thought I should shout out two other games that do similar things in nature to Invisible War that you should also check out if you have the chance.

The first needs little introduction for Xbox fans, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay has some similar Gameplay elements to Invisible War. Checking to see, it appears that Riddick is not available on either Steam or Gog at the moment despite having a physical PC release. However, it was included for free on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of it's Sequel, Assault on Dark Athena. That's a two-games-for-one deal. Riddick is one of the best games on the orginal Xbox, and one of the best looking games as well.

The other game is Tron 2.0: Killer App which plays a lot like System Shock or Deus Ex in the Tron Universe. I recently bought the PC version on Steam, and I'm surprised that I don't hear more about this game from retro PC gamers. The Xbox version, which added multipleyer and some other things over the PC version, I expect not to hear much about as it slipped completely under the radar on the system. Consider it an underrated or Hidden Gem for that system. However, the PC version came out and got good review scores and a lot of attention at the time, but people have, seemingly, forgotten about the game in the years since. You hear about System Shock and Deus Ex a lot from old school PC gamers, and rightfully so, but why so little love for Tron nowadays? It's a solid System Shock style romp from Monolith.

The Bottom Line: I think that fans of the Deus Ex franchise have come back around to Invisible War recently and declared it as not as bad as it was made out to be. Some people will never forgive this game, but for others, once the initial disappointment subsided, they can now come back to it and give it a fair shot. I still love this game, but have yet to play any of the more recent Deus Ex games despite owing Human Revolution and Mankind Divided now, so I can't rank it in the series having still only played the first two games. That being said, I've always enjoyed this game despite it's flaws and the many ways it didn't live up to the impossibly high standard set by the original game. Even with Eidos meddling in the development and making the Xbox the focus, Ion Storm still managed to give us an excellently designed, story-driven, open-exploration game where the player has the ultimate choice in how to explore the world presented in it.

The PC version is more glitchy and harder to run to this day. The Xbox version is the more stable version, and we who experienced it on the Xbox over the initial PC release probably had a much better time with it. If you're one of those fans who will never forgive this game, nothing I can say will change your mind. However, for the rest, Deus Ex: Invisible War is a controversial sequel to one of the greatest PC first person shooter/RPG hybrids of all time that certainly didn't live up to the original, but still manages to be a great game in it's own right. For some of you, you should give it a second chance if it'll run right on your PC that is, for everyone else, you should probably play the original game first in order for the story to make sense. On a depth level, I would put it on the same gameplay depth level as Bioshock in how it took previously complex gameplay designs, and made them more accessible/watered down/mainstream to appeal to a wider audience. Invisible War failed to live up to the original, but also succeeds in some of it's design elements to recapture the feeling of it. If you want something that's on the same level of accessibility as the original Bio Shock, you'll probably find enjoyment in this game.

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Jak and Daxter on the PS2- A Review from a Nobody

I remember being excited for Jak and Daxter before the game was ever revealed. I don't remember which magazine I read the interview in, probably PSM or Gamepro, but I remember Jason Rubin saying they were developing a second generation game with third generation graphics. I was excited to see what ways Naughty Dog was going to push Sony's shiny new console after seeing the amazing things they were able to pull off on the PS1. Plus, I was also excited to see what their next project would be post Crash Bandicoot. The Crash Bandicoot brand was owned by Universal Interactive Studios, and not Naughty Dog, so moving forward from Crash, Naughty Dog would have to create a new IP. On the same note, Spyro the Dragon was also owned by Universal Interactive Studios, which is why Insomniac, moving forward, created the Ratchet and Clank series, because they didn't own the rights to Spyro either.

Jak and Daxter released in North America on December 4th, 2001 as one of the last hugely anticipated PS2 games released that year. 2001 was in insane year for gaming. It was in insane year for other reasons, but I want to cover it from a purely gaming perspective, ignoring the other terrible events that took place the year. I want to take you back to how insane a year for gaming 2001 was by going over 55 PS2 releases of that year from a North American perspective, with the North American release dates. Some of these games are my own guilty pleasures, games I like, but aren't for everyone.

But first, I want to build the scene with a basic overview of that period of time. The Playstation 2 released on October 26^th, 2000 with a reported 500,000 units at launch. Suffice it to say that supply did not meet the demand for the system as it's predecessor, the PS1 had already reached around 100 million units sold, worldwide, by the time the PS2 launched. If you think Ebay scalpers are a new phenomenon in gaming, they go back to at least the year 2000, as people were paying thousands of dollars on ebay to get their hands on a PS2 after launch.

The early drama of the PS2 from developers was how difficult the system was to develop games for. It has such a difficult architecture that caused so many headaches for early developers that the most famous example of a developer calling it quits is Oddworld Inhabitants canceling the PS2 version of Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee and moving development entirely over the the Xbox which was an easier system to develop for with a more traditional architecture that had hardware features built in to save time and money. From what I've come to understand in my limited tech knowledge is that PS2 was, essentially a blank slate. For example, in this IGN interview that has lived rent free in my head for 24 years as of making this video, titled Gamecube Versus PlayStation 2 which features Jason Rubin talking some trash on developers who complained about the difficulty of PS2 Development, one example they use is the Gamecube's hardware-based texture compression. The hardware already had this feature built in, whereas the PS2 had no hardware texture compression, meaning developers would have to code things like the eight texture layers per pass, the Gamecube did by default in hardware, by hand.

As the CEO of Bioware at the time put it: "With PS2 you have to write the code to do a lot of that stuff. But that's the trick behind it. On the one hand the downside is that it's not done for you. On the upside, if it's not done for you then you can do it yourself, and potentially better -- more specialized to what your specific application is. So it's really a double-edged sword. That's the mystery of the system."

Even before we ever knew what the PS2 was going to look like, the Sony hype machine about it's graphical capabilities had started. I remember hearing about the system's specs and capabilities throughout a large portion of 1999. 70 million flat shaded polygons a second. That's up to the quality of the cgi sequences in The Phantom Menace, according to lucasarts. The hype train for the system's graphical capabilites was going off the rails.

It was going to take years for PC's to even catch up. The emotion engine was a super computer CPU, faster than a Pentuim 3 even. It was 128 bits. That's literally four times the bits of the original Playstation. FOUR TIMES THE BITS!!!!!! The whole hype for the system's graphical capabilities is really silly in hindsight, but it worked for them at the time. What can't be denied is that the jump from PS1 and N64 graphics to PS2 graphics was massive. However, the jump from the already released Dreamcast to the PS2 was, well, not quite as dramatic as the PS2 wins in some areas, but the Dreamcast wins in other areas.

The launch crop of PS2 games hit, and most of them didn't look better than Dreamcast games. They mostly looked like prettier PS1 games, as most of them were sequels to PS1 games. The exceptions being games like Tekken Tag, Madden, and SSX and a few others that were noticeably or arguably to DC fans, better looking than what was available on the Dreamcast. With even games like DOA2 looking better on the Dreamcast then PS2.

