Launching in Japan, the US, and Europe across
the year 2000, the PlayStation 2 looked to continue the astounding momentum generated
when Sony exploded into the console market a few years prior. But could they continue to dominate? Yeahhhh, you know what, I reckon they could. To Wikipedia! Launching at a price of £299 US Dollars,
the PS2 would become the best selling home console of all time, totalling around 155
million units sold. Approximately 3,800 games were released for
the system, with software sales hitting the 1.5 billion mark. It also had a built in DVD player, was backwards
compatible with PS1 games, and could be connected to the internet for certain games. Did alright then. The PS2’s runaway success could well be
attributed to a weakened Nintendo, a market newcomer in Microsoft’s Xbox, and the departure
of Sega, but to focus solely on that and to ignore the strong and expansive library of
titles to be released on the console would be a disservice. So today we’ll be looking back at where
it all began. Specifically the US launch line-up. I’ll be playing them, and sort of reviewing
them as we go. Are you ready? Then let’s do this. Hey it’s FromSoftware, we know that one! Armored Core 2 is a mech 3rd person shooter. In other words, you’re in a giant robot
and shoot other giant robots and also you have a laser sword. In this universe, humanity has bombed itself
into subterranean living in the wake of an event called The Great Destruction. However, upon discovering a secret project
on mars, humanity’s back baby! And they’re getting right back to what they’re
best at: trying to kill each other again. Assuming the role of a mercenary, it’s time
to join in the killing, and you get your very own mech! TripleJump colours, obviously, and you can
even swap out parts to customise your fighting machine AND create a custom emblem. Unfortunately, as a newcomer, the controls
are WEIRD. OH GOD HOW DO I PLAY. You use the d-pad to move and shoulder buttons
to strafe/look up and down respectively. Very normal. Armored Core 2 earned a review average of
78% on Metacritic, with Game Informer's Andrew Reiner calling the lighting effects and environments
"absolutely incredible". An enhanced edition of the arcade and Dreamcast
version released earlier that year, Dead or Alive 2 Hardcore is a fighting game and would
you look at that, my favourite tiny pink ninja returns, but boy is she enthusiastic about
it. WOAH, ALRIGHT MATE OH JESUS CHRIST. The main thrust of the story in this instance
is that the dreaded evil tengu gohyakumine bankotsubo is trying to break into the human
world. Fortunately for all of you, tiny pink haired
ninja absolutely pulled his trousers down for the world to see. Annnd, that’s it. Roll credits, 7 minute game, speedrun confirmed. Only messing, of course there’s still plenty
to do, like take part in tag battles! A focal point of another fighting game we’ll
touch upon later. DOA2 Hardcore is a very pretty game greatly
benefitting from Sony’s new hardware, and I was a big fan of booting people off buildings
and ledges. Great stuff. A massive 91% on Metacritic. THIS IS NO PLACE FOR A BABY, but my god if
Dynasty Warriors intros don’t just nail it with the bonkers, I have to assume, period-appropriate
rock music. For many, including myself, Dynasty Warriors
2 on the PlayStation 2 was my first exposure to this series, and if you don’t enjoy wading
into a crowd of enemies and sending them flying with absurd weaponry, then buddy you ain’t
living. The classic die nasty formula is present and
accounted for: kill lots of differently coloured boys, kill the gate captains, kill the special
named enemies, rinse and repeat. It’s simple, but extremely effective. It was also hugely impressive to have quite
so many enemies on screen at one time. Yeah there’s that permanent fog of war obscuring
the environment, but it does nothing to detrimentally impact the experience. While you can ride a horse, which is an undeniable
necessity in every game, most critics took issue with the game’s lack of depth. Next Generation awarded it 60%, saying “the
gameplay is strictly old-school. Fun but not terribly deep",with the final
average settling on 75% according to Metacritic. Oh yeah, here we go, sports time! I’ve played an athletics game before and
I’ve also watched athletics, but even so, I’m going to give this everything I’ve
got! Oh yeah here we go sports time shirt and 69ers
pin available now at triplejumpshop.com. Please. It took us a while but it’s worth the wait! In the year 2000, there was an Olympics. And there was an Olympics game. Sod that! Screamed konami. Let’s blow the dust off the last gen version
of international track and field instead. As such, all of your favourite athletics events
are present. I was bad at every single one. In the 100m I failed to start running – I
mean, what’s he even doing back there. My pole vaulting attempts started poorly and
