ps1 with lcd screen made in china

The LCD Screen (for PS one) is currently the only officially licensed monitor for the PS one that"s available on the retail market. There have been a few third-party manufactured PS one LCD screens that have seen their way onto retail store shelves thanks to companies such as Interact, Mad Catz and Electro Source, but until just recently we hadn"t seen one that came with the Sony seal of approval.

Does this really mean anything? Based on what we"ve seen of all the products, not really. The officially licensed moniker means a lot more when you"re dealing with things like memory cards and controllers because there"s a lot more reverse engineering going on because unlicensed third parties aren"t obliged to information about the console and how it works. But, in the case of an LCD screen for the PS one, it"s just a monitor that must work with the system"s output and be attachable to it. Not all that hard to do with or without Sony"s licensing.

At any rate, the Sony name generally stands for quality (let"s forget about the skipping PlayStations and the "Disk Read Errors" on the PS2 for a minute) and its official monitor, the LCD Screen (for PS one), is a top notch and well-built peripheral for the console.

When you pick up one of these units, you get yourself one of the LCD Screens, an AC Adaptor (the exact same kind that comes with the PS one unit), and an instruction manual. The screen is a 5" (diagonal width) Thin Film Transistor (TFT) liquid display and to the left and right of it you get 1 1/2 x 1 1/8 in 1.0 watt stereo speakers. Also on the front of the unit and below the screen you have button controls to adjust the brightness of the screen and the volume of the speakers.

The unit fits snuggly onto the PS one with the screws that are on its rear and looks completely stylish when mounted onto the console. It"s also extremely thin and lightweight, which really lends itself to being portable, which is what the screen and the PS one unit are intended to be.

The screen provides excellent video quality with very black blacks, very white whites and excellent color separation and overall picture quality. In fact, thanks to the reduced screen size and general clarity of the picture, most PlayStation games actually look better when being played on this PS one Screen than when played on a regular television set. It"s a lot harder to notice the low resolution of the textures and the general blockiness of polygonal models that are fairly common in most PlayStation games.

And despite the small size of the screen, you won"t experience any problems reading text in most text-heavy games like role-playing games. We were able to test Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX, Legend of Dragoon, and Vagrant Story and found that the text in each of those games were completely legible. With Vagrant Story, the font"s unique style made it a little less clear than the others, but still didn"t prove to be a problem. The only times that we noticed issues with reading text was during some end-game credits where the text size was much smaller than normal.

The speakers you get are probably about as good as you"re going to get with speakers of this size. Unless you have the volume turned all the way up, which will net you a crackling sound, the sound from the speakers is crystal clear. It doesn"t provide much in the way of bass, but that"s expected given the speakers. You do however get decent stereo sound and you will notice the separation between the two channels in games that support stereo sound.

Sadly, its AV IN jack is one that requires an SCPH-180 U AV connection cable that"s used to connect video equipment such as camcorders to the LCD screen and not standard stereo AV connections like you"ll find in some of the third party products. What this means is that you won"t be able to easily use this as a portable monitor for other consoles like the PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, and Xbox, which is something that is possible with some of the third party units.

Another complaint that we have is that it doesn"t come packed with a Car Adaptor, so you"ll have to buy Sony"s PS one Car Adaptor that will be sold separately when it"s eventually made available. It would"ve been nice to have this thrown in with the unit since it is something that you may find with other third-party monitors.

Even with the omissions, which include the lack of stereo AV input jacks and Car Adaptor this is a fine PS one peripheral that you really ought to consider picking up for your system if you"re looking to make it a little more portable. The monitor provides excellent picture quality and decent enough sound and looks stylish and extremely cute when attached to the PS one console. It"s currently priced at $129.99, so it"ll cost more than the unit itself, but it"s actually a decent price for a unit of this kind.

The original PlayStation almost didn’t happen. It was the result of a canceled collaboration between Sony and Nintendo, leading to somewhat of a feud in the mid-90s. In 1994, the PlayStation launched in Japan, giving its players a way to enjoy beautiful (at the time) 3D games using discs instead of the expensive price tag that came with cartridges.

With the launch ofPlayStation Plus, Sony’s new subscription service designed to rival Xbox’s Game Pass, many of these classic PS1 titles are going to be making their way to current-gen consoles.

The system’s library might not hold up as well as you’d remember, but there’s no denying its importance. In this list, we’ll go through 50 of the best PS1 games of all time.

The Castlevania series was over a decade old by the time Symphony of the Nightarrived. It was the franchise’s defining moment, as the game radically expanded the series’ platforming with RPG loot, progression and non-linear exploration, lending its suffix to the subsequent “Metroidvania” genre as a result. In previous Castlevania games, you controlled members of the vampire-hunting Belmont family. Symphony of the Night, however, revolves around Alucard, the lazily-named son of Dracula. To protect humanity from his father, Alucard sets out to slay the castle’s monstrous inhabitants. Symphony of the Night stood out immediately for bold choices like hiding more than half of the game behind a false ending. It used the CD format to make a massive game filled with rich, 2D sprites, rejecting the crude, early 3D the rest of the industry pursued at the time. One of the most influential action-RPGs of all time, Castlevania:Symphony of the Night is still just as satisfying to play now as it was 20 years ago.

Between Thief: The Dark Project on PC and Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation, 1998 was the year that modern stealth video games were born. A sequel to two lesser-known games from creator Hideo Kojima, you play as special ops soldier Solid Snake who infiltrates the hideout of a rogue unit threatening the United States with a nuclear strike. Snake has a variety of tools for evading and taking out guards, making it one of the most taut and tactical gaming experiences available at the time. The series has since spawned four more critically-acclaimed main entries and various spinoffs, radically expanding upon both its deep gameplay and Kojima’s baroque, nuclear mythology. But the first Metal Gear Solid remains an unassailable classic.

Before leading the team behind God of War, designer David Jaffe rose to prominence for his work on the PS1 vehicular combat series, Twisted Metal. Players take the wheel of various over-the-top armed and armored vehicles in a demolition derby taken to a post-apocalyptic extreme.  The cars and drivers — like the series’ iconic ice cream truck, Sweet Tooth, and Axel, a muscle-bound man straddling two truck tires — ooze personality even in the early polygonal days of 3D. Projectile weapons and power-ups scatter throughout arenas set in the ruins of major cities around the world. The first game included only a single-player campaign and co-op mode. The sequel expanded everything about it, throwing in more vehicles, more arenas, and more custom and multiplayer modes for just dropping in and enjoying the mayhem à la carte. A contractual dispute between Sony and developer SingleTrac led to other, less capable studios developing the subsequent sequels, making TM2 the peak of Twisted Metal for most fans.