By this time, the magnum opus of Dreamcast graphics Shenmue was out, and it's detailed textures and world still look good to this day. What the Dreamcast lacked in Poly pushing power, particle effects, physics, and large open-environments like those seen in Smuggler's run, it made up for with a bright, color pallet, incredibly detailed textures that I would argue were some the best looking textures out of any console in the 6^th generation, and progressive scan output in most games through the VGA box making for a high definition experience for those who owned the VGA box and a PC monitor.

I remember epic fanboy arguments on the gamefaqs Dreamcast board between a user named Fozzyfan the PS2 fanboy and Drsmoo the Dreamcast defender. I would read through these incredibly long argument posts between the two of them. They would link to screenshots (the internet wasn't video friendly, so screenshots it was at the time), and argue about the Dreamcast's 8mb of V-ram vs the PS2's measly 4 megabytes. I remember reading things like high bandwith, small bus and nodding my head like I even knew what that meant. I still don't know what that means. Either way, the fanboy arguments at the time were epic, and pretty tame overall compared to the fanboy flame wars of the seventh gen till today. They would go back an forth arguing about things like, according to Drsmoo, Test Drive Lemans on the Dreamcast has better graphics than Gran Turismo 3 because it has 24 cars in screen. They were pointless arguments, but they were entertaining.

So this brings us to 2001. The PS2 launch had happened in October 2000 and the first generation of software with it. 2001 was to bring the second generation of offerings to the system, where developers, who had now had more time to figure out how to push the system further, would start to showcase the system's true capabilities. The time for hype was over, it was now time to see if the PS2 could live up to the hype. Yes, it was shallow, and about graphics, but as someone who spent most of 2001 playing and enjoying my PS1 and Dreamcast collections, I wanted to see how powerful the PS2 really was. I was younger, and I bought into the graphics hype, hook, line and sinker at the time, a lot of us did, so now, past that launch window, and onto the second generation of software it was time to see what the PS2 was really capable of when pushed by the right developers.

2001 was one of the most insane years for gaming. In January, Sega Pulled the plug on the Dreamcast, announcing their departure from the console market. I got my Dreamcast sometime around this time myself, picking up the model that came with Sega Smash Pack. Even though Sega Called it quits, the Dreamcast still had quite a few high profile releases in 2001 including: Sonic Adventure 2, Crazy Taxi 2, Phantasy Star Online and Version 2, Unreal Tournament, Daytona USA, Record of Lodoss War, and more. By the end of the year releases started to slow down having games like NBA 2k2 and NFK 2k2 hit. The Dreamcast was a dying system, but still had a ton great games released that year.

The N64 had a really strong year 2000 as far as releases went, seeing some great releases like Perfect Dark, The World is Not Enough, Major's mask, Turok 3, Banjo Tooie, and WWF No Mercy. However, by the end of 2001 the system was already in it's death throes. It saw it's biggest release in March 2001 which was Conker's bad Fur day. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 would be another big release in August. However, after Tony Hawk 2, releases slowed to a trickle at best. Checking the new releases in issue 104 of Game Informer Magazine, I didn't see any upcoming N64 games. There was a few months of not much to talk about when it came to releases between Conker and Tony Hawk 2, and even less to talk about outside of Madden, Blitz, razor freestyle scooter, and a power-puff girls game. Eight months after even Japanese publishers stopped supporting the system, Activision would publish Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 in August 2002 for no conceivable reason, making it the last officially published game for the system.

The PS1 was still going incredibly strong in the year 2001. It was lingering around the 100 million units sold mark. The system would continue to see releases in North America until October 2004. Some of the big releases in 2001 include games like: Tales of Destiny 2, Tomb Raider Chronicles, Final Fantasy Chronicles, Spiderman 2: Enter Electro, Castlevania Chronicles, Metal Slug X, and so many more, topping the year off with Syphon Filter 3 which was the last big AAA title hurrah of the PS1. Later in 2002, the US would get some other great Pal conversions of games like The Italian Job and C-12 Final Resistance. This was also the era of the $10 generic budget title seeing games like Racing, Bowling, Boxing, and even great budget kings like Board Game: Top Shop and Battle hunter.

The game boy color was still alive an kicking with the Game Boy Advance right around the corner, ready to be released on June 11^th of that year.

Some high profile PC games released that year were- Command and Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, Civilization 3, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Black and White, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Red Faction, Serious Sam, and many, many more.

By the end of 2001, according to the same December issue of Game Informer I referenced earlier, the PS2 had an Installed base of 20 million units sold. To further paint the picture of the incredibly competitive season the Jak and Daxter released in, I'm now going to go over 56 PS2 releases alone, and this isn't even every release on the system. Technically, Final Fantasy 10 capped off the year as the last hugely anticipated PS2 game to release in North America, making it Just in time for Christmas on December 17^th, but Jak and Daxter was the second-to-last triple AAA title if you will (even though the term tripple A wasn't widely used at this point in gaming history) to end the PS2's year on an incredibly high note in one of the most incredibly competitive years in gaming history.

Starting 2001 out, on January 3^rd, Kengo: Master of Bushido was released. Kengo has always been a niche title that I've always really enjoyed. It came to us from the same people behind the Bushido Blade series, but lacks the flash and story telling of the previous series. It also did away with the one-hit deaths. I've always liked the fighting system, and there is a quest mode to it where you challenge other schools and do mini-games to improve your stats. Graphically, I remember thinking the reflections on the wooden floors looked great, but the rest was average. It's definitely not a game for everyone, but if you can get into it, you'll find it to be enjoying and engaging in it's own right.

On January 29^th Oni was released. Oni was the one and only game Bungie released for the PS2. It got a lot of coverage and hype before it released, but got completely panned in the review scores. It had a unique art direction for the time, that mixture of anime looking characters, but from a gameplay standpoint, I've only ever found it to be average at best. I own it on the PC and the PS2. I've played into it, but never beaten it but I've played far enough into it to to say, it's OK. It's definitely not great, and definitely didn't live up to the hype. I would say the 4's and 5's it received were way too low for the time. I know this game has it's fans, but I would say it's a C-tier game, not an F-tier game.

Ending January, on the 30^th, Rayman 2: Revolution was released. Rayman 2 was one of those games that was ported to every available system under the sun at the time, but Revolution was a remake of sorts. It has the same levels as the previous versions, but adds a hub world design to the game and unlockable mini games with brand new graphics, and the english voice overs from the PS1 port of Rayman 2. Revolution reviewed well and was the biggest January release. As you can see, the PS2 started the year out pretty slow. You had the excitement of launch and thereafter, and then quietness with a few notable games trickling out.

On February 5^th, Rainbow studios released ATV Offroad Fury which was the first game in the popular franchise. This footage is from a demo disk as I don't own the original. After the second game, development of the franchise would be handed over to Climax studios, and Rainbow Studios would focus on the MX vs ATV series. There's something about the voxelly landscape look of ATV Offroad fury, and Smugglers run that just screams PS2 to me. I know that other consoles and PC games also have this look, but the wavy, hilly, open landscape look will always be a PS2 visual aesthetic to me. The Offroad Fury brand is owned by Sony. It was popular on the PS2 and PSP, but is now a dead IP.