slowly progressed. I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong! Come on, YES! OH F*CK YOU. Go big or go home. Home, we’re going home. Oh, he’s doing it! He’s done it! 9th place. Piss off. Now this has got to be my calling. Screw the judges, that was a once in a lifetime
performance, and they’re all jealous. 72% on Metacritic. Oh, and sleep tight, don’t let the emulator
glitch runner bite. HE’S COMING. Oh yeah, here we go, sports time! I’ve played a snow-based sports game before,
but I’ve never watched snow sports, so I’m going to give this everything I’ve got! ESPN Winter X-Games Snowboarding 2002, or
ESPN Wintā Ekkusu Gēmuzu Sunōbōdingu 2002 if you wanna get Japanese per Wikipedia about
this, is, unsurprisingly, a snowboarding game, and would you look at ESPN desperately trying
to cover ALL of the sports this console launch season. A few different modes are included, with a
career mode featuring a free roam mountainous environment and a very strange ski lodge where
you turn into a roblox character for some reason? Regardless, you create a custom guy OR GAL
for this mode, and can kit them out with various branded gear. FOR MONEY. On the flipside you can board it up in downhill
races, however the controls are a little stiff, and caused me to JUST miss this gate here. Bollocks, that. I was equally rubbish at doing tricks in the
snowy halfpipe. Aaaand smashed into the floor loads while
doing tricks downhill. While ESPNWXGS seems to hold a nostalgic spot
in many people’s hearts, it earned 64% on Metacritic, with Game Informer calling it
“sufficient, but the gameplay is just pretty blah”. Looky here! Another FromSoft title, and this one’s a
little more in line with what we’ve come to expect from the studio that makes players
cry on the regular. In fact, when I was researching this game,
I thought Elden Ring had ripped off the name! Same dev mate... dingus. Speaking incredibly broadly, Eternal Ring
is about a dragon horny for a magical ring,wahey, and also people want it too. It provides way more story context than we
normally get though. It’s a first person dungeon crawler and
oh boy is the combat a big wonky. Much like the developer’s other launch title,
movement and steering is locked to the left stick, with the shoulder buttons controlling
strafing and looking up and down. Feels very natural, and very normal. There’s a lot of Souls DNA in here though. The forbodingatmosphere, sparsely placed save
points, picking up grass off the floor. Hell, it might not say YOU DIED, but if you
even so much as touch the water you’re absolutely cooked. Back to the main menu with you. OH JESUS. Eternal Ring might not feature the refinement
we’ve come to expect from the SoulsBorne developer, but it’s certainly a curiosity
that’s well worth revisiting by fans of their later games. 62% on Metacritic. OHOHO, YOU THOUGHT THEY WERE DONE? FromSoftware are back at it again on the PS2
with a record (in this series of videos at least) 3rd launch title. An action RPG featuring dual protagonists
you can swap between, Evergrace is another wonky effort from the big FS, and much like
a lot of their pre-Demon’s Souls work, features a fair amount of the DNA we’ve come to know
and love in later games: weird NPCs, stamina system for attacks and running, strange, unhelpful
lore… wearing pots. There are some nice design choices, with equipped
armour actually displaying on the character model, and little brain teasers like this
statue that hinted I’d need to unequip my weapons to pass. The voice acting is not good, and falling
off cliffs is very easily achieved – as well as being booted back to the main menu
afterwards – but I’d say Evergrace is closer to Demon’s and Dark Souls than Eternal
Ring. It’s honestly quite shocking how a studio
could have 3 games in concurrent development for a console launch, but when you look at
the review scores, it all starts to make a lot of sense. 59% on Metacritic. At least I wouldn’t make the cliff mistake
a second time. One of PlayStation’s greatest oddities,
FantaVision is a puzzle game-cum-firework simulator designed to show off the PS2 and
stress test your emulator. Just look how much fun this little girl is
having! I bet you wish you were having that much fun! Well you can’t, for the innocent joys of
youth are far behind you. BUT HOW DOES IT WORK? I WILL TELL YOU PLEASE STOP SHOUTING. Controlling a little guide thing, you zip
between fireworks of the same colour, linking 3 or more before detonating them for points. You can even hop onto a rainbow firework to
chain into different colours and get those crazy combos. And… that’s sort of it, really. It’s addictive, a visual treat, and incredibly
satisfying when you chain together large numbers of fireworks before making them do a big old
explode, collecting power ups along the way. There’s a versus multiplayer mode too, but
I don’t have any friends, so going solo will have to do. 72% on Metacritic, with NextGen’s Eric Bratcher
calling FantaVision: "a visually arresting cousin of Missile Command masquerading as
