There's something about misguided attempts to amuse children that bring with them a unique streak of terror, and nowhere is that more apparent than with the noble clown. Intended to be a harmless jester with a painted face and a slapstick approach to life, the image of the clown has instead become associated with creeping dread and paranoid mistrust.
Videogame developers have tapped into this instinctive fear of clowns, and that's why the realm of interactive entertainment is chock full of nightmarish harlequins that haunt our dreams and ravage our days. You’ve probably been sleeping far too well lately, so why not keep yourself awake with thoughts of some of gaming's scariest clowns? Go on, they won't bite... except for the biting ones...
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Ten years ago today, Sony released what would go on to become the world’s best selling game console. With 140 million units in people’s homes and games released to this very day, it’s lived the longest and healthiest life of any games machine we can think of. But what made it such an unparalleled success? How did Sony leave all its competitors in the dust when so many of that generation’s biggest hits were multiplatform releases?
We can answer that, of course. But in doing so we also trumpet how truly amazing the system was, which makes this the perfect article to celebrate the most well-rounded console of all time...
By the time 2005 had rolled around, it looked like the beginning of the end for PS2. Critics started to refer to its once-impressive hardware as “aging,” and the Xbox 360 was gearing up to snatch away its crown and claim dominance over the next console generation. And because previous hardware cycles had lasted about five years, most assumed that the PS2’s days were numbered, and that the machine would be largely discarded once the PS3 finally hit.
Only now do we realize just how wrong we were to count the PS2 out so early. 10 years after its North American launch, it’s still getting games and moving units, if not exactly going strong. With the anniversary of that launch just around the corner, let’s take a look at the best of what we thought, at the time, would be the PS2’s final great year...
Sony seems to be on something of an HD remake kick lately. This week finally brought us long-awaited confirmation that the Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection will head our way sometime next year; with last year’s God of War Collection and the upcoming Sly Collection, that brings to three the number of classic PS2 series Sony’s retrofitting with 1080p visuals and Trophies, before re-releasing as budget-priced PS3 games.
This is a trend we can really get behind; as much as we love our old PS2 games, we can barely stand to look at them anymore. Give them a makeover so they don’t look crap on our new TVs, though, and we’re all over them. With that in mind, here are a few other series from the last generation we’d love to see resurrected for the modern age of HD consoles...
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