An action-focused spinoff of the top-down RPG series Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver is a third-person action game from Crystal Dynamics who went on to earn acclaim with its reboot of Tomb Raider. You play as the ghostly vampire Raziel in the grim-dark fantasy world of Nosgoth. In its prime, players loved the game’s dark, compelling narrative, voice acting, and varied mechanics. One of its main conceits is the ability to swap between the physical and spectral realm at any time. Crystal Dynamics was unable to simply layer two different versions of the world on top of one another because of the console’s limitations, thus achieving the effect was no small technical feat. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is also notable as one of the first major games written by Uncharted series scribe Amy Hennig, now considered among the best game narrative creators in the business.

With their long-held mystique both within and beyond Japan, ninjas became a prominent figure in the early days of video games. In franchises like Ninja Gaiden, however, they’re translated into nimble, hack-and-slash fighters. Tenchu: The Stealth Assassinsbreaks that mold.  It’s one of the first games to truly embrace the ninja as a stealthy infiltrator. Instead of relying solely on weapons and reflexes, he must rely on his tools and wits to survive. Developed by Japanese studio Acquire, Tenchu is the feudal Japanese parallel to Metal Gear Solid’s nuclear melodrama. Failing a mission causes you to lose whatever tools you’re carrying, forcing you to be careful and deliberate when approaching each mission. Fantastical elements from Japanese mythology provide fun flavor, but in its time, Tenchu was the most fun because of how human and vulnerable you felt, making success all the sweeter.

Although somewhat overshadowed by Metal Gear Solid, Syphon Filter is another exceptional 3D, third-person action-stealth game for the PS1. Newbie developer Eidetic took equal inspiration from Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64, hoping to create a “super-spy” hybrid genre with stealth, action, and puzzles. The game received high praise during its peak but its legacy has not endured as strongly. Syphon Filter tells a gritty, contemporary, world-spanning story about special operatives facing off against biological terrorists. This story encompasses governments, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and conspiracies that extend to the top. It’s a pulpy and immersive plot, enhanced greatly by gameplay that’s a compelling balance of stealth and straight-up action. During the game’s prime, critics cued into its stellar A.I., a key requirement for good stealth games, which was among the most impressive in any game to date.

The original Ace Combat (released as Air Combat) flew as one of the first games released on the PS1, and it shows. Namco’s sequel, Ace Combat 2, is an improvement in basically every way. Ace Combat 2is an arcade-style combat flight simulator, meaning its overall design favors gameplay over simulation. It offers semi-realistic physics and the ability to carry far more missiles than the payload of an actual jet, though difficulty settings allow more hardcore players to fly with greater realism. Gameplay divides into relatively linear, objective-based missions. You can upgrade jets using resources that unlock based on how successful you were at destroying all targets.

Although the PS1 hosted some of the best conventional 2D Mega Man games, it was also the exclusive home to weird entries like Mega Man Legends. With only the main character in common (and a cheeky reference to how he’s named after a character’s favorite video game), Legends is set in an archipelago. The Caskett family of treasure hunters travels by his side as he journeys across the land and scours ruins for ancient machinery in search of the legendary Mother Lode. In addition to refining the run and gun mechanics (replete with a fairly deep crafting and customization system), the second game presents a much richer and more character-driven narrative than the structure typical to the core series of “hunt the bosses to get their powers.” The voice-acted cutscenes are particularly entertaining, feeling very much like watching an anime. It features memorable characters like your nemesis, the pirate Tron Bonne, who has a solo spin-off game released between two Legends entries. Capcom canceled the third Legends installment during its development.

Feudal Japanese weapon-focused 3D fighting game Bushido Blade is the most well-known game from Japanese studio Light Weight, and it’s still somewhat anomalous within the genre. Eschewing the convention of health bars entirely, character blows either cripple particular body parts or outright kill. This gives the game a rare degree of realism and a much more tactical and punctuated tempo. There are eight realistically simulated weapons and six characters with different stats, abilities, and proficiencies with each weapon. There’s also a stance-based fighting system, giving players various gameplay options. Unlike the discrete levels of conventional fighters, the game’s arenas are all inter-connected. This allows players to run and climb between them, using the environment to their advantage. Bushido Blade has one direct sequel and another similar title on PS2, but those smooth out some of its quirks too much for our taste. Other fighting games like the Soulcalibur series and more recently have explored weapons-focused “dueling,” but nothing has quite replicated what made the original Bushido Bladespecial.

Street Fighter set the bar for the best fighting games in the early 90s, but Tekken focused on brawling in 3D instead. This arcade-native franchise set the high bar for 3D fighters and perfected the formula with its third entry, Tekken 3. Previous entries made relatively little use of 3D depending on the character. Tekken 3, however, tones down the hyperbolic jumping and allows every character to easily sidestep around its opponent, opening up one of the most tactically complex and polished fighting systems in video games to date. Tekken 3 instantly became a classic thanks to its large and diverse character roster and truly impressive graphics for a console port of an arcade game. It still holds the honor of being the second-best-selling fighting game on any platform of all time, after only Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

While Tekken and Bushido Blade blazed new paths for fighting games in 3D, Capcom stuck to its roots with Street Fighter, the fighting franchise that started it all. Street Fighter Alpha 3 features a massive roster of 34 combatants drawn from the series’ whole history. It also introduces three different “isms” playstyles to the genre, changing the mechanics of how combos work and special moves charge up. While some felt that the 2D, sprite-based graphics dated the game, in retrospect, it looks great, and holds up magnificently well as one of the most comprehensive and refined entries in the Street Fighter franchise.

Capcom was on such a roll producing top-notch fighting games in the ’90s that it sometimes overshadowed its other excellent titles. The Darkstalkers series of 2D fighters is a cult and critical darling but had middling commercial success. Relatively standard (but solid) mechanically, the series is mostly recognized for its anime-meets-gothic-horror aesthetic, with characters like vampires, mummies, demons, and a yeti. The look was magnificently refined by the time Darkstalkers 3 arrived, with detailed and fluidly animated sprites that are among the best of the decade. First released in arcades, the game endured several character additions and balance changes by the time it arrived on the PS1 — all of which made it one of the fastest, fun, and charming fighters to play at home.

