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PlayStation (Games)

OPM's Big List of Games To Play 79

Posted by Zonk from the before-you-DIE dept.
1up is running a feature from Official Playstation Magazine, an exhaustive list of 100 games for Sony platforms you must play ... before you die! From the article: "We couldn't go it alone. We asked the top PlayStation game designers, producers, and members of the press to submit their picks, and we've included what they had to say. No list is ever perfect. But perfection was never our goal. In the end, we hope this list is one that, if you were to play all the games in it (and you conceivably can since many are still available at retail or on eBay), will make you a supremely well-rounded gamer. Maybe you'll find, as we have, that games have the power to entertain, challenge, inspire, and affect you in ways you never thought possible."
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OPM's Big List of Games To Play More

OPM's Big List of Games To Play

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  • Much of this list is anti-Nintendo bulls*** (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DeanCubed ( 814869 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @07:17AM (#14452845)
    Some of these have merits, but others are just plain idiotic.

    I'm paraphrasing here, but:

    "Metal Gear Solid was released at the same time as Ocarina of Time, which is why I have yet to play Zelda. Who cares about a deku tree when there are terrorists with nukes to stop?" -Guy who made Burnout series, which, suprise suprise, is no longer being made for the Cube. With biased dickweeds like this working in the industry, no wonder Nintendo can't get third parties to support their consoles.

    "Crash Team Racing took the Mario Kart formula and perfected it." - Some guy from 1up. I mean seriously. CTR is what Mario Kart could be if it was perfect? Gimme a freakin break! Guess what came out the same gen? Mario Kart 64! Is that not perfect already? I know MK for the DS improved on it, but for consoles without a second screen to display an overhead map, and taking the online component out... You don't get better in kart racing than Mario Kart 64, unless you REALLY like Double Dash for some reason. Crash Team F'n Racing...
    • I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to agree with the author - CTR was a far superior game to Mario Kart 64. I mean, I loved Mario Kart as much as the next guy, but CTR really perfected the kart-racing genre.

      Unfortunately the same can't be said for its sequels :/

    • Re:Much of this list is anti-Nintendo bulls*** (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Kazzahdrane ( 882423 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @08:54AM (#14453164)
      Sorry to burst your bubble, but overall CTR was a much better game than Mario Kart 64. I played the hell out of that game, unlocking all the tracks and characters and spending dangerous amounts of time beating my time trial ghosts for good laps. CTR also had an excellent battle mode which made MK64's look like an afterthought in comparison. Sure, you needed a multitap to really get the most out of the game but that was a fault of the hardware rather than Naughty Dog. I had this very arguement with a Nintendo fanboy just yesterday, in the end we decided that MK64 had the advantage of characters that everyone knew and a SNES prequel that was a real gem itself - whereas only PSX owners had met Crash and his friends (and the characters were mostly a bit rubbish anyway). For me, CTR just felt a bit faster than MK64 a lot of the time, and it's a game I still have very fond memories of playing alone and with my family (My MUM finished the Adventure mode!).It's a real shame that Sony decided to let another developer have a crack at the CTR sequel when Naughty Dog sold the license off. They should have left it alone as I understand the later games in the series were pretty dire.
      • I've played CTR and MK64. Yes MK64 is slightly slower, but that doesn't mean anything. You want speed, play F-Zero (29sec my battle time). CTR only entertained me for a few days with friends. MK64 we played everyday for months, (beatings for using lightning on the Wario track). Two different games but one appealed to the gamer friends (MK64), the other appealed to the non-gamer friends (CTR). Nothing wrong with that.

    • "Metal Gear Solid was released at the same time as Ocarina of Time, which is why I have yet to play Zelda. Who cares about a deku tree when there are terrorists with nukes to stop?"

      And the writer even bashes the wrong game with wrong game! You don't splat Ocarina of Time with MGS. Nope! You need Final Fantasy VII to splat that. Duh. The writer obviously has no anti-Nintendo trolling skills at all and should stop doing that right now. There are rules to be followed, you know, otherwise it will just look

    • I find it amusing that it mentions the Gamecube numerous times, but the word 'Xbox' doesn't appear once...
    • Or you have other gems like:

      "Red Faction gave Half-Life's a run for it's money." - Granted it should have after 2 years. But instead, it was a mediorce shooter with a cool, destroyable environment. The only interesting thing was the Geo-Mod environment.

