PS2

Dynasty Warriors wouldn't generally be considered broken, but it has been negatively seen by a large portion of critics out there. This series saw its best ratings early on, but as time passed, the ratings continued to drop. Warriors (as a whole) isn't safe from the ire of the gaming masses, but it's still a game that I love to call my guilty pleasure.

If you play games with any regularity, it's inevitable that you'll eventually come across a roughly-made, unbalanced, unpopular, or straight-up broken title that you grow attached to regardless of how low the score on Metacritic drops. Whatever the reason, I'm betting that every gamer out there has at least one of these awkward, ugly ducklings that they hold dear—and I've invited a group of guest writers to kiss and tell.

Unicorns, Specters and Dragons, Oh My!

HIGH Completely overrunning the enemy with an army made up entirely of chimera and dragons.

LOW Dedicating 30 minutes to a stage, only to die and have to start all over from the beginning... AGAIN.

WTF Opalneria's gravity-defying boobs.

Quantitatively speaking, I prefer Plants vs. Zombies to every game, ever. Plants vs. Zombies is not my favorite game. I'd say it's not even in the top 20. That honor belongs ICO, a game that typically lasts less than six hours and that I have played exactly four times, to net less than a fifth of the hours I have spent playing Plants vs. Zombies. ICO is my favorite game because of how it makes me feel.

I managed to accomplish two separate goals this week, when it comes to my PlayStation 2 collection. I was able to locate the final game in the .hack//G.U. trilogy to complete the set and I surpassed 200 total games thanks to a couple of decent hauls.

In addition to the original PlayStation games that I got (which I mentioned in my last blog entry), I also took advantage of a Buy 2, Get 2 Free sale on pre-owned PlayStation 2 games at a GameStop nearby the Bookmans location that I had visited. Unfortunately, the GameStop stores here in the Phoenix area are slowly getting rid of PlayStation 2 games and shipping them to other markets… so it's becoming more difficult to add games to my collection.

I've talked about doing a piece like this for awhile, but it's time to make it a reality. This list of games contains titles that I've been actively seeking and haven't been able to find or haven't been able to afford. Although there are more games than these out there that I'm hoping to add in the coming weeks and months, it's sad to report that I've picked clean many of the local retailers that still carry PlayStation 2 titles.

After over four years of service, I had to retire my silver slim PlayStation 2 unit this week. It wasn't broken, really, but a few discs were having trouble being read by the console and DVD movies no longer played on it. I'm now the owner of a brand new black PlayStation 2, in its final hardware iteration.

Back in 1999, when I first got my hands on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater demo for my PlayStation, I knew that I was in trouble. I played it for hours, trying to improve my scores and seeing what crazy combinations of tricks that I could muster. I'd never ridden a skateboard—and I still haven't—but games like Skate or Die on the Commodore 64, Top Skater in the arcade, and even Street Sk8er for the PlayStation put me in a position where I could actually be that cool guy on the board without breaking every bone in my body.

Kingdom Hearts II is a really messed up game. It's got awful pacing, the grievous re-usage of almost all the content from the first game, and a narrative so incomprehensible it makes the Star Wars prequels look logical. Still, I'll be damned if I've ever seen a better JRPG combat system. It's like my good friend Tim Spaeth's irrational love of Too Human's combat, except mine is totally rational and sensible. The one area where Kingdom Hearts II really succeeded for me was with it's bosses, which I've mentioned before. It's got all shapes and sizes of boss, and it does them all extremely well.