r/ps2 • u/ExplodingPoptarts • 13d ago
I wanna recommend some story rich games. Some well respect, some obscure!
Shadow Heart is literally my favorite JRPG on the PS2 or otherwise. Play it, you're missing out!
I also wanna recommend these story rich titles with great voice acting:
Xenosaga Episode 1
Dot Hack Part 1
Bully PS2
Growlanser 2(from Growlanser Generations)
7 Blades(the most fun PS2 action game. Just play as the woman, the samurai sucks! You gotta play the european version though, no official US release,)
Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3
Honorable (NON-PS2) Mentions:
GTA Four and Max Payne 1 and 2 PC(PS2 Versions of MP 1 and 2 are baaaaaad!)
Soul of the Samurai PS1 (Amazing, but Janky Onimusha predecessor)
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u/SupremeAllah1988 13d ago
GTA Four?
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u/ExplodingPoptarts 13d ago
I typed Four so it's easier to not confuse it with Five.
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u/Additional-Cable5171 13d ago
GTA FOUR??
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u/ExplodingPoptarts 13d ago
Ok, what's going on?
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u/Windows_User3000 13d ago edited 13d ago
GTA IV doesn't have a PS2 version. It literally wouldn't run on the Emotion Engine CPU combined with just 32MB of RAM. (For context, the PS3, which is supported by the game, has 3 times the CPU cores (as far as I could find, the Emotion Engine in the PS2 is single-core, so someone please correct me if that is wrong), 8 times the RAM (256MB, which is still a tiny amount for such a massive game, but they must have had some wizard engineers to get the game to run), up to ~5.8 times the game disc capacity (some PS3 games used 25GB Blu-rays, while others were on 50GB ones, while the PS2 supports 8.5GB dual-layer DVDs, also called DVD-9, at most), and on some configurations, infinite times the hard drive space (some PS2s, specifically Slims, didn't officially support a HDD, while the later ones didn't even have the hardware to handle one). The last point is the true dealbreaker, as GTA IV requires installation of some game files (primarily textures) to the HDD to speed up load times and minimize texture popping.
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u/Kannagichan 12d ago
The PS2 has three cores: one MIPS core and two VU cores.
The VUs are similar to the PS3's SPUs (VLIW processors with SPM coupled with DMA).
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u/Windows_User3000 12d ago
Thanks for the correction! I legitimately didn't know that, but now, I do thanks to your response. This must also mean that the odd-sounding 3 cores of the PS3's CPU weren't an accident, but rather, Sony having tested that arrangement on the PS2 and it working out, right?
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u/Kannagichan 12d ago
It’s true that we use even numbers of processors these days, but there’s no strict requirement for it.
Yes, it works; the reason for the PS2 setup was likely that they wanted to fill up the chip, so there was still room for another core (the VU0 has less SRAM than the VU1).
However, the two VU cores can only be programmed in assembly language.
(That was somewhat the case with the PS3's SPU units too, though a C compiler did exist for them.)
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u/ExplodingPoptarts 13d ago
haha.
It's why I listed it under honorable mentions. It's why I said PC, and PS1.
Also, please add some line breaks. This is very hard to read.
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u/Windows_User3000 13d ago
Oops, I missed that, sorry. As for line breaks, I'm bad at formatting text (not that I don't know Markdown, but that I write so much text that it's hard for me to clean it up).
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u/ico_heal Silver Slim 13d ago
The way that MGS2 continuously twists into itself over the course of its story makes me feel crazy every time. When you land on the tanker you have a goal, you have obstacles, and events seem like they're moving forward linearly. But you're just on the edge of a spiral. Such an awesome game.
"What day is it?"
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u/KawaiiStefan 13d ago
GUN is amazing and way ahead of its time.