      It also considers Baldur's Gate a Diablo-esque game. Laugh. Dungeon Siege is Diablo-esque. D&D just isn't the same. But I doubt anyone that wrote the article bothered to think about that.

      Final Fantasy ##. We must fellate this series to no end. VII w

      • i think the point was that each game has something special that you should check out. not all of these games are excellent or system sellers or anything crazy like that, but they all have some aspect that another developer or someone in the industry looked at for inspiration at some point, or felt like upped the current ante for console games.

        case in point, no final fantasy x was not the best in the series, but it definitely upped the ante in terms of what to expect from a console. if im not mistaken, it wa
    • The list was clearly written by someone who knows nothing about the games they're writing about anyway. Just on the first page there were loads of glaring errors, my favourite is the one on Rage Racer which says "Nearly all of the excellent track details and designs from the arcade game made it into the home version". Rage Racer was never in the arcades and it wasn't based on Rave Racer either.

  • Oxymoronic (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Curien ( 267780 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @07:17AM (#14452846)
    An exhaustive list includes all possible values. An "exhaustive list" of the "top X" of something is an oxymoron.

  • I'm a gamer, but have been PC-only for the past 20-something years. Really. I haven't owned a console since the original Atari, since every time I've investigated the consoles, I haven't been impressed with the lack of enjoyable--to me--games. My impression of the consoles is that they cater pretty much exclusively to the "twitch" gamer, not to someone who prefers a more thinking-style of game. I like war games (traditional hex-and-turn-based, and RTS), some RTS (loved Homeworld, Ground Control, Close Comba

    • Get yourself a DS or GBA. Advance wars, any of them, are amazing. Fire Embelem is also worth every penny. You'll put 30-50 hours into it and in the end feel it's too short. There's also a Fire Embelem on the Gamecube, but that's a different system and more money. Stay way from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, it's so slow that you'll be too frusterated to play... even after you turn off all the exp. animations and the like.
      The DS is getting a vesion of Age of Empires.

      Other than that, a PS1 will serve up

      • Front Mission 2 through 4 are amazing tactical strategy/rpg games. I bought a PS1 and Front Mission 3 after playing the SNES emulation of Front Mission 1.

        I was about to call you a blasphemer when you started to trash FFT, but I guess the GBA version isn't as good as the ps1 version?
        • FFT PS1 was/is great. Massive customization, epic battles. That's what I need.

          FFT GBA was/is less than great. It's a good tactics game all around, but it doesn't come close to the PS1 version. There's tons of battles and items, but there is almost no customization. The five races can each have a 5-9 classes and there are abilities that they all share in one way or another. For instance, every race has a few classes that can stun/confuse/muddle/disable. Leveling is almost pre-set, but you can get faqs

      • SNES has Ogre Battle. N64 has Ogre Battle: Knights of Lodis (?). I hear anything from Nippon Ichi is pure bliss as far as Tactics-type strategy games go.

        And the DS AoE is going to be turn-based. I'll reserve judgement on that one until I play it. I think it could go either way.
      • "Disgaea: Hour of Darkness" and "La Pucelle: Tactics" are two nice strategy games by Nippon Ichi for the ps2, in the vein of "Ogre Tactics" but with his own anime flavor.
    • We are very similar in our past gaming history. I left the Atari console behind and never looked back. I've been C=64/PC-centric since I was 14, however I will disagree that there are no good games for consoles. Personally, I think your and my problem was not looking at the PS2. Recently, I saw a demo for Shadow of the Colossus, and that hooked me right then and there. Then, I discovered the RPGs for PS2. I'll always play RTS and FPS on the PC, but RPGs are really good for the PS2. Given that it take
  • I know i'm not supposed to like 2d games any more, but I'm bored of FPS (quake, duke, BF2 etc) and car chase/race games. Can anyone recommend some good scrolling (don't care whether its horizontal or vertical) shooters for the pc (don't care if they're native or emulated). Any era, old or new games - something stupid, fast and fun.

    defender (arcade)
    datastorm (amiga)
    swiv (amiga)
    raiden (arcade/psx)
    r-type (arcade) is ok but a bit slow.