The original PlayStation was a fascinating, transitional period in game design, with a big uptick in processing power and storage opening up a whole new field of possible aesthetics to explore. The Oddworld games are a prime example. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee is a cinematic platformer in the tradition of Prince of Persia or Another World. You play as Abe, an enslaved member of the Mudokon race, leading a rebellion against corporate overlords plotting to make them a cheap food source. It’s grim satire for sure, but full of warmth, humor, and loving attention to detail. As Abe explores, solves puzzles, and avoids enemies, he must rely on his wits more than anything else given he’s liable to die without much effort. The sequel, Abe’s Exoddus, picks up right after the first game ends. It’s an improvement design-wise, offering quicksaves and more elaborate puzzles based on conversations with NPCs. A recent, well-received remake of the original shows that there’s still a lot to be enjoyed in this classic series.

The transition from 2D to 3D gaming produced a lot of interesting visual artifacts, but oddly enough, most developers didn’t think to try the intermediary style that’s grown more popular in recent years: 2.5D. With this method, the game engine renders action in 3D that’s largely constrained to a 2D plane. This Namco-developed platformer is set in Phantomile, a fantastical realm manifested from the dreams that people forget soon upon waking. You play as Klonoa, an anthropomorphic resident of Phantomile with a power-granting wind spirit that inhabits a ring. Gameplay is standard for the genre, with enemies, puzzles, and bosses spread out across themed levels. Praised by critics at its release, Klonoacan be hard to find now, particularly outside of Japan, but is fondly remembered as a solid and enjoyable platformer.

Released in 1995, one year before Super Mario 64, Jumping Flash! holds the honor (according to Guinness) of being the first truly 3D platforming video game. Presented in first-person, you play Robbit, a robotic rabbit exploring open levels to collect four MacGuffins (“jump packs,” in this case) to progress through its six themed worlds, each with a culminating boss battle after three levels. Robbit’s ability to triple-jump mid-air is the game’s mechanical focus, supplemented by various power-ups with classic effects like temporary invincibility, extending the level time limit, or increasing Robbit’s health. Although it was soon overshadowed by the flourishing of 3D platforming’s imminent golden age, Jumping Flash! is still an innovative and under-appreciated trailblazer.

In this third-person platformer you play Spike, a boy tasked with traveling through time and using a variety of gadgets to capture hyper-intelligent apes that meddle with history. Ape Escape was the first game to require the PlayStation’s DualShock controller before the now-standard vibrating two-stick model came stock with the console. Rather than using the right stick to control the camera, it’s used to manipulate the gadgets. Acclaimed at the time and fondly remembered since its debut, Ape Escape a seminal moment in platforming video games for both its cutting edge presentation and mechanics.

The PlayStation’s most memorable games tended to be immersive fantasies, yet there were a few exceptions more purely focused on gameplay. I.Q.: Intelligent Qube is a 3D puzzle game in which a player runs around on a gridded platform, clearing cubes before they push him off into the void. The game is a challenging brain-tickler, giving more replayability with the ability to create new levels, a feature that unlocks after completing the game once. Although released in the West, it was most successful in its native Japanese market, garnering several sequels.

This port of a hit Japanese arcade puzzle game for one or two players isn’t a sequel to anything. Instead, it’s cheekily named after Super Street Fighter II Turbo because it bolts the aesthetic and interface elements of Capcom’s 2D fighters onto a falling block puzzle. In it, Chibi versions of Street Fighter and Darksiders characters perform a silly battle that reflects what is happening in the puzzles. Capcom developed the game for Japanese arcades in response to the popularity of Sega’s Puyo Puyo 2. It employs similar competitive mechanics to Puyo of successful chains dumping garbage blocks onto the opponent’s field, which you can counter with a quick combo in response. The charming 2D graphics and solid competitive puzzling mechanics are beautifully aged, maintaining this game’s reputation as a delightful cross-genre curio.

Hyper-realistic driving sims are flourishing, but Gran Turismo was the cream of the crop for virtual gearheads in the PS1 era. The smooth forms and inorganic materials of cars have always been an excellent test case for the cutting edge of realistic graphics, and as such Gran Turismo 2 was one of the first racing games where you might glance at the screen and think you’re watching live television. The gameplay, graphics, and physics are largely unchanged from the first game. The sequel’s most notable expansion is the enormous roster of real-world cars (over 600, the largest in any game to date), a robust customization system, and more flexibility to take part in races à la carte, rather than necessarily structured as tournaments. In its prime, Gran Turismo 2 was a bestseller among both car fans and regular gamers, establishing Gran Turismo as a key racing franchise that has endured through the present.

Between the simulation-focused realism of Gran Turismo and the wacky hijinks of Kart racers, you have Ridge Racer. R4, the Namco-developed series’ final entry on PlayStation, looks like the former but plays closer to the latter. That makes it perfect for racing fans who want the fantasy of realistic-looking cars but are turned off by realistic handling. Overall, R4 is a great package for anyone who wants a rich, arcade-style racing experience packed with 321 unlockable vehicles and a variety of tracks and modes. Many still consider R4 as the peak of the Ridge Racer series.

While most driving games in the PS1 era framed the action around races, Driver instead sought to recreate the feeling of the 60s and 70s car chase movies, like Bullitt or Driver. Set in open-world urban environments inspired by real cities, Driver looked forward to the sort of hijinks that would come to define Grand Theft Auto games, like escaping from cops or smashing up other cars. The game also includes an interesting Film Director mode that captures replays using specific camera angles.

Before Harmonix made the genre explode with Guitar Hero on the PlayStation 2, PaRappa the Rapper was the name in rhythm games. Sidestepping the crude stabs at realism that contemporary developers made with the console’s nascent 3D tech, PaRappa features colorful, 2D characters in 3D environments. This highlighted design over horsepower — decades ahead of current trends — to integrate 2D and 3D artwork into more visually interesting aesthetics than the brown-grey realism dominating the early part of the millennium. PaRappa’s bright and cheery look is a 90s hip-hop Day-Glo fantasia, and the music, while lyrically inane, holds up shockingly well over 20 years later. Subsequent rhythm games technically surpass PaRappa the Rapper in nearly every regard, but it’s still rightly beloved as a groundbreaking curio from a time in gaming before genres became quite so crystallized and anything felt possible.