a puzzle game.” Bloody stupid mech games. Bloody stupid mech games with bloody stupid
mech names. It’sgungriffon blaze everyone. I’m biased. I don’t getmech games, but I’ll come right
out and sing gungriffon blaze’s praises: it is better and more fun than armoured core
2. Is that a controversial statement? Probably, but this is the hill I will die
on. Anyway, the weird mech controls return, this
time having the right stick handle moving and strafing with the left stick steering,
however once that confusing hurdle is overcome, you can slide around all over the shop like
a super duper robot king or queen. Customise your mech with different weapons
and buffs, explode buildings, tanks, and other mechs, and if you, like me, have suffered
through mandatory workplace training seminars, you’ll be able to relate to the exuberant
training completion celebrations. I also enjoyed that, instead of being a lone
wolf, you get the opportunity to charge in alongside your fellow mech team mates, blowing
everything in sight to pieces. I have accomplished my object. 73% on Metacritic, and it was even nominated
for IGN’s best PS2 action game of 2000 award, ultimately losing out to another launch game
we’ll get to shortly. OH YEAH, HERE WE GO, SPORTS TIME! I’ve played an American football game before
but I’ve never watched American football, so I’m going to give this everything I’ve
got. The San Francisco 69ers are back in sports
time action today, but what do the sports charts have to say? Ah yes, of course. Here come the block men! Now in groundbreaking PS2 vision, and, oh,
they’re phasing through one another, that’s fine. I spent a lot of time on defence this time
around, with very little, as they call it in the business, ball fondling time. As a result I actually found myself getting
a little frustrated. I conceded a touchdown and that was enough
for me thank you very much. There’s an option on the main menu for something
called Madden Cards, which upon googling, I’ve discovered “allow players to perform
certain actions during gameplay (for example, adding 5th downs, or limiting the CPU-controlled
team to 3rd downs)”. This will mean something to someone I’m
sure. Madden NFL 2001 earned an eye watering 91%
on Metacritic, with Next Generation calling it “a reason to own a PlayStation 2”. Astonishing. Oooh, time for some naughty car crime. Working as New York City taxi driver, the
player comes to learn of a secret group of underground street racers called the midnight
club and thinks, yes absolutely I must do this. And so, you attempt to climb the ranks, winning
racesand earning better cars across NYC and London, and let’s talk about these cities. Despite its relatively humble visuals by today’s
standards, Midnight Club: Street Racing has impressive scope. The cities are large and well realised, featuring
relevant landmarks and populated streets. And considering its status as a Rockstar-developed
title in a pre-GTA 3 world, you have to wonder if Midnight Club perhaps had an influence
on that game’s open world design? Maybe not, but you can run over pedestrians,
so it’s a 10/10 for me. The AI’s a bit rubbish and the stereotypes
are in full swing so that might explain why critics didn’t agree with me, awarding the
game an average score of 78% according to Metacritic. Come on, yes, YES! I WIN! But oh god at what cost. OH YEAH, HERE WE GO, SPORTS TIME! I’ve played a hockey game before but I’ve
never watched hockey, so I’m going to give this everything I’ve got. The block people are back! And they’ve brought some cardboard friends
with them. Aww, that’s sweet. GOAAALLLLL! I AM THE BEST AT HOCKEY AND DOING BIG HITS. Oh Christ look out here he comes. Despite my penguins’ valiant efforts I struggled
to follow up with a second goal, and it didn’t affect the team in the slightest. You alright mate? As we saw with Madden, annualised sports games
are uniquely positioned to showcase the leap between console generations. After all, they make one every year, so with
the last gen point of comparison only releasing a year prior, the differences should be quite
apparent, and this gets people VERY excited come launch day. They even leveraged the PS2’s extra power
to include Latvia and Ukraine in the national team line ups, so there you go. X-Play said of NHL 2001 “it’s not as flawless
as it could be, but it is damn close”, with the review average settling on 85% according
to Metacritic. Based on the light novel series Sorcerous
Stabber Orphen, Orphen: Scion of Sorcery is an, admittedly, quite ropey RPG with great
presentation. In fact, when I first booted it up and saw
the anime cutscenes and heard the strong voice acting, I had high hopes, but after sitting
through the approximately 12 hours of dialogue preceding gameplay, it wasn’t really worth
the wait. Also, as good as the voice acting is, the
character models do NOT do it justice at all. So with very little context, you’re stuck