    I like the look of some of the pc-engine stuff - any recommendations. Perhap
    • Shmups ("Shoot-Em-Ups") are my favorite genre of game:

      My MAME recommendations mainly focus on cult shmup developer CAVE:

      Dodonpachi (Manic Bullet Hell!)
      Progear No Arashi (Side Scroller with Laputa-inspired artwork)
      ESP.Ra.De (Psychic Teenagers!)
      Guwange (absolutely beautiful Medieval Japan setting)
      Dangun Feveron (Disco-themed space shooter!)

      all of these games are hard but are in fact beatable in a single credit if you put in enough effort. Personally, I can usually only one-credit clear the first 3 to 5 stages
    • Ikaruga for the gamecube. Best vertical shooter i've played in probably 10 years.
    • Check out Xenon 2 : Megablast (I have it for Atari ST, I think it's on PC & Amiga too).
    • Jets n' Guns
      Tyrian (requires DosBox)
      Star Monkey

      Also, look up a guy named Kenta Cho, he has some awesome free stuff he wrote on his site. His last game, GunRoar, is really great. There's another good free game called End Effector, though I can't recall its author.

      And if you have a PS2 around:
      R-Types (PS1)
      R-Type Delta (PS1)
      R-Type Final (PS2)
      Gradius III & IV (PS2)
      Gradius V (PS2)
      Castle Shikigami 2 (PS2)
      Silpheed (PS2)

      I highly recommend Jets n' Guns, Gradius V, and Castle Shikigami 2; the others are pretty
      • is Castle Shikigami 1 repackaged for the US. I've heard the foobared the story, but the gameplay should be intact, and it's dirt cheap off ebay.
        • Mobile Light Force (PS1) is Gunbird 1.
          Gunbird 2 is on the Dreamcast.
          Mobile Light Force 2 (PS2, with the same awful box art as MLF 1) is Castle Shikigami 1.
          Castle Shikigami 2 is on the PS2.

          The story of Shikigami 1 isn't foobared, its just gone. Entirely. Though as you say, the gameplay is intact and the game is dirt cheap off ebay. So is Shikigami 2. I've got them both, and I'd say that 1 has better bosses, but the engrish story in 2 is hilariously awful, and sorely missed in 1. Though if the story in 2
    • Well, the PC-Engine is the unquestioned king platform for shooters. Some remarkable classics would be:

      Gate of Thunder
      Lords of Thunder
      L-Dis
      Cotton
      Air Zonk
      Soldier Blade
      Download 2
      Spriggan mark 2
      Sidearms Special
      Darius (for the best non-arcade version) ...just as a primer.

      Many others come to mind for other systems though...
      Mars Matrix (Dreamcast)
      Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)
      In the Hunt (Saturn/Playstation)
      Darius Gaiden (Saturn)
      all of the Darius games on the Genesis
      Steel Empires (Genesis)

      Come to think of it, just dro
  • When Peter Molyneux called Lara Croft a "believable heroine."

    That was enough for me.
  • It says:

    OMP's Essential 100: PS1, PS2, and PSP Games You Must Play Before You Die from 1UP.com


    Hmmm.... 1UP.com has been making me feel a little light headed lately...

    ...I think I'm going to lie down.
  • I could quibble about a couple choices, but all in all, it's a pretty solid list.

    I'm sure everyone will find one or two games they think don't deserve to be there, but that's the nature of the beast.

    I have to check over lunch to see if I still own a copy of Bushido Blade...

