Odin Sphere

If you should take away anything from the last few days of this weeklong anniversary feature, it’s that the PS2 is damn near unstoppable. 10 years after its North American launch, the thing is still on store shelves, with new games still produced every so often. But while the PS2’s story doesn’t end with 2006 or 2007, these were the years when the PS3 debuted and rose to prominence, and the industry’s interest was correspondingly pulled toward current-gen, HD-enabled consoles.

Even with increasing competition from the new breed, though, the PS2 still had a few massive hits left in it – just not as many as we’d gotten used to. So, rather than stretch 2006 and 2007’s relatively thin PS2 lineups out over two days, or drag things out into the PS2’s increasingly dry twilight years (post-2007, it’s been tough to find 10 decent PS2 games, let alone 10 great ones), we’re going to finish out our recognition of the black box's best with the collective bang of the last two years it spent at the front of the pack...

Bloc Party's song "Helicopter" can make anything amazing, but it didn't have to work too hard during the tram-ride sequence in Getting Up. Say what you will about the game, but frantically leaping between four aerial cable cars and shimmying around their edges to spray paint a single giant message - all while dodging machinegun fire and tossing riot cops - felt overwhelmingly badass the first time we did it.