on a boat, and a giant monster is attacking it. I made my way from room to room, sometimes
opening chests, often hearing more voice acting, before finally having my first encounter. There was no tutorial or crash course as to
the controls, but there was a button for lightning that I discovered through trial and error. The crystals appear to indicate health and
when damage is taken, you have a sort of short range blast thing, as well as a blocking shield
sphere? I think? Anyway it was all very odd, and soon after
you’re stranded on an island. Fun! 54% on Metacritic, with one critic calling
it “both frustrating and not very challenging at the same time”. Wow. Never has billiards ever been cooler. What a weird menu, I thought to myself. What is the relevance of a series of AV cables? But there was no answer, because this was
a very simple game about playing pool. And that’s it, genuinely. There’s nothing more to this game than playing
billiards, and so I’m not really sure how else to pad out this entry. It’s a game about pool that’s absolutely
bang average (65% on Metacritic), and the best critics could say is that “it’s certainly
worth a look”, which I’m sure you’ll agree is very high praise indeed. At the very least they included the functionality
to hit the ball with the power of ten suns. Just overkill really. Right, pack it up we’re just spinning our
wheels here, let’s move on. Look out! Ready 2 rumble boxing round 2 is here to punch
YOU right in the face. Michael Buffer, you know the let’s get ready
to rumbleeeeee guy, reprises his role, and I have very serious concerns about how he,
a real man, is existing in this hellish dimension of cartoonishly proportioned men and women. I mean, is it a looney tunes, space jam type
deal or… oh no he’s become one of them now. Right off the bat, these lady punch noises
are absolutely criminal. Who on earth heard that and thought, yeah
that’s fine it’s not offputting and crap at all get that in there! NOT THIS TIME THANKS. As previously, landing successful big punches
or taunting at the right time will reveal the word RUMBLE, allowing you to unleash a
devastating barrage. However this time you can fill it up 3 times
to hit a super duper combo that, I assume, just kills your opponent dead. Probably. There’s a championship career mode where
you can train and challenge for titles etc, but I was just a lumbering great target for
haymakers and so had little success. 75% on Metacritic. We’re running out of opportunities to use
that clip and I’m not passing this one up. It’s the beginning of the PS2 era and we’re
already on Ridge Racer 5. To put that into some kind of context, it
took 5 years to get to 6, an additional year to get to Ridge Racer 7, and we haven’t
had a numbered entry since. SHAME, because ridge racer is excellent and
pretty and good. Selecting a car and applying no customisation
options because I hadn’t unlocked anything, I entered a grand prix, sort of sliding around
corners to that signature thumping EDM, leaving my fellow racers in the dust. That is, while driving in 3rd person. In 1st person it’s a confusing nightmare,
a claustrophobic horror show with little sense of direction and no sense of subtlety when
drifting at speed. However, Ridge Racer V is a very pretty game
– have I mentioned that it’s pretty? It’s well pretty. Shiny cars reflect the environment around
them, and the tracks are dense and highly detailed – look at that plane go. A strong next gen debut with 78% on Metacritic,
but we all know the series has a lot more to offer. Come on Namco. Please. It might be amusing how challenging I found
the home port of silent scope if it were remotely amusing in any way, but like the heavily armoured
man once said, ain’t that a shot in the elbow? Silent scope in the arcade is a masterclass
of realising all your distanced killing fantasies. You get to point a big gun peripheral at a
screen, there’s no bullet drop off, and you’re timed in your efforts to take out
the baddies, virtua cop-style. Silent Scope on the PS2 however, is like trying
to have an arm wrestling match with an octopus covered in baby oil. Yeah, you PICTURE that. Naturally, at home, most people will be using
the thumbstick to aim. This is far more cumbersome than using a physical
lightgun attachment, especially when you’re trying to track a moving target, as seen here
with a terrorist evading the 69ers handily while the president’s daughter is slung
over his shoulder. I’M TRYING. It definitely has that enjoyable arcade cheese,
with the voice acting living up to the hype, but for me, it just doesn’t translate to
a gamepad. 63% on Metacritic. Our second rockstar-published game of this
launch line up, Smuggler’s Run saw you delivering naughty goods through a variety of environments
while avoiding the authorities and other like-minded gangs. Christ, it’s always crime stuff with these
guys isn’t it? What’re they like the rascals. Nipping across the landscapes collecting packages
