I didn't mention it, but I also endorse God of War. I was watching my brother playing it, and suggested to him, "No, don't just rip these guys in half, you don't get any red orbs that way." Any game where such a comment actually applies in context is officially awesome.

Quoted for truth. It's better to grab them and pound them into the ground. Lots of red orbs that way.

Rab, MGS3, RE4, Onimusha 3 and DMC3 are all the best games in their respective series (This is subject to debate among some, except RE4.) Do you have a problem with games that have sequels in the first place? Usually games have sequels because THEY ARE GOOD, you know.

Unless you have a problem with most of my top five being action games, but that's mostly because that's the best the PS2 has to offer sans RPGs. Here's a couple diverse options for ya. (And if you must only get one action game for the PS2, I recommend RE4, unless you have it for GCN already, in which case I recommend MGS3)

Horror: Silent Hill 2 - I don't consider RE4 to be a horror game so much as an action game, but SH2 will seriously scare the crap out of you. I know it's a sequel, but the original game is only on PS1. It's a great fucking game though.

Music: Guitar Hero - Fuck all these DDR loving nerds, this game is fucking amazing. If you like rock music, this is the music game for you. I don't think I've ever played a rhythm game as insanely awesome as this one. It's really something else.

FPS: Killzone - This game may suffer from hype fever, but it's a pretty solid FPS with some pretty impressive graphics for the ol' PS2. It's either this or Timesplitters: Future Perfect, really, but that's on the other two systems as well. (And it's part of a series. Oh no!)

Racing: Gran Turismo 4 - The racing itself is spot on, but once again the sheer number of options in this game is incredible. One of the few non-RPGs where you can spend hours and hours just going through menus customizing shit. It's overrated, yeah, but that doesn't stop it from being awesome.

Fighting: Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution - The deepest fighting game ever, bar none. No other fighting game will truely match the maddening depth this game has. This isn't like DOA where any little pussy can play: This is hard-core fighting at it's best. I know this may technically be an action game, but half of games nowadays are action games anyway.

Gradius V - Someone else mentioned it, and I second it. Sh'mups can potentially keep you hooked for hours if you get into them. Of course, since you only gave me two specifications to go on, I have no idea if this is your kind of game or not.

Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim - If you can even find this game just buy it. Think Zelda, but faster. Also, it's made by Falcom which means it's a treasure all on its own (so if you don't really want it, buy it and sell it on E-Bay).

Metal Gear Solid * - Are you familiar with regular expressions? Good, then you'll understand what I mean.

Ico - Excellent game, and it'll last longer if you don't use a walkthrough to solve all the puzzles.

Devil May Cry 3 - Kill the fuck out of everything with style. Probably one of the best attempts at a 3D action game next to Ninja Gaiden (which I prefer).

Ikaruga - Oops, sorry. Not on PS2, but I'm trying to think of good games and I just happen to be listening to the soundtrack for this one. Ikaruga is made by Treasure. Y'know what else is made by Treasure? Gradius V is made by Treasure. You should get Gradius V.

Also, I HIGHLY recommend, one of the best, if not, THE BEST music game, FREQUENCY. A gift from the Gods themselves.

Thread resurrection!

OK well tomorrow marks the Australian PS2 price drop and this co-incided with 25% of storewide at EB. Also I need a DVD player.

So tomorrow looks to be the day I finnally get a PS2. Right about now it's looking like I'll be getting GTA:SA, ICO and God of War. I doubt my chances of finding anything liek Katamari or SOS:Final Escape or whatnot but who even knows. I have about $800 to spend and I'll also need to buy a DS Lite and Metroid Hunters so we'll see how far my dolalr goes.

Hmm. Well, maybe Need For Speed: Most Wanted, unless you already have the XBOX or PC version.

Rab's got a GameCube too, so any big name multi-platform suggestions are probably out, as GC 3rd party games tend to be half the price of the PS2 version here. Sky Odyssey still holds up extremely well in the gameplay department, despite looking like horse shit (it looked terrible when it came out five years ago too). Probably the closet thing to Pilotwings on PS2. Should only be like $15 or something pre-owned by now.

Also TRANSFORMERS. Support Beam Software/Melbourne House! And it doesn't muck around, it's pure awesome non-stop. Don't forget that a memory card's still going to set you back a whopping $40-$50 or so. =\

Transformers is an ace game. Buy it<3

You know, I'd say buy Vice city or GTA3 instead of SA. I found it to fucking huge and not that great. Vice City's superior in my opinion...

You're going to spend $800 on games? With that amount you might as well save for a new tv or something.

Seconding Vice City as hard as I can. Had I not of thrashed it for over a year and been totally sick of it after collecting 100 hidden packages, I'd probably still be playing it. The OST is pretty rad and the game is fun, but time consuming if you're going for the hidden packages and smaller aspects of the game.

SA was too large and filled with trash talking. Seriously you can't walk down the street without someone coming up to you, asking if you're "one of their boys", and shooting at you.

I dont know If I'm spending $800 on games. That's the total amount of my spending bank account and a few gift cards. It's more liekly that most of the $800 will go towards beer.

But yeah is Vice City really better? Because the word on the street is taht San Andreas well, taht one has black guys in it. And that Vice City's streets are basically a gridlock. You sure you guys wern't just sick of the GTA formula?

I like Vice City mostly because:

1) It's in the 80's.
2) Most of the missions are fun.
3) There's a bunch of shit you can do once you've passed the missions.

I'm not sure if it applies to SA, but only specific parts of the town are available at first, and you need to complete certain missions before the rest of the city opens up.

Vice City has hispanics and cubans. That's pretty rough. If you have a kill ratio in favor of hispanics then you'll be shot at if you're on their turf, same applies to cubans. But what kept me going was the wheelies, stunt bonuses and other stuff (hidden packages are extremely time consuming, even with a guide) which extent the game's length into the 100+ hours.

Perhaps. But SA was filled with useless stuff. Lifting weights? Hell, if I wanted to workout, I could do it in real life. I don't want to eat every half hour because my GAME character wants to eat.
Plus Tommy had a great personality. And VC is free of "Why homie, check out my shit. It's da bomb" idiot talk.

If you only get one game on PS2 it should be Gitaroo Man. It's the best music game ever.

Also Hunters is a piece of shite, save yourself the money. No seriously, I bought it and returned it. It's the only game in recent times that I have returned that has worked.

San Andreas absolutely destroys Vice City, and so does GTA3. GTA3 is more interesting in every way, much better environment, better framerate (somehow it got worse in VC), better setting, better everything, SA is just hueg but the landscapes and places are actually interesting. Overall i'd give SA the edge because you can fly planes into buildings

Just get both Vice City and San Andreas. Both games are fantastic, pretty cheap by now, and well worth being played through.

I'd recommend getting Vice City first since they added tons of little features to San Andreas that would make playing through Vice City without any nostalgia hard (I'm replaying VC right now and I'm actually amazed how short the game actually is without doing all the crap 'hidden' missions. I started, like, three days ago and only have the marina, club, ice cream factory, car dealerships, cuban, hatian, and whatshisname the military dude at the top left of the map's missions left).

I'll agree that San Andreas totally lacked the atmosphere that Vice City had, but it's still worth $20.

(Also, buy an Ace Combat game.)

Well I bought it today. Got Metal gear Solid 3 pre owned and San Andreas at half price. I was very disapointed with the range at the three stores I visited. Shadow of the Colossus being the only game of any kind of obscurity present.