Support NeoGAF

[Paperclip Killa]

The PS2 was the clear far and away champion of its generation, with the most games, the most hit releases, and was the machine everyone wanted. Many of the visual flaws and lack of AA among other problems were largely overlooked unless you were a multi-console owner.

But in 2023, looking back. IMO, many of the PS2's games including the ones that push graphics and effects the hardest, in almost all cases have aged quite poorly. I can go back and look at a Gamecube or Xbox game (where PS2 isn't the lead console and the port is lazy) or even a handful of Dreamcast games and see better colors, straight and clean polygons, better image qualify, less graininess, and higher resolution not just on character models and backgrounds, but on the texturing itself.

Go back and look at some of the favorite games of the day, San Andreas, Kingdom Hearts, True Crime, Tekken 4, the MK games, Bloodrayne, Tony Hawks Underground, Def Jam FFX|X-2, Splinter Cell, Silent Hill 4, DMC3, Yakuza, they all have aged quite badly compared to contemporaries on the competing consoles, or ports in some cases. Unless you modify an emulator but I'm talking about real-hardware on a TV.

It's not every game but it's the vast majority of them. For the time this was not as big a deal but going back the difference between playing Xbox games HD or SD, or Gamecube games compared to the PS2 ports or original titles is night and day. It's not about the games themselves that I am speaking of but the visuals of the games. Some of the best games on the PS2 look terrible.

 

[Danjin44]

Games on PS2 that had more stylize visuals aged better than the games that were trying to be more realistic visually.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

I still play 6th gen games to this day, arguably more than recent stuff...so I don't find them aged

 

[Trogdor1123]

I don’t think so. From ps2 on games really stand up pretty well. They aren’t perfect of course but they still look good I think

 

[SEGA_2012]

Imho no. To me games like Devil May Cry, Yakuza, Virtua Fighter 4 and Tekken 4 and 5 still looks really good.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

A ton of the games look great when forced to run at higher resolutions in emulation.

However getting games to look decent on an actual PS2 is a problem. If you've got an ideal setup with component cables and a good upscaler that doesn't use bob deinterlacing like a GSC or a RetroTink 5x and you use GSM through OpenPS2Loader to force games to run at 480p or 720p you can get decent pictures.

That said, the PS2 has frankly awful analog video output compared to its contemporaries and it does not have any means to output digital video, yet.

 

[bender]

I'd say these aged well: AC4, MGS2-3, ZOE2, SH2-4, Rez, Ico, SOTC, VF4 but Tal Shiar Agent raises a good point.

 

[kiphalfton]

The thing with older games is I think the low resolution helped hide a lot of ugly details.

 

[AGRacing]

The PS2 was released over 23 years ago in Japan. In 2001... Gran Turismo 3 , Metal Gear Solid 2, SSX Tricky, Burnout and more are all released.

I think the PS2 and it's graphics have aged the best of all of consoles ever made. There will never be another PS2 unfortunately.

 

[GigaBowser]

What in tarnation? PS2 is the most incredibubble console of all times.

 

[Punished Miku]

It was the most successful in sales but it was by far the ugliest system of the 3, and the weakest.

1. Xbox
2. GameCube
3. PS2

Multiplat games were far worse on PS2. Like Silent Hill 2, Soul Calibur 2, Resident Evil 4 and on. It aged during the gen itself.

 

[Graciaus]

The look great in an emulator.

 

[diffusionx]

PS2 had some IQ issues which can make playing it on native hardware rough these days. Run them in an emulator though and games like Burnout 3, SSX 3, Jak, MGS2/3, DQ8, ZOE2, God of War, etc., can look very good.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Some games hold up pretty well to this day.

Art direction >>>>>>>> polycount, resolution, etc

 

[Azelover]

I still play Saturn and Dreamcast games. So to me it hasnt aged poorly. Sometimes I even have fun with Atari era games. Pacman is my most played game on Namco's Museum for the DS.

 

[Perrott]

You're wrong, OP.

The fact that there are several fan projects out there actively trying to emulate the look and visual features that titles such as Silent Hill 2 or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas had when running on real PS2 hardware tells you that there's nothing wrong with the visuals from PS2 games, but quite the opposite actually.

On top of those, there are several other titles – like Silent Hill 3 & 4, Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3, The Getaway, Gran Turismo 4, God of War 1 & 2, Genji: Dawn of the Samurai, Killzone, Black, Final Fantasy X & XII, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, Persona 3 & 4, ICO or Shadow of the Colossus, just to name a few – that look absolute stellar to this day, with a very much pleasing aesthetic that is both true to and reminiscent of the best the 6th generation of consoles had to offer.

