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PS2 Appreciation Thread

dataDave

By dataDave,
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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Afternoon Delight

Afternoon Delight

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Vimster said:

Very niche but I found this Youtube channel that appears to review nothing but budget racing games on the PS2. It's amazing how many there are, and the quality varies quite a bit. 

 

 

GTR 400 is worth playing, as the review says the graphics are really impressive and the semi-arcade style handling is really fun. The races are easy to breeze through and it's just a fun time. The only reason you can tell it's a budget title is there's only one basic car model in the whole game I believe, with a lot of palette swaps. The menus are also quite sparse. Once you get into the driving though, it's great. 

 

The same publisher and developer did another game with the same engine (and probably the same tracks) but with souped up saloon cars. However the handling on that one wasn't nearly as fun. 

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matt!

matt!

Posted
Posted
On 25/07/2022 at 19:47, electricmastro said:

What’s the best puzzle game on PS2?:

Just to confirm what you told me on another site. Your list is puzzle games released in the USA. If you add in EU and JP games the list is more than twice as long.

 

This is mostly a European forum but I like to think we play games from all over the world. One world one love. 

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bplus

bplus

Posted
Posted
On 27/07/2022 at 15:25, Vimster said:

Very niche but I found this Youtube channel that appears to review nothing but budget racing games on the PS2. It's amazing how many there are, and the quality varies quite a bit. 

 

 

Speaking of racers, anyone recommend some arcade type ones?

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bplus

bplus

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Vimster said:

I've been enjoying Shox recently. Very arcadey rally racer.

 

 

I remember thinking I should buy this at the time! Does it handle like sega rally?

 

Edit also does it have annoying EA presentation?

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Vimster

Vimster

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, bplus said:

I remember thinking I should buy this at the time! Does it handle like sega rally?

 

Edit also does it have annoying EA presentation?

It's not quite as smooth and joyous as SEGA Rally but it is nice and drifty.

 

It's the same devs as SSX and it has similar presentation, but it's quite minimal.

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bplus

bplus

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Vimster said:

It's not quite as smooth and joyous as SEGA Rally but it is nice and drifty.

 

It's the same devs as SSX and it has similar presentation, but it's quite minimal.

Spent an hour playing it tonight on an emulator, it does seem very good so far.

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matt!

matt!

Posted
Posted

Shox is good fun. I ended up with bags of coins somehow and it took the pressure off the end game so I felt cheated. 

 

MX Superfly (I think!) Is fun. 

 

Runabout 3, USA version. Worth living with the slowdown. 

 

The Italian Job is great, though I preferred to play it on GC in 480p. 

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bplus

bplus

Posted
Posted
On 29/07/2022 at 00:02, matt! said:

Shox is good fun. I ended up with bags of coins somehow and it took the pressure off the end game so I felt cheated. 

 

MX Superfly (I think!) Is fun. 

 

Runabout 3, USA version. Worth living with the slowdown. 

 

The Italian Job is great, though I preferred to play it on GC in 480p. 

After but of googling I found run about is a Dreamcast game too, looks good!

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matt!

matt!

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, bplus said:

After but of googling I found run about is a Dreamcast game too, looks good!

Yes but no. It's a series
 

- Runabout PS1 (good, short)
- Runabout 2 PS1 (best)

- Super Runabout DC (good)
- Runabout 3 PS2 (good)

- Runabout 3D N3DS (good, kind of a remaster of PS2 game)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runabout_(series)

 

Make sure you play NTSC versions to reduce slowdown. 

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megamixer

megamixer

Posted
Posted

I will never quit suggesting Enthusia Professional Racing as a GT sub. While it is more "serious" than arcadey racing games, it doesn't feel as serious as GT in a way and so it is somewhere in the middle. Still looks stunning however, cars are highly accurate, and the music is incredible.

 

But back to arcade-y racers, everybody played Burnout 1-Revenge, but did anybody else play Dominator? I absolutely loved it and spent ages having my eyes melted by the speed to 100% complete all the challenges. The EA music for the game is a bit suss though: they have an Avril Lavigne track in English and also the same one in Spanish lol. I think they were really scraping the barrel and running out of music that they hadn't used before.

 

I also enjoyed The Fast and the Furious - loosely based on Tokyo Drift but doesn't have that subtitle on the box. Kinda like a Need For Speed Underground/Most Wanted rip-off with modding and cruising a city, having street races etc. It's no masterpiece by any means but I had good fun with it all the same and it probably exceeded expectations because I expected it to be licensed tosh.

