Sunday 3 February 2013

My Top 5 PS2 Moments

Earlier in January 2013, Sony announced that they will stop production of the their huge hit, the Sony PlayStation 2 after an incredible run of 13 years of production and the sale of 155 million units sold worldwide.



I got my PS2 around the year 2003-2004, I have a lot of fond memories with the PS2. With so many games to play, from shooter to RPG to sandbox games to racing, it's very difficult to point out which are my best moments playing PS2 games. But I have made my decisions, and these are my Top 5 (in no particular order)

Michael Jackson's Billie Jean in GTA: Vice City

One of PS2's biggest classics,  GTA Vice City is the first GTA I ever fell in love with. Free roaming, violence, the Miami Vice style presentation in the 1980s. And add up to the 1980s-ish presentation, they added some really good and old-school 1980s hits, like the first time you enter a car or a scooter in Vice City when the game started, Michael Jackson's No.1 hit, Billie Jean started playing in the game, that game is on! I'm in love with the game from that moment.



Underground Racing


During the PS2 era, Electronic Arts decided to do a big change with their long lasting Need For Speed series (probably due to the popularity of Vin Diesel's The Fast and the Furious). In the end, they come out with (in order), Need For Speed Underground, Underground 2, Most Wanted and Carbon, with all 4 centered around illegal street racing and tuning. All 4 of them are a huge hit to the Need For Speed franchise. But in all four, Most Wanted is definitely my favourite. I remember driving my Carrera GT down the highway  evading cops just to crank up bounty points and try to get to the "5 Grand" Razor who stole my BMW M3. And then escape after winning back the car and end the game, pure epicness

The Day the name Crasher was Born


This type of racing got me my gaming name known today...

Before there was Crasher, there was just Jia En in the gaming world, or Crash (because I like Crash Bandicoot in his games), but one game came to me one day, it is called Burnout 3: Takedown! Ever since I played that game, the name was born! There was a mode called Road Rage, which me & my bro, Atles a.k.a. played every single time we meet up for game time. It involves the gamer to engage demolition derby in the middle of the city street to see who can crash more into each other to get hits and points. I crashed so much that my bro started to rename my nickname to Crasher, that's how I got my name. And don't get me started to mention another crazy Crash mode, where you initiate accident to earn points! Ant to this day, Burnout 3: Takedown is still the craziest and wackiest racing game I've ever played!

Black!


When EA claimed the Battlefield series is the first to feature realistic destructive environment, I said 'Bitch, Please!", your older game, Black, developed by the makers of Burnout, is the first to do so. Well, the game doesn't stack up to current generation of shooter due to lack of processing power of the PS2, but it did give a glimpse into the future. With virtually unlimited amount of ammunition, you can just press the shoot button and don't let go, and it works and it was fun to shoot enemies off building with explosives!

Odd Physics!

Another moment worth remembering is the odd world of Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. It looks pale and boring compared to the world of Grand Theft Auto, not as crowded, not as remarkable, but one thing that let me grab this game and wouldn't let go of it, and it was the physics of the game. The physics of the game is so wrong, heavy objects are floating and easily flyable and jeeps that can be turned over just by using melee attack in this nuclear war themed free roaming game. The other stuffs that also caught my attention is the huge amount of airstrikes and arsenals you can use in the game to blow sh!t up!



To sum things up, I really miss my PS2. So sadly, she died a few years back and never came back to life. But one day, I might get one again just to play the huge library of games it offered!

R.I.P. PS2

2000-2013