Breaking away from the gritty sci-fi trajectory created by FF7and FF8, FF9’s return to the stylized, chibi aesthetic and light-hearted fantasy of the series’ original entries displeased many fans. In retrospect, it stands out as a fantastic synthesis of the franchise’s recent ideas with its classic mechanical and worldbuilding tropes. FF9 follows the rogueish Zidane, the rebellious princess Garnett, and their assembled friends taking on the sinister Queen Brahne and her world domination plans. It’s classic Final Fantasy through and through and easily the most charming and fun entry from the era.

Squaresoft RPG Chrono Trigger is still widely considered as one of the greatest video games of all time. Its PlayStation sequel never achieved the same reputation, but it’s nevertheless a fun and interesting game that holds up quite well. Like the first game’s different eras, Chrono Cross’ primary narrative conceit is jumping back and forth between two parallel timelines, one of which sees the protagonist die as a child. The game features over 50 recruitable characters, each with a unique quest to follow, making it impossible to see everything in a single playthrough. The connections to the first game are not obvious at first, but ultimately it ties them all together in an interesting and resonant tale that frequently meditates on loss and regret. It’s also colorful, fun, and features unique approaches to both combat and progression.

Another fiercely-loved Squaresoft RPG, Xenogears started as a pitch for Final Fantasy VII, but eventually spun off to start a new science-fiction franchise. Long and ambitious, it amazed some and perplexed others with the plot’s complicated political and religious themes, along with a healthy dollop of Jungian psychoanalysis. You play as the amnesiac young man Fei Fong Wong in a quest to save the world from Deus, an ancient planet-killing weapon that gained sentience. Gameplay features both conventional, Final Fantasy-style active time battles as well as fights in the eponymous Gears (giant mecha suits) that involve managing action points and developing combos. The first Squaresoft RPG to feature voice acting and anime cutscenes, Xenogears was a leap forward in the medium’s potential for mature and cinematic storytelling.

Yasumi Matsuno’s action RPG stood out from its peers at Square because of its razor focus. Rather than assembling a ragtag crew of wacky misfits to save the world, you play Ashley Riot, a single knight sent after a cult leader who kidnapped a noble family and absconded to a ruined medieval city, Leá Monde. Like Parasite Eve, it features pausable, real-time combat and the ability to target and be targeted on specific body parts, crippling particular capabilities. Combined with an elaborate weapon crafting and armor system, it provides a rich and focused tactical playground that players enjoyed experimenting with over the years. Square essentially retconned the game into Ivalice, the world of Final Fantasy Tactics and XII, but even without that, it stands alone as a beloved classic for its mature story and mechanical depth.

While widely beloved by fans and critics, Suikoden II’s limited print run and distribution prevented it from reaching the universal acclaim that Final Fantasy games found on the PlayStation — at least in the West. Loosely based on a classical Chinese novel’s plot, the game was most praised for its story: A complex and mature political saga of warring nations and city states struggling for independence. The narrative’s scope reflects in the scope of the party you recruit, with over 100 characters able to join you through personal side quests (though not all in combat roles). Suikoden II features both standard turn-based party battles in the vein of Final Fantasy as well as large-scale, strategic engagements on a grid more reminiscent of Fire Emblem. Suikoden II is about as epic as you can get on the PlayStation.

The Secret of Mana series grew up alongside Final Fantasy in the 8- and 16-bit eras. It generally takes a slightly lighter tone and substitutes turn-based battles with more open, action RPG gameplay. The first Mana game launched in the United States as Final Fantasy Adventure. Legend of Mana is the fourth entry following the fantastic Seiken Densestsu 3for SNES, which is still not officially localized in the west. Set after a cataclysmic war, the player sets out to restore the land of Fa’Diel and eventually the Tree of Mana itself. Players accomplish this quest by literally placing parts of the land — which were previously sealed in artifacts — on the map. Their relative placement affects the world. like the strength of elemental magic types in each region. A recurring theme on this list, Square didn’t leverage the PlayStation’s storage and processing power to make crude stabs at 3D graphics. Instead, the studio filled it to the brim with lush, beautiful 2D graphics. The game is universally praised for rembling an animated film and aging exceptionally well. In its prime, Secret of Manareceived criticism for making the story feel too diffuse. In retrospect, its nonlinear, system-rich approach now feels ahead of its time.

One of the first RPGs released for the PlayStation, Wild Arms stands apart for its highly-unconventional setting that blends traditional JRPG fantasy tropes with visual elements from the American old west. Set in the world of Filgaia, you play a scrappy band of wandering adventurers called Dream Chasers. One of these wanderers is Rudy, a boy who can excavate and use Ancient Relic Machines (ARMS), which are guns from a lost era of greater technology. Using both 2D sprites for exploration, and 3D rendered battle sequences, Wild Arms was an interesting transitional game between the 16- and 32-bit eras. It mostly stands out for its compelling setting, however, fusing science and magic in a way reminiscent of — but also completely distinct from — Final Fantasy VI.

Sony may have set unreasonable expectations for The Legend of Dragoon by marketing it initially as a “Final Fantasy Killer,” but this SCE-developed RPG endures as a cult classic of the era. You play Dart, an orphaned survivor of a destroyed city rescuing a childhood friend that’s kidnapped by a rebel army. In typical genre fashion, he assembles a motley crew for a quest that spirals up to defeating a world-ending god of destruction. It fleshes out the typical turn-based combat with a system of combos and counter-attacks that add an interesting dimension of timing and risk/reward. While The Legend of Dragoon never panned out into a franchise, it’s just as well-written and designed as many of its more widely beloved peers.

Adapted from a popular, contemporary Japanese novel of the same name, Parasite Eve is a bit of a genre hybrid from developer Square. Equal parts action RPG and survival horror, it follows a New York City cop trying to stop an entity named Eve from destroying humanity through spontaneous combustion. Like Square’s Vandal Hearts, it features pausable real-time battles and the ability to target specific body parts, with abilities tied to the “Active Time Bar” (ATB) system pioneered in the studio’s Final Fantasy games. Critics praised its interesting and immersive design at the time, though its legacy was somewhat overshadowed by the era’s more “pure” RPGs and survival horror games, respectively. In retrospect, its infusion of RPG progression systems into a survival horror framework can be seen reflected in more modern games such as The Evil Within, though its pausable real-time combat has been less explored subsequently.