 

[TGO]

Like Silent Hill 2

 

[01011001]

games with bad art design look bad... that's all there's to it.

Maximo still looks great for example... same with its sequel






and of course MGS2 still looks amazing.

 

[Punished Miku]

The better version was on Xbox. I had them both. Metal Gear 2 as well.

 

[Trunx81]

First time I played God of War, I was seriously blown away. Yes, some GC games looked better, especially the Factor 5 games, but GoW, especially the second one, was a sight to behold.

And wasn’t there even a 1080i racing game?

 

[Lagspike_exe]

First time I played God of War, I was seriously blown away. Yes, some GC games looked better, especially the Factor 5 games, but GoW, especially the second one, was a sight to behold.

And wasn’t there even a 1080i racing game?

GT4.

 

[lachesis]

Resolution wise it's pretty rough to see with modern high resolution display that doesn't do old games with low resolution any favor - but it looks quite good on good ol' CRT screen in most cases.

One of the reason I love retro gaming - is not because of how advanced the graphics are, but because it takes me back to that era, down to the UX design and experience, popular genres of that time et al. Once those are in place in one's mindset, PS2 or PS1 or anything else - are just as good as when they were released in my point of view. Young folks who never experienced it in real time may feel different about them, and I understand how they feel... but I'm pretty certain they'll feel the same with later gen machines as they get older.

 

[01011001]

First time I played God of War, I was seriously blown away. Yes, some GC games looked better, especially the Factor 5 games, but GoW, especially the second one, was a sight to behold.

And wasn’t there even a 1080i racing game?

the PS2 had a small selection of games that supported 1080i output, but the games didn't run at anything close to that no.

GranTurismo 4 for example has a 1080i mode, but the actual resolution of the game is 576 x 960, basically 1/3 horizontal res of 1728 x 960p, stretched to a 16:9 output of 1728 x 960. almost like checkerboarding without the checkerboarding, which is what RDR2 did on PS4 pro and it didn't look good

 

[BlackTron]

Tbh this is the way I felt back in the day. PS2 always looked like an aliased mess to me, especially when Dreamcast came first. Its contemporaries were Xbox bringing Halo 2 and GameCube that came out with the Rogue Squadron graphical showcase. I think PS2 was an example of just good old fashioned games, branding and market awareness, like the NES.

I have fun playing many PS2 games with cranked settings on series x however. I'm sorry but I will forever equate real PS2 hardware with jank.

 

[Pelao]

Not at all. A lot of PS2 games, most of them Japanese titles, still hold their own thanks to excellent art styles.
Comparatively, the PS3 generation has aged worse thanks to the fact that almost everyone decided to adopt more realistic graphic styles.

 

[01011001]

Tbh this is the way I felt back in the day. PS2 always looked like an aliased mess to me, especially when Dreamcast came first. Its contemporaries were Xbox bringing Halo 2 and GameCube that came out with the Rogue Squadron graphical showcase. I think PS2 was an example of just good old fashioned games, branding and market awareness, like the NES.

I have fun playing many PS2 games with cranked settings on series x however. I'm sorry but I will forever equate real PS2 hardware with jank.

yeah, the image quality was always an issue with it that's true.
and especially in PAL territories the PS2 was a shitshow at times, because PAL60 support was REALLY spotty, while the GC and Xbox were way more behind that... so much so that games like Onimusha on Xbox stands out like a sore thumb with its 50hz only and really bad PAL bars, while that was basically expected from most PS2 games... including the TERRIBLE PAL version of Devil May Cry 1... you literally played in slow motion and with gigantic black bars

 

[01011001]

Not at all. A lot of PS2 games, most of them Japanese titles, still hold their own thanks to excellent art styles.
Comparatively, the PS3 generation has aged worse thanks to the fact that almost everyone decided to adopt more realistic graphic styles.

agreed. PS360 era games often look like absolute shit. it's only the best of the best in terms of art that still hold up, like Gears 3 with its ridiculously high res textures that almost look like they were made for 4K, or Mirror's Edge with its bright clinical world and accented use of colours

 

[SeraphJan]

On original hardware it didn't age well visually because of resolution, however on emulator they are great

 

[polybius80]

the fact that many of its games have been remastered over the years answers the question, currently the console itself have free ways to force games into progressive scan, better filter and scaling to look great on HD tv, even lot of its games actually dont look bad on hd tv, there are youtube channels where they record with a camera pointing to cheap lcd tvs and the games look really well considering the resolution of the era and despite the conditions of looking off screen, its unknown if they used component cables and if they use free mcboot to enhance how it looks(apparently not)



but of course the better way to play is using an emulator personally I still use the system but use a CRT TV from my stash

 

[StereoVsn]

PS2 games are fine, especially via emulation with higher rendering or through a proper upscaler.