Speaking of that Voxelly-landscpe look, Star Wars: Starfighter was released on February 19^th. I've owned the Xbox version for years, and have still yet to play through it. It's no Rogue Leader or Rogue Squadron, but it's still a solid flight combat game based on the Star Wars franchise. The missions are challenging, and yet, also rewarding once you beat them. It's definitely worth playing if you're a fan of Star Wars space-combat games.

On March 5^th, Squarsoft and Dreamfactory released The Bouncer. The Bouncer got a lot of hype before it released, because it was seen as a game that would finally show off the PS2's graphical capabilities. The character models and overall graphics looked great for the time. The character models were fleshed out with all those polygons the PS2 could reportedly push, and there were small details like flowing hair, and even Scion's hoodie that would sway as he attacked. However, this was one of the first big flops for the PS2, coming out to low review scores. Early tech demos showed tons of environmental interactivity. I remember reading about breaking tables and using pieces as weapons or pulling picture frames off the wall to use in combat. There was none of that in the Bouncer. Instead, gamers got a story-driven beat 'em up that could be beaten in 2-4 hours depending on if you watched the story sequences or not. The game also caused a split between Dreamfactory and Squaresoft. To be fair, despite it's short length, I've always really liked The Bouncer. It has an RPG stat leveling system where you can buy stats based on points you earn during the fight sequences, a campaign that was designed to be played through multiple times to finally fight the final form of the last boss, and a fun 4-player battle mode. It's short, but it's not as bad as it was made out to be.

On March 6^th, Konami released Shadow of Destiny which I don't own, but always wanted to play, because it looked interesting to me. I just thought it was worthy of mentioning. The PS2 version is still lingering around $30 on Ebay at the moment. I'll pick it up someday. It did, eventually, get a port to the Xbox in Europe, but not North America as Shadow of Memories, and also had ports to the PC and PSP.

On March 13^th, Capcom Released Onimusha Warlords which had the distinct honor of being the first PS2 game to sell 1 million copies. Onimusha was a cool mixture of previous generation graphical techniqes, prerendered backgrounds, with next gen character sprites, and felt incredibly smooth to play. I've never played all the way through it, despite meaning to for decades, but it definitely falls into the same category of action game that Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and even God of War would eventually define as well. It's controls feel buttery smooth compared to all PS1 games with similar tank controls and prerendered backgrounds, games like Soul of the Samurai on the PS1 for example. I own Onimush 1-3 on the PS2, and I really need to just sit down and play them all. I've played into all of them, but never beaten them. I even own Genma Onimusha on the Xbox, so I really have no excuse, especially since I know this is a great series.

On March 26^th, MDK 2: Armageddon, Quake III Revolution, and Zone of the Enders released.

-MDK 2: Armageddon was a port of either the Dreamcast or PC version of MDK 2. The PS2 version adds a difficulty setting to make it easier or just as difficult as the Dreamcast port, and has worse textures, but better particle effects than the DC version (A common theme with DC to PS2 ports), and a lot of different control schemes to experiment with to get the unruly controls as close to a modern control setup as possible. Early PS2 control schemes were still experimental at the time, and the modern dual stick movement and aiming setup wasn't set in stone just yet. Solid shooter with some cool atmosphere and a sniper helmet. I own it on both the PS2 and Dreamcast but have beaten it on neither system, especially not the Dreamcast version which is so difficult, it's actually a badge of honor among Dreamcast fans to beat it.

-Quake III Revolution may have lacked the Online play of it's PC and Dreamcast counterparts, but it's still a fun arena shooter if you're interested in couch coop. It's the same setup as the other versions, the single player mode is just a series of bot matches. It's lack of online play, keyboard and mouse support, and any kind of networking (like using the I-link port on the PS2 for a local area network like Unreal Tournament did) make it a game squarely aimed at split-screen couch coop. I like Quake III Revolution. One cool part about the game is you can now earn stat upgrades by completing the single player mode, and you can then load your upgraded character into multiplayer. It's default control scheme isn't good, but you can change the control setting in the options to find the modern left-stick move right-stick aim settings. Really the biggest flaw of the game is the insanely long load times. I mean, it loads faster than Soldier of Fortune on the Dreamcast, but that's not saying much.

• Zone of the Enders is a game I only recently picked up, so I haven't played through it, but I enjoyed the demo disk gameplay back in the day. Generally people complained that the game was too short, and between the mainstream outlets and fans it got mixed reviews. However, Zone of the Enders is incredibly significant to the PS2 in 2001 because it came with a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2 on a separate disk. A lot of people at the time said the MGS2 demo was the only reason to buy Zone of the Enders. I jokingly say Konami released a $50 demo disk of Metal Gear Solid 2 with a free mech game on the side. It goes without saying that the hype for Metal Gear Solid 2 at the time was at a fever pitch. It was easily the most anticipated PS2 game at the time, and gamers were excited enough to buy Zone of the Enders just to play the demo. The demo's inclusion, no doubt, helped the sales of Zone of the Enders. This wouldn't be the last time a publisher released a demo of a hotly anticipated game with the release of another game even in the same year. This was a wise strategy that worked. I mean look at how well Crackdown on the Xbox 360 sold because it came with the Halo 3 online Open Beta. The sad fact is, Zone of the Enders is best known for including the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo.

On March 27^th, Winback: Covert Operations was released. This was a port of the N64 game with improved graphics and some extra multiplayer modes. Winback was the grandaddy of duck and cover shooters, taking the wall leaning mechanic of Metal Gear Solid, and allowing players to shoot around corners. It's controls definitely feel a little awkward to go back and play, but overall, it's a solid title.

On April 23^rd, EA Released Rumble Racing which was the non-NASCAR-licensed sequel to Nascar Rumble. On top of keeping the same Mario-Kart-inspired powerup gameplay, it also borrowed the air-trick system from San Francisco Rush 2049, but gives a twist to it where successfully landing tricks gives you a turbo boost. This is easily, one of my favorite alternative racing games on the PS2. I loved Nascar Rumble on the PS1, and Rumble Racing improved upon the formula. It's worth playing if you've never played it.

On April 30^th, The Adventures of Cookie and Cream was released, and it's still one of my favorite Underrated Gems for the system. It's a combination Puzzle Platformer game that can be played with one player, but is most enjoyable with a friend. I used to describe this as crash bandicoot meets a puzzle game. Cookie and Cream are always on opposite sides of the screen and the levels play out like a platofrmer. There is a time limit on each level and taking hits or falling down pits deducts time from the timer. The puzzle elements come into play where either character has to do things like hit switches, move logs, launch watermelons to attract a hippo, and etc in order to open up the path for the character on the other side of the screen. This game can be played single player where each analog stick controls each character from the same controller, which is a really cool idea, however, it's most enjoyable with a friend. I have great memories of playing this game over a decade ago with a close friend of mine who passed in 2020. I love this game, and I miss you bro.

On May 1^st, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy hit the PS2. It's essentially an expanded version of Gauntlet Legends. It came out of low to medium review scores because, by that time, outlets were already fatigued of Gauntlet Legends which outside of the arcade was ported to the PS1, N64, and Dreamcast. Dark Legacy was an expended version of Legends. However, don't listen to the review scores of this game. Dark Legacy is an exceptionally fun game that's best enjoyed with friends, but is still fun playing by youself. I've always called it diet Diablo as it's essentially an arcade take on a hack 'n slash RPG. It's a simplified hack 'n slash RPG which is way more accessible to everyone. It's easy to jump into the game, start killing things, gain levels, and have a blast doing it. What it lacks in deep RPG depth, it makes up for in pure, addictive fun. I love Gauntlet Legends, and I love Dark Legacy. It's best with friends, but still incredibly fun by yourself nonetheless.