can be quite the exhilarating experience, but for me, my hashtag crime career will last
precisely as long as the nice voice over lady keeps offering me encouragement. I WILL! I… what? The physics can be a little mental resulting
in weird harsh turns or violent tumbles, but it’s more fun that frustrating. Except when you’re in a race and EVERYONE
IS GOING THE SAME SPEED. HOW CAN I WIN I DON’T UNDERSTAND. Yes you can hit animals and pedestrians, and
yes it makes you a bad person. Smuggler’s Run didn’t exactly set the
world on fire, but it did steal the hearts of many an early PS2 adopter, awww. It earned an average of 79% on Metacritic
with Next Gen saying "A truly next-generation launch title, it's fast, fun, and free of
constraints – just the way we like our cross-country crime sprees." From what I can gather, the Street Fighter
EX series is a spin-off from the mainline games, and “was the very first attempt at
taking a popular two dimensional fighting game, and bringing the concept to three dimensions”. It began in arcades, and logically, Street
Fighter EX3 is the 3rd entry. Street Fighter aficionados I’m relying on
you here, does that sound right? I’m proper rubbish with fighting games,
but when you start affixing all manner of acronyms and spinning things off, you’ve
gone and left me in the dust there buddy! Anyway, it appears to be properly focussed
on “super” and “meteor” combos – once again leaning into my expertise – and you
can recruit new team mates for multi-person fights upon successfully beating the crap
out of them. Here’s Zangief joining mine! And here’s Zangief celebrating a win OH
MY GOD ARE YOU OKAY FRIEND? CALL SOMEONE HE’S GOING INTO SHOCK. Like a surprising amount of the PS2 launch
games, there is a tag battle element, but we’ll get to the true KING in due course. I also set up a 5 on 1 match in my favour,
and that was fun. It received an average of 64% on Metacritic. Brought to us by Volition, the saints row
people, I think it’s fair to say Summoner has not aged particularly gracefully. It opens with an impressively dense lore dump,
filled with fantasy RPG nonsense words like “the realm of medeva”, “emperor murod
of orenia”, and “THE RINGS OF SUMMONING”. As you can likely tell, Summoner is an action
RPG. Admittedly I didn’t play for long enough
to properly explore all of its nooks and or crannies, but I’d describe the combat as
Runescape-esque? In that you click attack and Joseph, your
main boy, will just do that until he wins, dies, or you tell him to do something else. It’s likely I’ve compared it to Runescape
because of its visual… “style” because, man. It panned behind a wall for this section of
dialogue. I’m sure you can tell from my tone that
this was not a game I enjoyed, but it did alright with the critics, securing a 74% average. Game revolution called it unoriginal with
subpar presentation, and Hot Games called it a great fantasy game. All I know is that I’m itching for some
sports time. OH YEAH, HERE WE GO, SPORTS TIME! I’ve played a golf game before but I’ve
never watched golf, so I’m going to give this everything I’ve got. Now I know what you’re thinking, and no,
this isn’t everybody’s golf. In fact Wikipedia goes out of its way to make
it clear that some light plagiarism is afoot. As a big fan of everybody’s golf, I was
optimistic, and you know what, presentation-wise, Swing Away Golf did a great job. The problem is that the swing mechanic – wahey
– is needlessly complex. It looks as you would expect, x to start,
x to confirm power, x in the sweet spot to confirm accuracy, but it all goes different
colours and I don’t know… I was bad. CAN YOU TELL? Fortunately there’s a lovely and encouraging
VO lady on hand to guide you through. You know, until she’s really unhelpful. Okay. WHICH IS IT? If you’re not very good, like me, there
is a very real risk posed to camera operators, but swing away golf served its purpose as
a competent everybody’s golf clone, and that’s okay. 78% on Metacritic. Oh, and David Bowie’s in it. It’s finally time to talk about the best
fighting game about crashing cars into one another that you’ve ever seen. While many of the launch fighting games have
featured tag battles, there’s only one that does it so so good, and that’s tekken tag
tournament. It looks great, it plays fantastically, you
can knock out men with their own knees and see it replayed several times for your own
sick enjoyment you sick person, ughh, you’re so sick stop it. Naturally I had to go with my boy, King, but
I really enjoyed switching between my fighters, tactically swapping out based on who had the
most or least health, and could get the job done. There’s just something so effortlessly cool
about Tekken, unlike a lot of the more complex fighting games, it just makes sense to me. I definitely mash buttons, but it makes you
feel and look really cool, and that’s to be commended. 86% on Metacritic, and reviewers were united