Several years before the original Call of Duty game kicked off the now-oversaturated WW2 first-person shooter genre, Medal of Honor set the bar. Steven Spielberg developed the story, working with the same historical military consultants he collaborated with on Saving Private Ryan. Where previous shooters remained relatively light-hearted affairs about blasting hordes of demons, Medal of Honor was one of the first serious, cinematic shooters that presaged future classics like

The original Tony Hawk Pro Skater was an enormous success when it launched in 1999, but the follow-up a year later truly cemented it as one of the most beloved skateboarding games of all time. The action centers around arcade-style gameplay, with the player flipping and grinding over open levels to rack up as many points as possible from tricks and combos within two minutes. Collectibles and level-specific objectives keep it spicy, and the addition of level- and skater-creation tools give it a ton of replayability.

1997 saw the Madden football franchise take its first stab at 3D with Madden Football 64, but for our money, the best sports game of the year was the less ambitious and far more refined Madden NFL 98. While other franchises leaped at polygons, Madden instead focused on improving the game’s artificial intelligence for NFL 98, making this the most strategically sophisticated football game ever released at the time. As is often the case from this console era, Madden NFL 98’s late 2D sprite graphics hold up better than the early efforts at 3D that followed it.

FFT wasn’t the first tactical RPG to cross over from Japan — the Shining Force and Ogre Battle series already broke that ground for western console audiences. However, it’s far and away the most beloved and influential tactical RPG of that era. The series’ traditional linear battles featured three to four party members lined up to face their enemies. Final Fantasy Tactics, however, opened up into a much richer, isometric, grid-based encounter reminiscent of X-COM, with an elaborate job system allowing for deep, strategic party customization. Set in the world of Ivalice (which was featured in later entries like FF12), it tells a mature tale of competing noble families, warring nations, and the intersection of church and state. Spin-off sequels for the Game Boy Advance were solid, but none ever quite captured the magic of the original.

Released first in Japan as Biohazard, Resident Evil is Shinji Mikami’s genre-defining survival-horror opus. Although not the first horror game, it exerted such a gravitational pull that, like shooters in the wake of Doom, all other entries in the genre were considered as “clones.” You still can’t talk about survival horror without Resident Evil rising like the undead in discussions. Resident Evil established the now-standard genre gameplay of careful exploration, puzzle-solving, and resource management. You play as American Special Operations Agents Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine who enter a zombie-infested mansion on the outskirts of Raccoon City to find their missing teammates. Players remember this Resident Evil game most fondly for the creepy atmosphere and unsettling presentation. It made clever and efficient use of the hardware with 3D characters on pre-rendered backgrounds to achieve unprecedented immersion.

If you like the survival horror stylings of Resident Evilauteur Shinji Mikami but aren’t into zombies, Capcom still has you covered. Much of the same team — including Mikami himself — also developed Dino Crisis, a survival horror game that happens to be set in a secret island research facility. As the name suggests, you encounter genetically-revived dinosaurs running rampant. While this sounds remarkably similar to the Jurassic Parkfilms, the similarities end with the basic premise.  Dino Crisis takes a serious and notable departure from the arguably hokey premise of JP in many ways. Even though Dino Crisisand Resident Evilare both survival games, Capcom presents Dino Crisisas a “Panic Horror” game, giving it a higher danger rating. They argue that Resident Evil’s zombies are less threatening than the clever, speedy, and violent dinosaurs. Dino Crisisboasts commendable, real-time 3D backgrounds, in contrast to the pre-rendered gamescapes of its ancestors. This background, combined with artistic still camera angles, amps up the game’s immersion and interactivity.  It’s not as horrifying or as culturally famous as Resident Evil, but Dino Crisishas many perks. Many gamers think it is superior to Resident Evilin many different ways, and we agree that it’s intense, fun, and well-paced. Even though the Raptors are the smartest predators and highest risk, there are plenty of species to fight.  Whether you play a classic PS1 or use a console emulator, it’s worth checking out these classic PlayStation 1 games. No matter your preferred brand of nostalgia, you’ll find a retro genre or series that is perfect for you.

Limitations : For products shipped internationally, please note that any manufacturer warranty may not be valid; manufacturer service options may not be available; product manuals, instructions, and safety warnings may not be in destination country languages; the products (and accompanying materials) may not be designed in accordance with destination country standards, specifications, and labeling requirements; and the products may not conform to destination country voltage and other electrical standards (requiring use of an adapter or converter if appropriate). The recipient is responsible for assuring that the product can be lawfully imported to the destination country. When ordering from Ubuy or its affiliates, the recipient is the importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of the destination country.

The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 30 November 2000. It is the successor to the original PlayStation, as well as the second installment in the PlayStation brand of consoles. As a sixth-generation console, it competed with Nintendo"s GameCube, and Microsoft"s Xbox. It is the best-selling video game console of all time, having sold over 155 million units worldwide.

The PlayStation 2 received widespread critical acclaim upon release. A total of over 4,000 game titles were released worldwide, with over 1.5 billion copies sold.PS2 Slim. Even after the release of its successor, the PlayStation 3, it remained popular well into the seventh generation. It continued to be produced until 2013 when Sony finally announced that it had been discontinued after over twelve years of production, one of the longest lifespans of any video game console. New games for the console continued to be made until the end of its life.

Though Sony has kept details of the PlayStation 2"s development secret, Ken Kutaragi, the chief designer of the original PlayStation, reportedly began working on a second console around the time of the original PlayStation"s launch in late 1994.Argonaut Games, under contract for semiconductor manufacturer LSI Corporation, were instructed to design a rendering chip for Sony"s upcoming console.Jez San, founder of Argonaut, recalled that his team had no direct contact with Sony during the development process. Unbeknownst to him, Sony was designing their own chip in-house and had instructed other companies to design rendering chips merely to diversify their options.

By early 1997, the press was reporting that a new PlayStation was being developed and would have backward-compatibility with the original PlayStation, a built-in DVD player, and Internet connectivity.Chris Deering, then-president of SCEE recalled that there was a degree of trepidation among Sony leaders to produce a console which would recapture or exceed the success of its predecessor.