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bplus

bplus

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, megamixer said:

I will never quit suggesting Enthusia Professional Racing as a GT sub. While it is more "serious" than arcadey racing games, it doesn't feel as serious as GT in a way and so it is somewhere in the middle. Still looks stunning however, cars are highly accurate, and the music is incredible.

 

But back to arcade-y racers, everybody played Burnout 1-Revenge, but did anybody else play Dominator? I absolutely loved it and spent ages having my eyes melted by the speed to 100% complete all the challenges. The EA music for the game is a bit suss though: they have an Avril Lavigne track in English and also the same one in Spanish lol. I think they were really scraping the barrel and running out of music that they hadn't used before.

 

I also enjoyed The Fast and the Furious - loosely based on Tokyo Drift but doesn't have that subtitle on the box. Kinda like a Need For Speed Underground/Most Wanted rip-off with modding and cruising a city, having street races etc. It's no masterpiece by any means but I had good fun with it all the same and it probably exceeded expectations because I expected it to be licensed tosh.

I think I'm the only person who thought burnout 3 was shit. I really like the previous one. But burnout 3 was a cluttered mess full of power ups. Just watched dominator, it looks good but is it like burnout 3?

 

Does enthusia have licenses? I actually really enjoy licenses in GT. Edge gave enthusia 5, probably another one of their ridiculously low scores that mag caused me to miss so much in 00s.

 

 

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bplus

bplus

Posted
Posted

Just spend two hours getting the high Res textures and reshade mod working in gt4. Not exactlyworth the effort :).

Reshade does brighten the game up makes it look more like GT3 though, which is nice.

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ScouserInExile

ScouserInExile

Posted
Posted
16 hours ago, megamixer said:

arcade-y racers, everybody played Burnout 1-Revenge, but did anybody else play Dominator? I

I was a big fan of the later Burnout games. Weirdly, I didn't really like the first two but, once they went all "Xtreme to tha Max!!!!" and were all about smashing shit up, I loved them. I've still got them all in my loft. Great games. Really good for a ten minute blast type of games. Just loads of fun.

 

16 hours ago, megamixer said:

Avril Lavigne track in English and also the same one in Spanish

German, wasn't it? Or was there different versions on the NTSC and PAL versions? A Google reveals there's both Spanish and German versions of the track (and French, Portuguese, Japanes and Mandarin)

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Ninja Doctor

Ninja Doctor

Posted
Posted

Quick question for the knowledgable bods:

 

I’m wanting to play Grandia 3 but there was no PAL release. What’s my best option? Get the us release and a us machine? Is there an easy was to run imports now? I could go down filthy pirate route. What’s the recommended way to transfer isos to an internal hdd?

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Vimster

Vimster

Posted
Posted
18 minutes ago, Ninja Doctor said:

Quick question for the knowledgable bods:

 

I’m wanting to play Grandia 3 but there was no PAL release. What’s my best option? Get the us release and a us machine? Is there an easy was to run imports now? I could go down filthy pirate route. What’s the recommended way to transfer isos to an internal hdd?

I can't say for sure right this minute but I'm pretty sure FreeMcboot should allow region-free gaming. 

 

EDIT: just checked and no, it doesn't break region lock, so the only way would be to rip that and make a backup disc. 

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Ninja Doctor

Ninja Doctor

Posted
Posted

Yeah, I've got a freemcboot and a phat with a hdd installed. If there's no easy way to run an original disc I'll have to look at getting an iso onto the hdd as that bypasses the region checks. 

 

I've never managed to get network transfer working so I'll have to source a 3.5" PATA caddy. 

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matt!

matt!

Posted
Posted
16 hours ago, bplus said:

Does enthusia have licenses? I actually really enjoy licenses in GT. Edge gave enthusia 5, probably another one of their ridiculously low scores that mag caused me to miss so much in 00s.

It does have licences

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Arctic Feather

Arctic Feather

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Ninja Doctor said:

Quick question for the knowledgable bods:

 

I’m wanting to play Grandia 3 but there was no PAL release. What’s my best option? Get the us release and a us machine? Is there an easy was to run imports now? I could go down filthy pirate route. What’s the recommended way to transfer isos to an internal hdd?


If you have a SCPH-500xx You might be able to use MechaPwn.  I haven't tried it myself though.

https://github.com/MechaResearch/MechaPwn

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