in their praise. Next Generation called tekken tag tournament
“densely packed, gloriously rendered, and very playable”, and GamePro were particularly
excited that you could see individual blades of grass! Welcome to the future. I love TimeSplitters, but like many, my adoration
stems from the second and third titles in the series. Developed by the core Rare team behind the
classic Goldeneye 007, however, could the newly-founded Free Radical Design really miss
with their debut outing? No, is the answer. While many things, including story, were polished
up for its sequels, the TimeSplitters DNA is present and accounted for here. The music, those menu select noises are here,
as is the ability to choose between several characters, mo capped enemies peering out
from behind cover and dying in spectacular fashion, highly interactable environments
like bashable gongs, as well as window shattering, arcade mode, and story missions. Admittedly the missions follow the same basic
structure: shoot your way into a level, grab an object from the level, then dodge the assaulting
timesplitters on your way to the exit, but it really was a precursor for what would come
in later games. There was even a rudimentary map maker for
use in local multiplayer. All things considered, and no jokes allowed,
TimeSplitters had issues, but its lofty ambitions were very impressive. Timesplitters achieved 81% on Metacritic and
was the winner of IGN’s action game of 2000 award. Now if Doak and the team would kindly bring
us another that’d be great! Oh, wonderful. Releasing close to a year after its groundbreaking
PC and Mac counterparts, Unreal Tournament didn’t fare quite as well on PS2. The bulk of the experience was present – several
game modes including capture the flag and death match, lots of powerful weapons that
turn enemies into exploding giblets, and labyrinthine levels to confound your fellow combatants
– but critics just weren’t as sold on the console port. Some complained of a more washed out colour
pallete while others bemoaned the wonky controls. I must agree with the latter complaint, as
while the auto aim is very handy, I did have to immediately go in and change my control
scheme around. Also, apparently the more experienced you
are, the bigger your head becomes? That’s how it works to be fair. It did support local multiplayer and PS2 iLink,
but naturally online play was a huge part of Unreal Tournament’s PC success – something
the PS2 couldn’t yet properly emulate. It was quite dull with only stupid AI for
company, but I did enjoy the weapons and their varying alternate fire modes. TAKE THAT. Definitely one to get your friends over to
fight about who peaked at who’s screen then, NO YOU DEFINITELY LOOKED WHY ELSE WOULD YOU
TURN 180 DEGREES ON THE SPOT? 77% on Metacritic. A game so wild they named it…twild, it’s
wild wild racing! And it’s FINE. It’s an offroad racing game pitting you
and a few other vehicles against one another with the aim of winning. If that sounds like I’m padding because
I don’t have much to say about it, then you’d be right. For the life of me I couldn’t work out how
to handbrake turn, or at the very least, turn into corners at anything resembling speed,
resulting in having to either smash into the outer walls or come to a complete stop. The collision is also weird. I hit another car and sort of got stuck on
them? And then hit an invisible wall while trying
to take a sick racing line. Good stuff that. It’s kind of ugly too, with a weird rotating,
parallax or whatever you want to call it – JUST what’s happening with that skybox? It makes me feel sick. Now I’m not certain, but is it the same
Voice Over guy from TimeSplitters? Probably not. Anyway, Wild Wild Racing should’ve been
called Mild Mild Racing and it earned 64% on Metacritic. Sliding on the ice courses was fun though. X-Squad is one of those games where all the
characters look like the shiny people from a late 90’s sega arcade game. It does however feature Judd Johnson, my favourite
character name ever. I would die for Judd Johnson. It’s a sort of action game spy thriller
with the ropiest voice acting you’ve ever heard. Genuinely love it. It’s just so bad. Camera controls are inverted by default which
should be a war crime, and thank god for auto aim. Couldn’t tell you what the plot is to be
honest, but gameplay essentially consists of shooting lots of the same man in repeating
hallways, pressing buttons, fighting comical bosses, and listening to more bad dialogue
delivered in the hammiest manner possible. When you get close to enemies your gun stops
working for some reason and forces you to start limply kicking instead, leaving you
open to attack from other combatants. It earned an average score of 64% on Metacritic,
and recently had the distinction of being featured on an episode of worst games ever. Is it one of the worst games ever made? Probably not, but it’s definitely worst
than most. And that 64% takes the average of the PS2
launch line up to 73.2%.