    Jon Acheson
  • Perhaps a minor nitpick, but Final Fantasy Tactics wasn't nearly the first tactical/simulation RPG. The Tactics Ogre and Fire Emblem series preceded it (by one and two generations, respectively), and there were plenty of similar games on the PC, too (check Spiderweb Software's Exile/Avernum series).
    • Definitely not the first, but the original is one of the best that I've played. Granted, I haven't played much in that genre. But I wasn't too much of a fan of the way TO had your team all move, then the opposing team all move. I liked the way FFT interlaced every characters' movements.
    • Perhaps what they meant to say was "First and best tactical RPG on PlayStation in North America" :-)

      (Shining Force was also out way before as well, possibly the first to be released in English?)
    • I was disappointed that Disgaea didn't find a spot on the list.

      I'm not typically a compulsive videogame buyer. I don't have a lot of free time, so I like to read reviews and learn more about the game before I buy it. However, the first time I saw someone playing Disgaea, I knew that I immediately had to own it and play it.

      The visuals are wonderful, the story is humourous and endearing, the music is some of the best I've heard in a videogame, and the gameplay is fantastic. It's my favourite game for the PS2,
    • Dark Wizard for the Sega CD was a pretty damn cool one too. A much larger selection of units, with each of 4 characters getting their own selection.
    • I agree, not the first, but still so far, in my experience, the best, and I devour Tactical RPGs.

      Superior Story, Superior Gameplay, Excellent Customization, it's a hard game to beat. The FF license is just gravy.

    • it wasnt the best, and the graphics were kinda muddy, but vandal hearts for ps1 was amazing IMHO. there was something special about some of the level design that i havent seen since. i probably sucked now going back, but it was the first time i saw a multistory deathtrap level lowering characters to their doom in a pit of lava. quite impressive scene. it would be interesting if the metal gear acid series too a cue from VH.

      the first final fantasy tactics is still king in my book though. would love to see fft

  • The ONLY? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chrismcdirty ( 677039 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @01:29PM (#14455697) Homepage
    "Lara Croft is the only videogame character to have achieved international-cultural-icon status"

    I believe Pac-man was an international cultural icon 15-20 years before Lara Croft. Add to the list Mario, Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, and Frogger, at least. I'd be willing to bet more people recognize Pac-man than they do Lara Croft. Most people likely see Lara Croft as Angelina Jolie these days.
  • Tomba on the PS1 and God of War on the PS2 are the only 2 games I don't have in my collection which would happen to be exclusive and that I would be interested in. My PS2 game collection is around 40 titles; none of them are EA titles or games which are out on other platforms, but not many of them are super must haves (except ones like ZOE2 and the DDRs) -- because the PS2 does not get as many must-haves as the GameCube (to a gamer of my tastes).

    The majority of the non-EA games, such as Soul Calibur 2 and
    • The majority of the non-EA games, such as Soul Calibur 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 3, have versions on other platforms which are superior.

      You obviously missed the point. This list is not claiming that the PS2 version of Soul Calibur 2 is the best version of the game across all platforms. It's claiming that Soul Calibur 2 is one of the top 100 games available for some Sony platform, period.

      It is redundant to list Soul Blade when the Dreamcast had both Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Soul Calibur.

      Wrong. Drea

  • Not that anyone is obligated to care but...

    Ridge Racer: I know this game has a huge following but why does anyone even care in a world with Gran Turismo one through n? Ridge Racer has some of the worst physics I've seen since Out Run.

    Wipeout: It's perfect to put this right next to ridge racer since these two games have the same stupid problem: hitting the wall (or in RR, the curb) at all makes you slam to a stop. They fixed this problem in Wipeout XL, and you can ride the walls very well by drifting. Incide
    • I can understand saying that FFT begs to be portable, but there is really no comparison between FFT & FFTA. FFTA was a major disappointment. I felt cheated after I'd beaten it. FFT is better than it in every single way. Well, no, the original is better in all but one way. The original isn't portable. That's the only good thing FFTA had going for it in comparison.
  • I thought most gamers were already 'well rounded' from sitting down while playing the games.... with the exception being the DDR freaks :P
  • When the first thing you think of when you hear OPM is The Office of Personnel Management [opm.gov]. Wow, those guys do gaming too? They probably pwn at Roller Coaster Tycoon.

    But I bet they go home, play Splinter Cell, and secretly wish they worked for another three letter agency.

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