On May 17^th, reality finally sunk in for Sega fans when Crazy Taxi was released on the PS2. The PS2 port was handled by Acclaim, and if you ask Dreamcast fanoys, was inferior to the Dreamcast version in every way. However, I think that's more than a little overblown because unless you go into a Digital Foundry style analytical review of the graphics, you won't notice much differences between the two versions. I've literally played both versions at the same time on two different TV's in the past, and I didn't notice much differences between them. When it comes to gameplay, the PS2 version still plays great. Crazy Taxi is a beloved classic, and it's fun no matter the version you play, except maybe the Game Boy Advance version which I haven't played and can't vouch for as being good or bad, personally.

On May 22^nd, Red Faction released. For me, this was my first introduction to Half-Life as I played Red Faction before Half-Life, not realizing that, from a level design standpoint, Red Faction Borrows a lot from Valve's masterpiece. That being said, Red Faction is still one of my favorite first person shooters on the PS2. The Geomod engine was an amazing piece of engine design. For those who don't know, geomod stand for geometric modification. What this translates to is real-time enviromental destruction. Certain walls, tunnels, and other solid objects could be hit with explosives, and they would deform in real-time. There was no scripted ways for the envronment to deform, it depended on what angle the player either placed the explosives, or shot the wall with a rocket. You could spend hours creating your own tunnels and bridges in the game. It was such an amazing engine. Top off the insane awesomeness of the geomod engine with a really well-made half-life style romp, and some fun 2-player split screen bot deathmatches, and you had a great shooter with a lot of features to keep you coming back. Red Faction is a series where each iteration was a completely different game from the last, Half-Life, Squad Shooter, Red Theft Auto, and whatever Armageddon is supposed to be. However, in my opinion, the original game is still the best game in the series by far, yes, even better than Guerrilla if you ask me.

On May 28^th, Dark Cloud released to mixed reivews. At first, the game was hyped by magazines like PSM as a Zelda Killer, but in reality, it was a combination dungeon crawler, with city building elements shades of actraiser, with a combat system that was similar to Zelda. The point of the game is to grind in the dungeon, kill enemies, and find spheres containing alta which is what you use to rebuild the cities in the game. A lot of people found the game to be tedious, and the weapon durability system in the game to be frustrating. Dark Cloud was a bit of a disappointment overall when it hit. It's sequel, Dark Cloud 2 would make up for it later.

On June 18^th, both Escape From Monkey Island, and Twisted Metal Black released.

-Escape From Monkey Island is the fourth monkey island game in the series, and it ditched the point-and-click gameplay for a more controller friendly interface. The Monkey island games were point-and-click Adventure games, well Puzzle Adventure games to be more accurate, that depended on storytelling with a ton of humorous dialog, and heavy puzzle solving elements. Escape From Monkey Island takes the format and shifts it to a controller friendly format to the chagrin of a some Monkey Island fans. Overall, it may not be the fan favorite game in the series, but I've always enjoyed the goofy humor and puzzle solving elements in the game. It reviewed well in the mainstream outlets, sold well on the PC, but the PS2 sales were said to be abysmal.

-I remember being incredibly excited to play Twisted Metal Black, especially after hearing that Incognito, the development team behind it, was comprised of members who worked on the first two Twisted Metal games. Twisted Metal 3 and 4 were developed by 989 studios, and not Singletrac, the original developers. Twisted Metal Black was revamping the series and taking it into a dark direction. The original developers were back, and they made the best Twisted Metal game of all time, even if my personal slant is still to say that Twisted Metal 2 is my favorite. Twisted Metal Black was one of the first hugely anticipated heavy hitters to release on the PS2 in 2001, and man did it deliver. This game is still awesome to this day. It's Dark, it's twisted, it's twisted Metal.

On July 9^th, it hit. It hit hard. To Sum up the three most anticipated killer apps for the PS2 (before GTA3 hit and became THE killer app), I would say the three most salivated over games on the PS2 in 2001 were Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Final Fantasy X. Other games were anticipated, but these three towered over all the rest in hype and anticipation. There's a good chance that most early PS2 adopters, bought the system waiting for one of those three games. Gran Turismo 3 was the pack-in game for the PS2 I received on Christmas 2001, and was the last GT game I personally played hours upon hours into. The graphics were amazing, and finally showed us what the PS2 was capable of. Yes, I had already seen screenshots of the game, but screenshots aren't the same as seeing this game in motion. The visuals looked photo-realistic to me at the time. Everyone talks about Gran Trusimo 2 and Gran Turismo 4, but for me, my GT experiences were GT1, and GT3. I don't play racing sims anymore, I'm way out of practice as you can see from this footage, but seeing and playing this game for the first time was an experience. I never 100 percent-ed the game, but I put countless hours into to it. This game was amazing, and not just because of the beautiful graphics. It had so many features, and so many different races, I mean, it's Gran Turismo, I don't have to describe it to you.

Twisted Metal Black in June, and the Gran Turismo 3 in July, Sony was starting to throw haymakers at the competition half-way through 2001, ramping up for the holiday season, and the release of two competitor's systems. The first six months of 2001 may have been slow for the PS2, but the last six months of the year, the PS2 was about to start throwing bombs at all their competitors, and it started here with Gran Truismo 3.

On July 23^rd, Extermination released. Extermination is another game I've played into, but never beaten. I remember playing it off the demo disk and enjoying it. It's a survival horror with more of an action focus, and that had way better aiming controls than any other game in the genre up to this point. The game borrowed ideas from The Thing, the movie not the later released game where enemies don't just damage your health, they also infect you with an alien infection, so you have to deal with both a health meter and infection meter. It's been years since I've played into this game, but I remember my first impression when playing the demo being how much better the combat aspects felt in this game than any other game in the genre up to this point. The aiming and movement alone felt a thousand times more freeing in Extermination than any Resident Evil or Silent Hill . Basically, the controls feel like Resident Evil 4 minus the over-the shoulder view. One day I'll have to sit down and play all the way through this one. I know it got mixed reviews, but based on what I have played of the game, I've always liked it.

On July 25^th, Klonoa 2 was released. Luckily, this game has been re-released in recent years, because, at one time, this game was lingering around the $200 mark. Klonoa 2 is the sequel to the PS1 original Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. It's a super addictive, and fun 2.5D platformer that, while it didn't do anything particularity new , was as refined as games of this type get. Klonoa 2 is an excellent platformer that, unfortunately, sold terribly on the PS2. I am happy to see they have re-released both Klonoa games in the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series so more people can enjoy it. Like Robot Alchemic Drive, the only copy of Klonoa 2 I ever saw on the shelf was the one I bought.