The success of the PS2 at the end of 2000 caused Sega problems both financially and competitively, and Sega announced the discontinuation of the Dreamcast in March 2001, just 18 months after its successful Western launch. Despite the Dreamcast still receiving support through 2001, the PS2 remained the only sixth-generation console for over 6 months before it faced competition from new rivals: Nintendo"s GameCube and Microsoft"s Xbox. Many analysts predicted a close three-way matchup among the three consoles. The Xbox had the most powerful hardware, while the GameCube was the least expensive console, and Nintendo changed its policy to encourage third-party developers. While the PlayStation 2 theoretically had the weakest specification of the three, it had a head start due to its installed base plus strong developer commitment, as well as a built-in DVD player (the Xbox required an adapter, while the GameCube lacked support entirely).holiday season with the release of several blockbuster games that maintained the PS2"s sales momentum and held off its newer rivals. Sony also countered the Xbox by securing timed PlayStation 2 exclusives for highly anticipated games such as the

Unlike Sega"s Dreamcast, Sony originally placed little emphasis on online gaming during its first few years, although that changed upon the launch of the online-capable Xbox. Coinciding with the release of Xbox Live, Sony released the PlayStation Network Adapter in late 2002, with several online first-party titles released alongside it, such as Electronic Arts (EA); EA did not offer online Xbox titles until 2004. Although Sony and Nintendo both started late, and although both followed a decentralized model of online gaming where the responsibility is up to the developer to provide the servers, Sony"s moves made online gaming a major selling point of the PS2.

The PlayStation 2"s main central processing unit (CPU) is the 128-bit R5900-based "Emotion Engine", custom-designed by Sony and Toshiba.die. These units include a central CPU core, two Vector Processing Units (VPU), a 10-channel DMA unit, a memory controller, and an Image Processing Unit (IPU). There are three interfaces: an input output interface to the I/O processor running at clock speed of 33.8688MHz or 36.864MHz (Selectable), a graphics interface to the graphics synthesiser, and a memory interface to the system memory.clock rate of 294.912 MHz (299 MHz on newer versions) and 6,000 MIPS, with a floating point performance of 6.2 GFLOPS.

Software for the PlayStation 2 was distributed primarily on DVD-ROMs,backward-compatible with almost all original PlayStation games.memory cards and controllers, although original PlayStation memory cards will only work with original PlayStation games

Some third-party companies, such as JoyTech, have produced LCD monitor and speaker attachments for the PS2, which attach to the back of the console. These allow users to play games without access to a television as long as there is access to mains electricity or a similar power source. These screens can fold down onto the PS2 in a similar fashion to laptop screens.

There are many accessories for musical games, such as dance pads for Konami microphones for use with the microphones (sold with and used exclusively for World Tour and newer), and a taiko drum controller for

Unlike the PlayStation, which requires the use of an official Sony PlayStation Mouse to play mouse-compatible games, the few PS2 games with mouse support work with a standard USB mouse as well as a USB trackball.

PlayStation 2 software is distributed on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM; the two formats are differentiated by their discs" bottoms, with CD-ROMs being blue and DVD-ROMs being silver. The PlayStation 2 offered some particularly high-profile exclusive games. Most main entries in the

Game releases peaked in 2004, but declined with the release of the PlayStation 3 in 2006. The last new games for the console were software titles had been released worldwide including games released in multiple regions as separate titles.

Initial reviews in 2000 of the PlayStation 2 highly acclaimed the console, with reviewers commending its hardware and graphics capabilities, its ability to play DVDs, and the system"s backwards compatibility with games and hardware for the original PlayStation. Early points of criticism included the lack of online support at the time, its inclusion of only two controller ports, and the system"s price at launch compared to the Dreamcast in 2000.IEEE 1394 (branded as "i.LINK" by Sony and "FireWire" by Apple), and the console"s two USB ports while criticizing its "expensive" games and its support for only two controllers without the multitap accessory.

Later reviews, especially after the launch of the competing GameCube and Xbox systems, continued to praise the PlayStation 2"s large game library and DVD playback, while routinely criticizing the PlayStation 2"s lesser graphics performance compared to the newer systems and its rudimentary online service compared to Xbox Live. In 2002, CNET rated the console 7.3 out of 10, calling it a "safe bet" despite not being the "newest or most powerful", noting that the console "yields in-game graphics with more jagged edges". CNET also criticized the DVD playback functionality, claiming that the console"s video quality was "passable" and that the playback controls were "rudimentary", recommending users to purchase a remote control. The console"s two controller ports and the high cost of its memory cards were also a point of criticism.

Sony released a Linux-based operating system, Linux for PlayStation 2, for the PS2 in a package that also includes a keyboard, mouse, Ethernet adapter and HDD. In Europe and Australia, the PS2 comes with a free Yabasic interpreter on the bundled demo disc. This allows users to create simple programs for the PS2. A port of the NetBSD project and BlackRhino GNU/Linux, an alternative Debian-based distribution, are also available for the PS2.

Guinness (February 2009). Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer"s Edition. pp. 108–109. ISBN 978-1-904994-45-9. GTA: San Andreas is the best-selling PlayStation 2 game, with a massive 17.33 million copies sold.

PSOne LCD Screen prices (Playstation) are updated daily for each source listed above. The prices shown are the lowest prices available for PSOne LCD Screen the last time we updated.

Not to downplay some of the stunning visuals that the likes of Square’s art direction and pre-rendered elements, but there is a LOT of competition on the PS1 for some truly impressive coding that really maxed out what the Playstation was capable of. Square will indeed get some mentions below, but you might be surprised by a few developers and games that somehow stayed under the mainstream radar.

One of my other goals in this piece is to try to present diversity – not only in the types of games, but also in the ways developers worked around the limitations of the PS1. There are so many great stories of developers trying new things and accomplishing impressive feats.  I hope you find them all fascinating as well!

While the development drama of Soul Reaver is fascinating, we will focus on the technical achievements that came to fruition from all the long nights and drama.  Soul Reaver ran on Crystal Dynamics’ proprietary Gex engine (which was originally used on Gex and built on top of what they learned while working on Tomb Raider) along with some code for character animation that they developed for 3D Baseball (which was ahead of its time in terms of motion capture, but lacked the benefits of an MLB license). The Gex engine chunked large levels into sections and then streamed the level data as needed to the system memory. It kept the player’s current section and the two adjacent sections in memory to keep loading to an absolute minimum.  (In addition to the two Gex titles and Soul Reaver, the Gex engine was use used on Akuji).

We came up with the idea of leveraging the 3DS Max animation timeline to attach spectral values to the vertices in the geometry – i.e., frame 0 was the material world, and frame 1 was the spectral realm (or vice versa; I can’t remember for sure). This way we could alter the x,y,z coordinates of each vertex, as well as its RGB lighting values, to create a twisted, more eerily lit version of the physical realm.”