 

[baphomet]

Some games hold up pretty well to this day.

Art direction >>>>>>>> polycount, resolution, etc

That's not even remote close to how those games looked.

This is Black running at the highest possible settings and through a top of the line scaler from an actual PS2.

And Omimusha 3

 

[peronmls]

The other silent hill games don’t look bad either even though they are not good silent hill games. Siren 1 and 2 were really good and had interesting facial motion capture. Onimusha 1-4 look very good too.

 

[MasterDerico]

As i always buy games that i love, and had lots of FUN, none of my consoles aged poorly.

I never played games because of graphics, if something is fun, will be forever fun.

 

[polybius80]

That's not even remote close to how those games looked.

This is Black running at the highest possible settings and through a top of the line scaler from an actual PS2.

And Omimusha 3

the black image its zoomed

this is how it looks off screen with 16:9, the health and bullet counter are missing


are you activating the progressive scan? some capture cards operate at 30 fps and take just half of the hz resulting in capturing a very bad image compared to what it looks like on tv in interlaced games, I had that problem many years ago with a very old pci tv capture card also try using freemcboot to force the games to run in progressive scan you will get better scaling from progressive modes, onimusha 3 doesnt support progressive and 16:9 directly like other games but maybe forcing it should work

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

That's not even remote close to how those games looked.

This is Black running at the highest possible settings and through a top of the line scaler from an actual PS2.

And Omimusha 3

This is how I remember my PS2 games. Chunky.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

That's not even remote close to how those games looked.

This is Black running at the highest possible settings and through a top of the line scaler from an actual PS2.

And Omimusha 3

 

[MujkicHaris]

Dragon Quest VIII is still one of the greatest looking games ever made. Especially in the handpainted textures department.

Rogue Galaxy looks almost as good.

 

[Rush2112]

First game I played on PS2 was called "Oni". Back then, it looked absolutely amazing. Game itself was meh.

 

[kevm3]

Metal Gear Solid 2 was amazing visually for it's time as well as ZOE 2. Gradius V was gorgeous. GOW 2 was utterly amazing for its time as well. Shadow of the Colossus, Dragon Quest 8, Tekken 5

 

[Jubenhimer]

It depends on the game. Any game going for REALISM™, is going to age poorly by default because technology in that department progresses very rapidly. But for the games that have a great visual style and art direction, or use hardware limitations effectively such as Ratchet & Clank, Ico, Shadow of the Collosus, the Jak trillogy, and most Japanese developed games on the platform still hold up well visually.

Basically, games can still look good even on older technology, showing that good art direction and effecient use of resources will always be more important than sheer graphical power alone.

 

[existensmaximum]

Most PS2 games looked like complete ass even back then because of the early 3D graphics and have ages very poorly, yes in my opinion.

 

[Doom85]

Multiplat games were far worse on PS2. Like Silent Hill 2

Pretty sure most people who owned both have said the PS2 version had better audio and FMV quality. The Xbox port was not handled by Team Silent, probably the reason.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Games on PS2 that had more stylize visuals aged better than the games that were trying to be more realistic visually.

Depends. Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4 were more on the "realistic" side, with character models, and it still looks amazing to this day. I would argue SH3 and SH4 looked better than many of the agmes on PS3 for the first year or two.

 

[Robb]

Nah, there are a lot of titles that aren’t eyesores. Mainly those with distinct art styles.

 

[Mr Branding]

Short answer: yes.
Long answer: yes, it has.

 

[BryceNobody]

The better version was on Xbox. I had them both. Metal Gear 2 as well.

It was absolutely not. The game was built to run on a PS2, the Xbox port was literally running worse on foreign hardware.

Here’s a short Neoseeker thread from 2003 filled with complaints about MGS2.

 

[NightmareFarm]

Pretty much anything before 8th gen has aged poorly graphically.

PS2 games have aged a lot though.

 

[Edge Lord]

It was the most successful in sales but it was by far the ugliest system of the 3, and the weakest.

1. Xbox
2. GameCube
3. PS2

Multiplat games were far worse on PS2. Like Silent Hill 2, Soul Calibur 2, Resident Evil 4 and on. It aged during the gen itself.

You really had to bring Xbox into this topic huh!

 

[Esppiral]

It was the most successful in sales but it was by far the ugliest system of the 3, and the weakest.

1. Xbox
2. GameCube
3. PS2

Multiplat games were far worse on PS2. Like Silent Hill 2, Soul Calibur 2, Resident Evil 4 and on. It aged during the gen itself.

The Dreamcast was part of that generation.

 

[SolidQ]

That was truly masterpiece. Sadly today no similar racing game