On August 21^st, Resident Evil Code Veronica X hit the PS2. It was a port of the Dreamcast exclusive Code Veronica, minus the really cool health meter screen that showed on the VMU screen on the controller. Personally, I stopped caring about Resident Evil after Resident Evil 2, so I have started Code Veronica on the PS2 and Dreamcast about a dozen times, but never saw it all the way through. However, the initial release of Code Veronica X came with a playable demo of Devil May Cry. I remember a friend of mine coming over with his PS2 and Code Veronica X, and we played the Devil May Cry demo. I was so blown away by the game, Devil May Cry was the first PS2 game I bought, and the third game I ever owned for the system. Some day I may play through Code Veronica X, but I do appreciate it for introducing me to Devil May cry.

On September 9^th, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 released, and I loved the Dave Mirra series. Dave Mirra 2 is excellent. For most people, Tony Hawk was their game on the PS1, and while I enjoyed the Tony Hawk Demo on the Summer '99 Jampack, it was Dave Mirra, Freestyle BMX that I ended up playing as much as everyone else played Tony Hawk. Dave Mirra 2 expanded on the ideas of the genre, and had design elements that would later be perfected in Agressive Inline and Tony Hawk 4. Dave Mirra 2 showcased why Z-Axis was the only serious competitor to Neversoft. Too bad BMX XXX was crap, but all the rest of Z-Axis' Extreme sports games were excellent. Activision liked their games so much, they eventually bought Z-Axis and then disbanded them in EA fashion.

On September 24^th, Ico, Silent Hill 2, and Spy Hunter released.

-Ico came out and slipped under the radar at the time. Everyone knows how brilliant the game is now, but it took many years of word of mouth and even EGM Hidden Gem Articles to get the word out about Ico. I remember enjoying the demo of the game, and really enjoying the game itself when I finally acquired it years later. The game is as much a piece of artwork as it was an intelligently designed puzzle-heavy action adventure game. The game is relatively short, but, as we all know, is still a PS2 classic.

-Like Code Veronica X, Silent Hill 2 is a game I have started a dozen times over the years, but never got around to actually playing all the way through it. I did watch a friend play through large portions of the game back in the day, I really liked the improved combat, and, like the original which I did play all the way through and enjoy, that amazing atmosphere. I know the remake recently hit, but I'll stick with the PS2 version for my first playthough of the game. The remake really doesn't interest me, but the original still does. I remember this game getting mixed reivew scores when it hit. PSM gave it a 7 out of 10 citing the convoluted story that is like “reading a poorly written novel”, the sometimes cryptic puzzle solutions, and the fact that it didn't really raise the bar for the genre as reasons it was slightly disappointing.

-Spy Hunter is a game I enjoyed playing the demo of years ago, but have yet to get around to playing it since I've owned it. I've never even beaten the required training mission, and I always say, I'll play something else instead after I fail the mission. However, Midway was on a roll in the PS2 era, remaking their arcade classic franchises and publishing some of the most criminally underrated games of that generation. Spy Hunter sold well enough to become a greatest hit, and is fondly remembered among it's fans. Some day I'll beat that pesky training mission and play the full game.

Ending September, on the 30^th, Guilty Gear X released. For the longest time, the only two names worth caring about in in 2D fighters were Capcom, and SNK, then Arc System Works released Guilty Gear on the PS1 in 1998, and a new contender was born. In 2000, the released the followup Guilty Gear X to the arcades and the Dreamcast with the PS2 port of the game coming in 2001. I've never delved particularly deep into the Guilty Gear games, but I've always had fun whenever I boot X or X2 up in my PS2. The 2D sprite work is animation quality. It really puts the low-rez, pixelated sprites in Capcom and SNK fighting games to shame. The gameplay is excellent as well. As someone who's only ever been a novice at this series, it's easy to pick up and play, and feels incredibly smooth. This is definitely a series I want to explore more in the future, and get better at, because I can tell by the quality of the gameplay that it's a series that is just as worth to be mentioned in the same sentence as Street fighter, and the King of Fighters.

On October 14^th, Sony Santa Monica release Kinetica which is one of my favorite futuristic style racers on the system featuring human characters racing in Kinetic suits which allows them to race up the sides of walls, and on ceilings. Players could earn boost by completing tricks either on the ground or mid-air. It was a really fun mixture of Wipeout and SSX. The game is really challenging, but really fun. The graphics engine used in the game would later go on to be used in God of War. Kinetica got promoted well through advertisements and demo disks, but I'm not sure how well it sold. Regardless, I've always really liked this game, and it also has an awesome soundtrack to boot.

On October 16^th, the hotly anticipated Devil May Cry hit. As I mentioned earlier, this was the thrid game I ever owned for the PS2 because I was super impressed by the demo that came with Code Veronica. Before it hit, this game got tons of coverage, making the cover of every major gaming magazine in the states. It wasn't until I played the demo that I finally realized what all the hype was about. Devil May Cry was a great game, and it not only kicked off one of gaming's most popular franchises, but also the, I guess the modern term used is, Character Action Genre. That's a term I've never heard until five minutes ago as of writing this. Either way, that God of War, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, Dante's Inferno, Bayonetta, Rygar, Bujingai, and etc action genre. We all know that Rising Zan actually did it first, but Devil May cry was the start of a new generation of action game. I guess Onimusha also beat it to the punch in many ways, but DMC still had the largest impact on the genre. Great game. I was completely blown away by the graphics at the time, and the gameplay was exhilarating and frustrating at the same time. DMC was another huge release for the PS2 in 2001.

And a quick note: Gamefaqs says GTA3 was released on October 22^nd, while Wikipedia says the game was released on the 23^rd. I scoured the magazine archives to find a preview of the game that had the official release date, and couldn't find one, but since I have been using the Gamefaqs release dates for this video, because I trust them more, just know the release date could be a day off.

Once in a while a game so important to the rest of gaming history comes along that everything around it comes to a complete halt, pausing in awe of what that game accomplished. OK, that's a little over-dramatic, but on October 22^nd, the most important PS2 game released in 2001 hit, that game was Grand Theft Auto III. GTA 3 came out of nowhere, surprising both gamers, and mainstream outlets to become the biggest killer app for the PS2 going forward. I've had arguments with people who said, “Nah man, the game didn't surprise anyone. Everyone knew about it before it hit.” to which I responded, the only major US gaming magazine to so much as give GTA 3 a cover story, and a nine-page special feature was The Official Playstation Magazine. Maybe there was one other I missed, but that's the only cover story on the game. Prior to release, there was little interest in this game from the mainstream outlets. It's hard to blame them, as, in a year as crazy as 2001, with three systems launching, and tons of hugely hyped games, it would be hard to predict GTA3's success. In the issue of Gamepro Magazine they reviewed it in, Jak and Daxter got a full page review, Parappa the Rappa 2 got a full page review, and GTA3 got a half-page review, which wasn't published until their February 2002 issue which came out in January 2002. That's not only a testament to how stacked the end of 2001 was with game and console releases, but to also how little significance the game was given by the majority of gaming outlets at the time. Like I said, it snuck up on most of us. I did pour and exorbitant amount of hours into this game back in the day, but I put the most GTA hours into Vice City, which is still my favorite game in the series. GTA3 was the most important release for the PS2 in 2001. It was the game we didn't know we needed until we played it, and it was a massive system-selling killer app.