Soul Reaver’s soundtrack often gets a lot of acclaim. Even though it could have been simple to include pre-recorded CD audio on a PlayStation game, Soul Reaver actually uses a high-quality sequenced audio (similar to the SNES) that could dynamically altered and shifted based on what is happening on the screen. The Crystal Dynamics team was able to create a soundtrack of phenomenal quality while taking up very little storage space on the disc.  DF Retro’s 36 minute Soul Reaver video digs into some of these.

With many of the innovative art direction and storytelling choices made in Metal Gear Solid, it is easy to overlook many of the technical optimizations accomplished by Konami’s team to create a game that would not only make the most of the Playstation’s hardware but would be an entity that would age relatively well at such an evolutionary stage for console gaming and is one of the most defining games on the PS1.

The effective use of polygons and textures was a solid foundation for Metal Gear Solid, but Konami took it one step further by having a dedicated “optimization” programmer that went through all the code to find crucial points of the engine to turn into assembly code. (Mostly to get models to fit nicely in the PS1’s small 1kb fast-cache)

Another way that Metal Gear Solid pushed the limits does not have anything to do with graphics, but instead it depends on the pure creativity of Kojima and the MGS team. The game had a numbers of points in the story where the memory card and/or controller is utilized creatively to enhance the game experience or serve as an “Easter egg”. If you don’t mind some spoilers, you can read more about these instances at Wikipedia.

Team created their own development ecosystem to maximize PlayStation hardware for the purposes of 3D platformers – complete with custom programming language and texture compressors.

To help with the more cartoon-like animation, they used a sophisticated three or four-joint weighing system instead of a 1-joint system with few “bones” that a lot of developers were using at the time. They used high-end animation software on their PCs and then mapped every vertex for every frame at 30 fps since the PS1 couldn’t render it in realtime. The also wrote their own vertex compressors in assembly language to optimize the processing efficiency.

“We did experiments in free roaming camera control and settled on branching rail camera + pre-calculation = gorgeous visuals. The idea was that the camera would follow along next to, behind, or in front of the character, generally looking at him, moving on a “track” through the world. Dave and I experimented with pre-calculating the visibility and sort (the Playstation had no z-buffer, and hence no easy way to sort polygons) ahead of time on the SGI workstations the artists used. Although painful and expensive, this worked really well. As long as you could never SEE more than a set number of polygons (800 for Crash 1, 1300 for Crash 2 or 3) from any given position we could have perfect occlusion and sort, with no runtime cost. We conceived of using trees, cliffs, walls, and twists and turns in the environment to hide a lot of the landscape from view – but it would be there, just around the corner.”

Andy also did some other crazy coding work that would help create a system for making their work efficient and make the most of the Playstation’s resources. Their level designs came out at about 8 to 16 megs each, so he developed an algorithmic texture packer that would efficiently cram the levels into the PS1’s 2 megs of RAM. Some of the levels came out at 128meg, so Dave created a bidirectional 10x compressor to help get the 128meg levels down into 12 and also developed a tool for managing the construction of the gigantic 3D worlds. On top of all that, Andy created a new programming language (with Lisp syntax) that featured “all sorts of built in state machine support (very useful with game objects), powerful macros, dynamic loading etc.”.

As much as we praised Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (above) for their innovative techniques for reducing load times down to a minimum, Soul Reaver’s Game Director, Amy Hennig was quick to point out that Naughty Dog’s work on Crash Bandicoot was another early example of this type of problem-solving. Naughty Dog actually took a different approach that helped with both load time and figuring out which items to load into the system’s limited memory. Andy recalls,

Because of this, the team was actually a bit concerned that Crash was accessing the CD more than the PS1’s drive was rated for. So if you ever notice that it seems like the drive is being read a lot while playing, you’ll know why.

For Crash 2, the team at Naughty Dog rewrote approximately 80% of the game engine and tool code based on the lessons they learned and the bottlenecks they saw in the first game. In the end, Crash 2 aimed for twice as much on the screen while maintaining the 30 frames per second. It also added more effects such as Z-buffer-like water effects, weather, reflections, particles, talking hologram heads, etc.

After Super Mario 64 and Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie on the N64 has made its mark and Naughty Dog was about to release its third installment with Crash Bandicoot: Warped, another upstart studio by the name of Insomniac Games unleashed a new platformer for the PlayStation with a 3D panoramic engine to allow the players to have open exploration without restrictions of how far you can go.

With this ambitious plan of flying and full movement, the Insomniac team needed to figure out how to handle long view distances without the “fog” that was common in this console generation. Insomniac developer Peter Hastings explained the team’s fresh take on the problem: “There were actually two separate worlds being rendered in a Spyro level. Each level had a detailed version built out of textured polygons, and a much more impressionistic, simple version built out of fast-rendering untextured polygons. For anything near the player, the detailed world was drawn, but for distant objects the simple version was used. This ‘Level-Of-Detail’ system is now used by pretty much every game on the planet, but at the time it was quite new.” Alex Hastings, Insomniac’s VP of Software built the panoramic ending using Assembly draw routines for seven different renderers that worked on a different level of detail in the environment (Alex claimed that 80% of Spyro was written in assembly for peak efficiency). Alex knew that the PlayStation could handle many more polygons than the other consoles (and even many PCs) at the time, so him programming these ambitious engines in assembly was the best way for their new title to stand out from the crowd.

To supplement the expansive worlds, Matt Whiting and his experience designing flight systems for NASA was a critical part of developing Spyro’s control system and camera code. Hastings praised Whiting’s contributions, “the smoothness of the controls is owed to his ability to squeeze a great deal of matrix algebra into the tiny slice of computational time that the PlayStation could give us.” The natural and smooth controls found in Spyro are especially impressive when you realize this was before the PlayStation controller had analogue controls – you get just as good control with the standard D-Pad.

Being essentially down the hall from the guys at Naughty Dog, the team at Insomniac often traded technical tips and tricks with each other. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that Spyro takes some pages out of the Crash playbook to use untextured polygons, but add Gouraud shading to achieve the great cartoon styling for the characters. This technique also lended itself well to sharp character models and high frame rates and sense of speed (especially in the chase levels featured in Spyro 2 and 3).

