What are some of your fondest PS2 memories?

- I remember getting up everyday real early before middle school to get an hour or 2 of FFX in until I beat it.

- The first time I saw MGS2 at my friends house, I thought games had reach it's pinnacle. I could not believe how cinematic it was and the little visual and gameplay details were simply jaw-dropping.

First time i played GTA III. It's what magic is made of.

@Pr1mus: How could I forget. I played GTA 3 and Vice CIty obsessively!

The mirror roads in GTA3. I don't care if it was probably a disc read error. It still looked cool.

The very first day I got my PS2, just watching my little sister mess about with a Klonoa demo and watching a trailer for MGS2. I couldn't believe how realistic the characters were moving in Devil May Cry. The very first time I juggled one of those puppets in the air with my sword and my guns was pretty magical.

That time I beat Jak 2... fuck that game! (<3 Jak 2)

Trolling the guards in MGS2 is fun even to this day. I also have fond memories of FFX and DMC1 and 3.

Opening it and playing GTA III and playing it for 10 hours and then realizing this was something amazing that was happening in my life.

Loading up MGS2 for the first time, fucking amazing.

@GunstarRed: DMC1 was sooo badass.

@liquiddragon: I bought the console for it, I ended up getting insanely good at it.

Realising that if I never played another game apart from Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, I'd still die a happy man

Playing Hot Pursuit 2. We would always just do free drive on the first stage and see who could last longest without getting busted by the cops.

Bought one just to play Persona 4 and Ys 6... Sad I know, but it's true.

As for a good memory, finding out how long it took me to finish P4.

God of War. The first time I saw Ares in the background during the Athens level was pretty crazy. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 was awesome. And I first played Rez on the PS2.

I would also say Okami, but just because it was so visually stunning when I first got to play it. (After the 2 hour cutscene.....)

EDIT: I forgot about Twisted Metal: Black! It wasn't at all a great game in terms of the combat, but those personalized stories were creepy to me at the time. I think the best one was between Mr. Grimm and Dollface.

This has just reminded me how fucking rad the ps2 was

My friend rented a copy of MGS2 and he brought it over to my house to play and I didn't really know what MGS was I only knew it by name. He was up to the part where your guiding Emma through the submerged portion of the plant when he brought it over and just watching him as he went through the rest of the game up to where he's taking on 3 Metal Gear Rays at once just blew my mind and I had to get me that game.

Playing Rachet and Clank:Deadlocked with my best friend over and over and over again.

Playing Persona 3 for the first time

Playing Persona 4 for hours at a time

Making stupid story lines with my friends as we played any Naruto fighting game

Bringing home Dragon Quest VIII playing it for three weeks straight during summer break. Best summer ever.

Ico. Period, end of post.

A relative accidentally bought me MGS2 for Christmas one year and I wound up exchanging it (I didn't know anything about the game at the time and my parents weren't fond of me playing M rated games) for a copy of Ratchet and Clank on a whim. I was totally blown away.

I think I played through that game and its sequels at least a half dozen times each (and that's a conservative estimate, I'm pretty sure I played through UYA at least a dozen times). My enthusiasm for those games as a kid was probably only rivaled by the early Pokemon games.

I got a PS2 for Christmas the year after it came out I believe. It came bundled with Jak and Daxter and it was the coolest fucking thing ever. All of my memories from playing the Jak series are great, which is why it's one of my favorite franchises. Playing Onimusha and Max Payne for the first time was incredible for me, too. Basically any time I would have a sleepover with the friend and we would play games all night. THPS3 I am especially fond of in that regard.

Shadow of the Colossus, FFX, Ico, Odin Sphere, San Andreas, God of War, Valkyrie Profile 2, MGS3, Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4, DQVIII, Maximo, and motherfucking God Hand. Too many great memories to pick just one.

But OK, here goes. One of the most standout moments would be me and 3 of my buddies calling all over town to find a copy of God of War to rent the morning it launched (I'd just read the review in EGM and knew it was going to be something special), finally coming up with one, rushing it back to the house, and then all of us ripping through it in my living room in one sitting, each of use passing the mic when we got killed. It was 12 of the most intense, visceral hours I've ever spent gaming. And all my homies there to share in it. Doesn't get much better than that.

Playing Persona 3, my favorite game of all time.

also hanging out at my friends house and fucking around in Vice City.

@OneKillWonder_: I had so much fun with Onimusha also! Shit looked photo-realistic back in the day. Ending demon lives when they were down? priceless.

I got San Andreas for my 17th birthday and carried it around for two years before getting around playing it. During summer 2008 I lived in a dorm and played it from start to finish over two weeks on a borrowed television. I got as concentrated a dose of that awesome game as could have been had, and I will never forget it.

My fondest memory has to be when I was in fifth grade and got a Playstation 2 for Christmas, along with Final Fantasy X. My goddamn mind was blown.

Opened up my sole Christmas present, which was a BIG box. It was a PS2 with a couple of games that my mom bought for us - SSX Tricky, Summoner, and... Klonoa 2, I think. Either way, we played SSX Tricky together all day.

Shit makes me emotional.

I didnt buy a PS2 until very late in the cycle, but it was for one reason, and one reason only...Shadow of the Colossus and Resident Evil 4.