Project Eden was also released on, October 22^nd, and is still my favorite Core Design release on the PS2. Project Eden is an up-to four player action/puzzle game hybrid with a unique Blade-Runner style atmosphere, and some technical glitches that can sometimes stop progression. Every player in the squad has different abilities that are used in solving the puzzles in the game, and switching between them on the fly when playing by yourself is as simple as hitting the D-pad. It's always found this game to be incredibly engaging. Flawed, yes, but I've always really liked this game despite it's quirks.

On Ocotober 30^th, Smuggler's Run 2: Hostile Territory, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 hit.

-Smuggler's Run 2 featured more of the same intense mission-based driving gameplay as the original Smuggler's run with graphical improvements. I still haven't really played much of this game. I played quite a bit of the original with a friend back in the day, but Smuggler's 2 has that same addictive and infuriating gameplay that keep you coming back for just One more try no matter how many times you fail a mission. I own it on the Gamecube and PS2, and it's still fun.

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 was the next generation Tony Hawk game that fan were salivating to have. I, personally, really haven't played Tony Hawk 3. I played the original on the Dreamcast, somehow skipped the next two, and played the crap out of Tony Hawk 4 on the Gamecube, and haven't touched much of the series since. Tony Hawk 3 had beautiful next gen graphics, and the coolest feature, online play before Sony even released the network adapter for the PS2. If you had a USB ethernet adapter, or 56K modem, you could play this game online through gamespy servers. The PS2's official Network Adapter wouldn't be released until mid August of 2002, so it was pretty awesome that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 had online play around nine and a half months before the network adapter was released.

On October 31'st, Soul Reaver 2 hit, and while I was definitely excited to play it, because I loved the original, when I finally got around to playing it years after it's release, I wasn't exactly enthralled with the game. I never beat it, but I played a number of hours into it, and, while I still adore the original Soul Reaver, the second one just felt like it had a lot less, well, soul to me. The combat didn't feel as rewarding, and while the graphics were good and a step up, it lacked that same dark feeling atmosphere of the original. I really need to come back and give this game another chance and a full playthrough, because I really love the original, and maybe I didn't give it a fair chance when I played it.

Coming into November, the Christmas shopping season was upon us, and the competition was going to hit a fever pitch with the launch of the Xbox on the 15^th, and the Gamecube on the 18^th. Before I get tot he PS2 releases, I'll briefly cover the Xbox and Gamecube launch lineups. The Xbox came out swinging with one of the best launch lineups in gaming history. I still say the Dreamcast had the best launch lineup ever, but I wouldn't fault anyone who give the nod to the Xbox. Standouts were Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham Racing, Oddworld Munch's Oddysee, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X which was a remake that combined the levels of the first two Tony hawk games with next gen graphics, and of course, without exaggeration the game that single-handedly launched the entire Xbox brand off it's back, Halo: Combat Evolved. No Halo, no Xbox brand to this day. The game was that important. The Xbox came out swinging, with an exceptional launch lineup of games, and the first game in, outside of Grand Theft Auto I would argue, the biggest franchise of the sixth generation. The PS2 may have obliterated the Xbox in sales, but that in no way diminishes the popularity of Halo. It was THE game to get for the Xbox.

The Gamecube launch lineup, which is hard to look up on the internet nowadays, even going to magazine archives to figure out the exact launch lineup is hard, because magazines had space requirements so most of them separated the launch games between issues. I remember the big games like Rogue Leader, Luigi's Mansion, Super Monkey Ball, and Wave Race: Blue Storm, but the other launch titles like Crazy Taxi, Madden, Tony Hawk 3, Dave Mirra 2, just kind of blend in my mind. I mostly remember Rogue Leader, because, when I picked up my Gamecube in summer 2002 using my high school graduation money, I made sure Rogue Leader was the first game I bought. Off topic, does anyone else remember that new Gamecube smell? I can't describe it, but it's a heavy plastic smell, but a clean plastic smell. I'm pretty sure it made my room smell like my gamecube for months, and even today, sometimes I open a box with plastic packing materials and the materials sometimes hit my smell memory, and reminds me of the Gamecube. I might be crazy here, but I know I'm not the only one who remembers the Gamecube smell.

Overall, the Gamecube launch lineup in North America was a little weak. Luigi's mansion was fun, Wave Race was fun, Rogue Leader was great, but it was the December release of games like Super Smash Brothers: Melee, and Pikmin where some better games would hit. The Gamecube was a slow starter, kind of like the PS2, it was a system Nintendo fans bought with the promise of those great Nintendo titles later down the line, even if Nintendo had already revealed the Wind Waker version of Link to much groaning by fans at the time. Spaceworld showed an awesome deul between link and gannon, but they later revealed Hermy the Misfit elf version of Link. Oddly enough, Wind Waker would win me over after playing it, and it's still my favorite 3D Zelda of all time...that I've played so far.

And now back to the PS2 in November. On November 1^st, Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies was released. The last time I tried playing this game, the laser lens in the PS2 I was using had a big chunk break off of it, so I have still yet to play through it. However, what I have played of the game is excellent. It would have been really exciting for fans to see this next-gen version of Ace combat in action with brand new graphics with all the stunning visual effects the PS2 was capable of, and now with a story narrative woven into the game. The game reviewed well, and fans loved it. Some day I'll play more of this game, hoping it doesn't break another PS2 on me.

The Original Burnout was also released on November 1^st. I actually don't own the original game in the series, but it's worth mentioning, because it's sequels would become some of the best and most beloved racing games on the PS2.

On November 5^th, Splashdown and SSX Tricky were released.

-I can't find my copy of Splashdown at the moment, so here's footage of the trailer. Looking back, I actually played this game a lot and really enjoyed it. It's Rainbow Studio' take on the Wave race formula, but the tracks are full of shortcuts, or routes I would make a shortcut. The graphics were beautiful for the time, the water effects weren't as good as say Wave Race Blue Storm, but they were still good. I really liked the soundtrack in the game too, and I remember the first time I figured out how to submerge underwater and them pop up to do a backflip in the game. Something that's technically not even an available trick, but I would do it. I also love the hilarity of the giant octopus that grabs you and launches you across the map if you travel too far from the course which is a rainbow studios trademark. I still need to get Rides gone wild, because I really loved the original Splashdown, and had tons of fun playing it.

-SSX Tricky, I own on the Gamecube because a friend gave it to me for free, but I had tons of fun playing it. It's really actually the last SSX game I played. I spent a ton of time playing the original with a friend, so I was incredibly excited to play tricky as well, and it did not disappoint. It features a lot of the same tracks at the original SSX, but modified, and added uber tricks where filling up your boos meter allowed you to pull off super special tricks. The original SSX was nearly perfect, being the best game at launch, but Tricky's improvements over the original make it hard to go back and play the original unless you have nostalgia for it. I spent so many hour on this game, such a great game. I really need to play the newer games in the series.