DreamFactory was a modest but star-filled development firm headed by Shiichi Ishii, a developer on Virtua Fighter and director for Tekken. With his industry experience, it shouldn’t be a surprise that their first projects, Tobal No. 1 and Tobal 2, were not only stunning technical feats, but were also some of the first pure 3D fighting games – not just 3D characters on a 2D plane. Namco eventually worked on this concept with Soul Edge and Soul Calibur, but Tobal pioneered it on the PlayStation and pulled it off with a superior resolution and frame rate. Within Tobal, you can dash towards, jump around, and circle around your opponent with complete fluidity and confidence. In another great detail, the characters block differently for each incoming attack.

Tobal No. 2, in particular, feels very organic, smooth, and vibrant. The animation in this brawler is silky smooth with its high frame rate and it has some great touches that gives the game some personality. Tobal 2’s visuals actually rival some N64 titles as the character models are very smooth (unlike Tobal No. 1’s more blocky presentation). Designed by Dragonball Z and Chrono Trigger character designer, Akira Toriyama, the characters have an anime-inspired look to them, but still feel very human. The Gouraud shading and the vibrant colors bring in this feel, but avoid it feeling cartoon-like. The lighting effects are very nice looking as well, especially on the game’s fireballs.

The backgrounds are a combination of 3D objects (sometimes with impressive animation) in the foreground and 2D backdrops in the back. It’s a nice compromise compared to the pure 2D in something like Tekken and Tobal No. 2’s backgrounds have improved significantly from the first installment.

Even with all these great visuals, the Tobal games (and DreamFactory’s other fighter, Ehrgeiz) are the only Playstation fighters to hit 480i at 60fps without many polygon sacrifices. The games actually ran at a very sharp (relatively speaking) 512×512 resolution and then scaled to 640×480. Not many games used the PSX’s 640×480 mode because most games focused on the shimmering textures we all love in. 2stead of the shaded polygons that Tobal pulls off so well.

Sega’s Virtua Fighter had broken into the fighting scene with revolutionary 3D technology in 1993, but within a year or two, Katsuhiro Harada was at Namco working on way to create a strong rival to Sega’s creation. His initial research project revolved around how the body reacts in 3D movement and to replicate something like judo or Chinese kenpo. Harada admits that due to a lack of balancing, “Tekken 1 isn’t really a fighting game. It should be called a human body action game. They have abilities, and they hit each other, but it’s not really a martial arts game.” Developer Yutaka Kounoe added, “the first two games were created as an experiment; even the developers couldn’t predict how it would turn out… The third game which I was in charge of, was a more calculated production.”

With the practice being rather new, Tekken 3 marked the first time Namco used true motion capture techniques for the game (as opposed for simple reference – although their marketing department would mention it for promotion).

Converting from the original arcade versions is always a challenge, but with the third installment, not only was the source game more refined, but the PlayStation port was almost arcade-perfect. The animation speed is impressive and the textures are carefully crafted to make the limited polygon models look as solid as possible. On the original Tekken, the PlayStation version had its animation compressed of 30% from the arcade version. By the time the team had improved their skills for Tekken 3, compression was much less severe – only reduced by 10%. The main compromises from the arcade are a slightly reduced polygon count and the backgrounds are 2D graphics instead of the the sharper 3D backgrounds found in the arcade.

As one of the biggest mainstream hits with an attention to detail, we couldn’t overlook Gran Turismo 2’s drive for realism. While the original Gran Turismo was groundbreaking at its release, the sequel had subtle improvements such as lighting effects and car rendering that made it one of the most convincing PlayStation games on the market.

Gran Turismo also has mastered the lighting-effect trick that gives cars a shiny sheen as they drive from camera to camera – an impressive visual that’s coupled with the speed-sensitive hubcap-rotation effects that accurately portray the “whoosh” of cars going past. I realize that the car shining is just a visual trick intended to add to the realism, but you may notice that when cars go through a tunnel, the sunlight still bounces off their hoods.

The original Ridge Racer was one of PlayStation’s first big system pushers. Regardless of what you thought of Ridge Racer as a game, you had to agree that it was an excellent port of the arcade version that showed the true potential of Sony’s 32-bit wonder. However, in order to compete with the high standard set by the Gran Turismo series, Namco had really bumped up the graphic quality of the Ridge Racer series in Type 4 while staying true to its arcade roots. Ridge Racer Type 4 features a smooth framerate locked solidly on 30 frames per second and lots of detailed textures throughout the game. Also, it hits that target much more reliably that Gran Turismo 2.

Dominic Mallinson was a lead programmer on WipEout and later became producer on the series (he also went on to become Vice President of Research and Development at Sony’s SCEA division). He attributed much of WipEout’s early success to the team’s background and skill set, “we had a lot of experience with 3D in-house and our artists understood how to create models, render and animate. On the console programming side, we had to scramble a little. We had a few PC developers with experience and we brought them in-house and asked them to help train others. Fortunately, we’d already hired some recent University graduates with strong maths backgrounds to help with tools for the artists and those guys quickly made the transition from off-line to real-time 3D.” He also added, “Probably the biggest technical issue that I remember was dealing with the lack of perspective correct texturing and having to sub-divide the polygons in the track so that they looked OK up-close where the near clip plane is. The problem is that the resolution of the polygon XY positions and the necessity to have T-joints led to cracks in the track. We never did eliminate all the cracks. ”

Graphically, WipEout 3 really shines: the race craft model have more detail and the environments feel more immersive. The craft’s contrails also now act as light sources on the surrounding environments, so a ship’s blue streak will color the walls of a tunnel. The effect is dramatic, especially when you have ships with a number of different colored contrails in a tunnel.

This innovative and influential series was set out to mimic the feel of 1960s and 1970s car chase films and put you in (partially) faithful recreations of actual city layouts such as Miami, LA, and New York that you could explore in an open world environment. Driver 2 expanded on the free-roam structure of the original and added the ability to step out of your car to explore on foot and commandeer other vehicles in the game’s open world environments. If this sounds familiar, you could say Driver 2 was very influential on the PS2-era Grand Theft Auto titles and the other “sandbox” games that were spawned from GTA’s success. Of course, the Driver series was running well on the PS1 and squeezing what performance it could out of the hardware to make it all happen.

Just as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro gradually redefined what was possible in the platformer genre with 3D capabilities, Driver broke through the expectations for driving games. Up until then, 3D games were very limited in where you could go (although Midtown Madness was released just a couple months earlier on the PC).

Tony Oakden, the lead programmer on Driver, shared the the