Waking up at two in the morning to sneak some Final Fantasy X before school started.

Dark Cloud, Shadow Hearts, Shadow of Destiny, FFX, Kingdom Hearts, Silent Hill 2 and GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas.

Of course I played a lot more than that, but those are the games I poured a lot of hours into.

@me3639 said:

I didnt buy a PS2 until very late in the cycle, but it was for one reason, and one reason only...Shadow of the Colossus and Resident Evil 4.

That's like 2 reasons.

Playing The Warriors co-op and making gangs with my friends, and finishing Red Dead Revolver sixty-two times. Good times.

Shadow of the Colossus, when you are fighting Gaius and you have to wait until the guy tries to squish you with his skyscraper sized sword and you have to bloody climb on the thing.

Shadow of the Colossus, when you are fighting Avion and you have to wait until the 747-sized bird charges at you at full speed so you can jump on it.

Shadow of the Colossus, when you are fighting Dirge, a hovercraft sized worm on speed, where you have to ride your horse around in full speed, turn around 180 degrees so you can shoot an arrow in its eye.

Shadow of the Colossus, when you are fighting Phalanx, which is a flying giant fucking bridge of a creature and you have to stand on your horse to try and climb on it.

Yep, there is a pattern here.

Also hitting the Devil Trigger for the first time in Devil May Cry blew me away, it was like playing the game as one of the bosses.

Using the brush as a weapon in Okami and slicing fools in half was also titsawesome.

Playing Tiger Woods 2002 with suite mates in college. Having my room mates friend from home visit and turn off the PS2 while it was saving and corrupt all our data...that marked the end of Tiger Tiger woods Y'all

Staying up all night to beat MGS 2 in one sitting with another friend.

Guitar Hero 1 + 2. Such a blast playing it in college.

SSX. MGS2 trailer. I had the trailer on VHS and probably watched it over 100 times. I made my family watch it.

Got my playstation 2 christmas 2001 along with 007 Agent Under Fire, soon after my brother picked up GTA 3, never looked at a video game the same way since.

The Metal Gear Solid 2 demo that came with Zone of the Enders. Played through that so many times.

@liquiddragon said:

- The first time I saw MGS2 at my friends house, I thought games had reach it's pinnacle. I could not believe how cinematic it was and the little visual and gameplay details were simply jaw-dropping.

Not incorrect, there's a reason it's the greatest game ever created.

Playing through MGS3 and basically telling my family to shut up and leave without me to my grandparent's house because I was knee deep in the ending cutscene. Also me and my brother playing through the entire Ratchet series together, one of the rare times we played games together helping each other out or just watching one another play through. I can go on and on about fond PS2 memories, my favourite console of all time.

The PS2 was coming out at the time I had decided to really get back into video games. (By the time my brother and I had gotten the SNES, I'd found other things to occupy my time.) 
I picked one up within the first couple weeks of launch, and signed up for the PlayStation Underground. Through the Underground, I was lucky enough to be selected as a beta tester. I got to test the Network Adapter (and got one to keep for free afterward) and a bunch of games with online functionality. 
I still have all the beta discs somewhere. I can't remember all the games, but I definitely remember Frequency, and SOCOMs I - III. Then there was SLAI, and Everquest Adventures, and Auto Modellista, and some others.

My best friend and I played Dark Cloud 2 religiously in college for the fishing and golfing minigames. He wasn't at all into RPGs, so this was his first (and likely last) foray into them. Those aren't just some of my favorite PS2 memories, but some of my favorite memories, period.

Guess FFX and FFXII, mostly what i played and remember immediately from the PS2

Shadow of The Colossus. All of it.

Launch day. I played SSX all night long and watched the MGS2 trailer like 50 times.

Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and RE4. Mostly because I played those game at university with my newly found Japanese friend. We sat there all night in the lounge playing on that 20" TV in a dormitory in Canada, He from Japan and I from Sweden, bonding over our love for video games. Even if I have a much bigger TV, better sound, better consoles and all that I'd like to just be there again taking turn playing one of those games. He also had a Japanese PS2 so I got to play some games in Japanese but it was still fun.

I still play on my PS2 every now and then. The Shadow Hearts games and Dragon Quest 8 are what I have played lately.

Red Faction multiplayer. To this day, the best destructible environments in a game. Me and a friend would spend hours just tunnelling through through the map.

@EVO: haha same here. I have no idea if the multiplayer was any good, I was too busy digging caves to actually try it.

GTA 3, Grandia 2, MGS 3, ZOE 2, Maximo oddly enough... and a little Japanese Fighter Called Melty Blood.

So many good memories with the PS2 what I remembered the most is a more recent memory of 3 weeks marathon through persona 3 FES and persona 4 in 09. Pretty all I did was eat sleep and play lol, skipped quite a few classes back then. Ended up with 80hrs on persona 3 and 90hrs on persona 4. Haven't spend nearly as much time playing any game that long since.

The moment I played God Hand for 8 hours straight. That shit is the stuff.

Playing Persona 3 and 4 for the first time. I'll be damned if those moments weren't filled with joy and excitement.

Shadow of the Colossus

So many memories...