On November 6^th, Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 was released. The original Capcom vs SNK was a fanboy dream come true after years of fanboy arguments of who would win in a fight, Terry Bogard, or Ryu? While it lacks the flash of other verses fighters, the combination of SNK and Capcom fighting characters, surprisingly, blended together amazingly well. I've become more of an SNK fanboy because The King of Fighter 99 on the PS1 of all systems got me back in to 2D fighters after years of playing 3D fighters, but Capcom did an excellent job of combining these characters in an excellent 2D fighting game. I'm not sure about balancing issues or any of that to a hardcore depth, all I know is, 2D fighting game fun. This game would later get released on the Gamcube and Xbox as Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO which added one-touch special moves to make them easier to pull off. No doubt to make of for the dismal D-pads on both system's controllers.

On November 11^th, 11-11, your wish was granted as Gearbox and Valve released Half-Life on the PS2. This is the first version of Half-Life I ever played, so I have a soft spot for the PS2 port. Even when going back and comparing it to the modern PC version of the game, this is still a great port of Half-Life, and one of the best PC-to console ports ever, possibly the best of that era. The PS2 vastly improved the graphics over the stock PC version from 1998. The HD pack would release with Blue shift, and make the graphical improvements of the PS2 version seem null and void, but it was impressive for the time. Very rarely if ever had console ports actually improved over the PC version's graphics. It was a big deal at the time, for two seconds. On top of being a great port of one of the best games ever made with tons of control options for controller or USB keyboard and mouse, and some fun split screen deathmatch, it also added the Decay campaign which was designed to be played coop with a friend, but is just as playable by yourself. Another cool feature is, if you had the demo disk from issue 57 of the Official Playstation magazine, you could play the Half-Life Uplink demo on the PS2 with the PS2 graphical improvements. The uplink demo was one of the earliest PC demos for Half-Life that was almost impossible to play on modern PC hardware until a recent update of Half-life on Steam made it available to play again. Overall, the PS2 port of Half Life was an excellent port for the time, and I still love this version of the game. I guess that's why I still love the PS2 version of Deus Ex as well because that was the first version of the game I played before getting the PC version later.

Three days before the Xbox released, and November 12^th, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty hit. As PSM Put it, this was “THE game of 2001.” The hype and excitement for this game was massive. It's not an exaggeration to say that most people who owned a PS2 by this time in 2001, bought it specifically for this game. As Blake Fisher in the January 2002 issue of Next Gen Magazine put it “No other game in history has received the kind of overwhelming hype as Metal Gear Solid 2.” It was that big of a deal, and the game's November release date meant that it was reviewed in the same issues as the entire Xbox Launch Lineup, and Gamecube launch games as well. Most of the reviews, and all the previews leading up to the game's release tactfully avoided what would become the biggest controversy of the game, one that would split fans and eventually have a lot of them against the game.

Spoiler alert, granted this game is rapidly coming up on a quarter century old, and has been re-released in ever subsequent console generation since the PS2, so if you haven't played it yet, you probably were never going to- Snake is only the main character for the beginning of the game which takes place on the tanker. After that, Snake is replace by Raiden, who is the actual main character of the game. He only bumps into Snake along the way here and there, but Raiden replaces Snake for the majority of the game. Me, personally, I did think it was lame, but, I still love this game. It is probably my second favorite Metal Gear Solid game, granted, I've only really played the first three. I've been meaning to play MGS4 for years, but the words 90 minute cutscene have stopped me from doing so. I gotta be in the mood for that, and owning the game for over 15 years, I still haven't been in the mood for that.

Either way, the Raiden replacing snake aspect of Metal Gear Solid 2 is still polarizing among fans to this day. I have a friend who is a massive Metal Gear Solid fan, he literally bought every version of Metal Gear Solid he could including the Pal version, the International version, and the Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 just to name a few. He was so mad about the change, he hated Raiden so much that after beating the game all the way through a couple of times, he absolutely refused to play the Raiden parts of he game. He would play the tanker portion only and say, I beat it after completing the snake scene. People have warmed up to Metal gear Solid 2 more in recent years, but replacing Snake with Raiden was and always will be seen as a controversial move.

On November 13^th, James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire released. I really couldn't care less about this game when it hit. Watching friends play it didn't do much for me either. I was in the, if it's not made by Rare, who cares. I looked at it as a less-good imitation of the Goldeneye. However, playing games like The World is Not enough on the N64, and later Bond games help me come around tot he fact that there were good Bond Games released after Goldeneye. Coming back to play Agent Under Fire, I've realized that it's a good game in it's own right. It's not the best shooter ever, or even the best Bond shooter, it's fun for what it offers. This isn't a bad game at all. If you're like me, and turned your nose up to the game back in the day because it wasn't made by Rare, it's worth giving it another chance. The gunplay is solid, the level designs during the first person shooter elements mirror the mission-based designs of Goldeneye and the addition of the Bond moves for scoring is a nice touch. Solid game overall.

November 18^th saw the release of the Gamecube, and WWF Smackdown: Just Bring It. I have fond memories of playing this game with my fellow teammates on my High School Wrestling team my senior year. One of my coaches had this game, and after an extra long practice, we all went to his house and played four-player Tekken tag Tournament matches, and I watched as they also played Just Bring it. Graphically, the game wasn't a huge step up from PS1 graphics, but I was incredibly impressed by features like being able to play the Hell in a Cell match. I played more here Comes the Pain, but I have good memories of Just Bring it.

On November 19^th, Harmonix released Frequency, which combined with it's sequel Amplitude were the precursors to the Guitar Hero games. Frequency plays like playing guitar hero with a controller, but instead of just playing the guitar portions of a song, you rebuild the song one instrument track at a time. Frequency is still incredibly fun, and it gives you a weird tunnel vision after hours of play where even after playing, you see movement, even if you are staring at a wall.

One the same day, November 19^th, Sega and 2K released NFL 2k2 on the PS2. This would be the start of the last great football rivalry in gaming between Madden and 2K. NFL Gameday was previously in a cut-throat rivalry with Madden, but the abysmal showing of NFL Gameday 2001 on the PS2, and the next couple of years trying to rebuild that franchises' reputation meant that Madden would have been completely unopposed on the PS2. I don't normally play sports games, because I don't watch sports, but even I loved the NFK 2K games. It was sad for Dreamcast fans to see this port, but it was also exciting for Sega fans to know that, no matter which next gen console they ended up buying, they would still be able to play the best football franchise around.

On November 24^th, EA published The Simpson's Road Rage which is essentially just Crazy Taxi in the Simpsons universe. In fact, Sega agreed that it was essentially Crazy Taxi to the point that Sega eventually sued Vivendi/Fox and EA for patent infringement over this game and won, forcing EA to stop the sales of the game which had already sold over a million copies. My take on it is, at the time, Sega blatantly stated their goal of wanting to be the number one third party developer in the world, a spot taken by EA. This is just my opinion, but I think Sega was being a bit petty, and decided to sue EA to take them down a peg. It sets a bad precedent to sue over a game that clones another game, because the whole industry would be in trouble. As it stands though, even if you were a huge fan of this game, there's almost no chance it will ever be remade or remastered. At least, not without Sega's permission. Luckily, the game did sell over a million copies, so it's not like it's ultra rare to find out in the wild. You can still find Xbox and PS2 copies for under $20. The Gamecube version is a lot more expensive, because the Gamecube market is stupidly overpriced because it became the trendy console to collect for.

