PS2 Features

As internet speeds and digital storage gets cheaper and cheaper every year, downloadable games get closer and closer to matching the experiences provided by their retail counterparts. They also offer the chance for smaller development teams to experiment or stray off the beaten path; we doubt that EA would ever publish a game featuring a dead fetus is a power-up. They draw the line at killing unbaptized babies in hell thank you very much. And hey, there’s no better way to detox from a 100 hour Skyrim binge than with a quick, fun 5 hour game. In anticipation of our year end Platinum Chalice awards, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite 2011 downloadable titles across all platforms to help you separate the w00t from the chaff...

At the end of every year we get a new year – one that is numerically superior to its predecessor and brimming with new stuff to buy. But how do you know what to buy if all the shiny “best of” awards are given at the end of the year? You could spend your precious 365.24 days reading game reviews, but what are they compared to shiny metallic awards?

With E3 2010 barely 24 hours behind us, it’s hard to clear our minds and think about the biggest and best things we saw and played. In fact, the past four days are such a blur it was hard to nail down just four pages worth of all the awesome stuff on display. But, rather than sit around all weekend and wait for Monday, we dragged our tired asses in for one more meeting, figured out the most memorable stuff and got this thing ready to go.

The best part is, the result is so different from even our usual E3 awards lists. It’s full of a wide variety of games instead of shooters, shooters, and more shooters. So while we know Black Ops, Bulletstorm, Medal of Honor and Killzone 3 will be great games, the abundance of creativity from other sources stole the show. So, here’s what we loved...

Pac-Man and Mario owned the 1980s. Sonic, Lara and Snake took over for the 1990s. Their games are considered classics. Their names are timeless and iconic. Their images are burned into the memory of every gamer, even those who were born after the characters themselves.

Now we have another ten years worth of heroes, villains, sidekicks and love interests to occupy our imagination. Which, however, will remain there?

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...

Once a videogame hero has more than one or two adventures under his or her belt, it simply isn’t enough to just have an archenemy anymore. To keep things interesting, they need a foil, a rival, or some other angry opposite number obsessed with matching wits with them. Sometimes, those characters stick around long enough to make themselves an indelible part of the series, even going so far as to make friends with the protagonist – although more often than not, their friendships tend to be shaky at best, and even those involved might never fully admit to them. Relationships like that tend to make for gaming’s most enduring and interesting rivalries, and what follows are some of the most notable...