On November 26^th, Dynasty Warriors 3 was released, and even though Dynasty Warriors 2 was a great launch game, I would say that the third game is where the series really kicked off the franchise. Would Koei milk this franchise to death? Absolutely, but that never stopped diehard fans of the franchise from buying every game. I'm a fan of the series, but more of a casual fan, and I really enjoyed Dynasty warriors 3. My brother ended up giving me almost the entire series on the PS2 later, because he was a diehard fan of these games.

Starting December out Strong, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was released. PC Baldur's gate fans would scoff as the watering down, or consoling up of the franchise for console gamers, but it was still an excellent hack 'n slash RPG in it's own right. It is also geared toward two-player coop play, if a game like Gauntlet: Dark Legacy was too shallow for your tastes, Dark Alliance would be the perfect bland of depth, and playability. Graphically, the game looked amazing for the time. The Snowblind engine was a beautiful engine for it's time, and who can forget those awesome rippling water effects. The Snowblind engine would be used in eight more games over the next decade, running games like The Bards tale and Champions of Norrath. You can always tell the engine by the water effects.

On December 4^th, Jak and Daxter was released. My review of the game is still coming. However, as you can see, this game was released in an insane season of gaming. As I said, 2001, was an obscenely competitive year that really laid the groundwork for the PS2 for the rest of it's life. While not on the level of anticipation as Metal Gear Solid 2, Jak still managed to be a hotly anticipated game in it's own right. Some reviews panned it for being a kids game, a collect-a-thon, and so on, but the game sold well, and is still beloved by fans.

On December 11^th, Shadow Hearts released. I don't own any of the Shadow Hearts games, but I remember hearing about how good the game were by avid fans of the series. Physically, all three games in the series will run you over a hundred dollars to get them in good condition. The series hit under the radar, and has gone up in price as more people have discovered it. The series has yet to be re-released anywhere as of this video. It's definitely a noteworthy release worth mentioning.

As I mentioned earlier, on December 17^th, Final Fantasy 10 was released. It was the last of the most anticipated PS2 games in 2001, and it capped off one of the best years for releases the PS2 ever saw. There were still plenty of great years of releases for the PS2 to come, but Final Fantasy X was the last big haymaker thrown at the Gamecube and Xbox by the PS2 in 2001. With such a strong lineup of hotly anticipated games, GTA3's release, and overall sales thanks to system availability, the Gamecube and Xbox had no chance. The Gamecube would sell a little over 21 million systems worldwide over it's lifetime, while the Xbox would sell over 24 million. If the PS2 was at 20 million sold by the end of 2001, there was no catching it. As for Final Fantasy X, I enjoyed the game quite a bit, but I didn't end up playing through it finally until 2011. I had owned it for almost 10 years at that point, but my RPG backlog and RPG burnout by that time was strong. I'm not quite done with 2001, there is still 2 more games on my list.

On December 19^th, 2001, Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land was released. Wizardry is an incredibly long running series that's a turn-based first-person dungeon crawling RPG. I've never played very far into this game, but I do enjoy what I have played of it. I appreciate the fans of the game who brought it to my attention years ago so I was able to pick it up cheaply as it's sitting around $70 on Ebay as of this video.

And the Last game on this list came out on December 20^th, 2001, and that game is Giants: Citizen Kabuto. This is a PC to PS2 port, and while I'm not sure what cuts were made from the PC version in this port, I do know that I've always really enjoyed this goofy-humor filled squad shooter. This is from the same team that would go on to make Armed and Dangerous on the Xbox and PC which was also a humor-filled shooter, underrated shooter gems. Both are available on Steam and Gog for the PC, and I highly recommend them. Fun gameplay, and some so many charming humor-filled moments. Giants doen't take itself too seriously, despite being seriously fun.

Alright, if you're still with me, that sums up notable, to me, releases for the PS2 in 2001. If I missed a few releases that were worth remembering, forgive me for that. This list was getting long enough. I do know I missed a couple even I wanted to put on the list, but I removed some games so I could get on to the review of Jak and Daxter. For the review, most of the footage will be from the PS3 HD collection of the Jak and Daxter Games.

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 Sources for this video:

-To know why HHH is just getting super-kicked, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MonzR5bhMpc
 - A Nobody Plays Games. (2017, December 3). Star Wars- Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II (Gamecube) gameplay sample [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICr-ug8MG3g
- Amoroso, D. (2023, January 18). Remembering the Gamecube's Launch Titles. Game Rant. https://gamerant.com/gamecube-launch-title-retrospective-luigis-mansion-super-monkey-ball/
- Game Informer Issue 104 ( December 2001) : Gi magazine : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (2024, August 5). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/game-informer-issue-104-december-2001
- GamePro - Issue 158 - November 2001 : IDG Communications, Inc. : Free download, borrow, and streaming : Internet Archive. (2001, November 1). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/game-pro-issue-158-november-2001
- GamePro - Issue 161 - February 2002 : IDG Communications, Inc. : Free download, borrow, and streaming : Internet Archive. (2002, February 1). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/game-pro-issue-161-february-2002
- NEXT Generation Magazine EVERY ISSUE with Advertisements happily REMOVED : Next Generation Magazine : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (1995, January 1). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/next-generation-24-dec-1996/NextGen%2085%20Jan%202002/
- Official US Playstation Magazine Issue 50 ( November 2001) : Offiicial us playstation magazine : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (2022, March 10). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/official-us-playstation-magazine-issue-50-november-2001
- Official US Playstation Magazine Issue 52 ( January 2002) : Official us playstation magazine : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (2022, February 5). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/official-us-playstation-magazine-issue-52-january-2002
- PSM Issue 51 ( November 2001) : Psm magazine : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (2022, January 25). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/psm-issue-51-november-2001
- PSM Issue 052 ( December 2001) : Psm magazine : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (2023, January 4). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/psm-issue-052-december-2001
- Random Gameplay Samples. (2023a, August 2). Capcom vs SNK 2- PS2 Underrated GEM Gameplay Sample [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5WY4W93NWU
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- Random Gameplay Samples. (2023d, August 28). Klonoa 2- PS2 Underrated GeM Gameplay Sample [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srGUlsAEjhY
- Random Gameplay Samples. (2024a, May 12). Dynasty Warriors 3 (PS2) Gameplay -No Commentary- | Hyperkin PS1/PS2 HDTV Cable | [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha35-zUCvQo
- Random Gameplay Samples. (2024b, May 30). Quake III Revolution (PS2) Bot Deathmatch Gameplay -No Commentary- | Hyperkin PS1/PS2 HDTV Cable | [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZldbG0hing
- Staff, I. (2012, June 18). GameCube versus PlayStation 2 - IGN. IGN. https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/11/04/gamecube-versus-playstation-2
- The 2.5D Gamer. (2023a, February 16). Grand Theft Auto III (PS2) gameplay -No commentary-  [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8uc0N8pmf0
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- THPS3 PS2 Online Play FAQ - Planet Tony Hawk. (n.d.). https://planettonyhawk.gamespy.com/View73d0.html?view=thps3_faqs_guides.Detail&id=70#02

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