Does anyone else find the PS2 era of first-person shooters to be refreshingly simple?

[ScOULaris]

I have a feeling that nostalgia has a lot to do with this, but for me I find revisiting old PS2 first-person shooters to be kind of relaxing and refreshing. Most of them aren't particularly challenging, and they tended to be designed in a pretty straightforward manner. Normally I find the linear, bombastic first-person shooters of today to be mind-numbing and uninspired, but for some reason PS2 shooters don't strike me that way when I play them now. Instead I'm focused more on what they were able to achieve, presentation-wise, on the PS2 hardware, and I can just work my way through them without a critical eye.

Black really pushed the PS2 to its limits while offering up some pretty satisfying gunplay.

Part of it is probably because I'm placing myself into the mindset that I was in back when I played these games for the first time as an impressionable teenager who wasn't burnt out on FPS and excitedly dove into each new attempt at the genre on the PS2. That's why I say that nostalgia must have something to do with how forgiving I am of these old shooters because I doubt a young person of today would find much of value within them. After all, first-person shooters typically lean on their presentation above all else to leave an impression, so they tend to be a genre that ages poorly over time.

This grenade launcher was the perfect weapon to put Red Faction II's environmental destruction engine to the test.

What do you all think? Do you find it relaxing and sort of refreshing to revisit PS2 shooters like these?

• Red Faction 1 and 2
• Black
• Killzone
• Medal of Honor: Frontline
• TimeSplitters 2 and Future Perfect
• Cold Winter

Among those Black and MoH: Frontline both stood out to me when I was recently on a PS2 kick. Frontline is especially nostalgic for me because its authentic sound design, memorable locations, and spellbinding soundtrack still impress today upon revisiting the game. And Black I hadn't actually played until recently, but I love how Criterion focused so much on getting the feeling of the rather straightforward core gunplay just right. That's something that both of those games did very well, IMO. The act of shooting enemies has to feel good for you to keep playing through such otherwise repetitive and simple games, and I think striving to achieve that on the PS2 was a paramount given the restrictions on scope and complexity that the PS2's limited hardware enforced.

 

[Jawmuncher]

A lot of PS2-era FPS titles hold up very well outside the controls. But if you have an emulator you can thankfully resolve that.
While this gen has its own share of good FPS titles in the linear category (Titanfall 2). There really is something special about a lot of those older titles. As you posted, RF2 is one of my favorites and the MP alone was up there with Halo and Quake 3 as a kid.

 

[RedSwirl]

I felt that way about 90's PC FPSs like Doom and Quake. In some ways they're actually more varied than today's FPSs because they have more weapon and enemy variety, and more complex level design. But at the same time they're more straightforward because they don't spend too much time on cut scenes and dialogue, or their controls are less complex -- you just get straight to playing the game.

 

[Turbo Tu-Tone]

Killzone 1, to this day, still has one of the best lobby systems I've seen on a FPS.

 

[SonicRift]

I actually still go back to the PS2 version of Unreal Tournament from time to time. UT is probably one of my most played games ever, and I do like going back to it, even without the mods and skins I used to enjoy. It's the best way to get that nostalgia hit from my couch.

Now the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3? You wanna get into a fight with Samus Aran, Master Chief and Cloud Strife in Doom's E1M1?

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

Star Trek Voyager Elite Force was my jam. Played that so many times. Single player wise I don't think I played any FPS more than that game.

 

[Booya_base]

Great job OP, first game I thought of was Black and I just replayed it recently, its glorious. That's the kind of brainless fun I want from a shooter. Doom 2016 was great too so it can be done in the current gen, just was more plentiful back then. Probably will play Turok 2 soon.

 

[WhiteNovember]

Someday I am going to replay Urban Chaos. That was a cool game.

Also loved Kz1, Cold Winter, Mace Griffin was interesting. Black of coure, Red Faction 2 and Timesplitters. The World needs another Timesplitters...

 

[AtomicShroom]

I really miss games with minimalist stories and hurdles to gameplay. Games where you could just jump in and start playing with no handholding and no need for a tutorial. Original Doom was the perfect incarnation of this: You hit New Game, pick a difficulty and boom: you're in. You get a nice little safe area to run around and get comfortable with the controls in, then it very incrementally throws enemies and concepts at you.

I don't need that much motivation to get playing a game. "Something or someone you cherish has been stolen/kidnapped and you need to recover/rescue it" is all the motivation I need. Double Dragon on NES did this perfectly. And while the latest Yoshi's Crafted World has a little too much text for my liking, the premise is the same: Jewels stolen. Get them back. That's it. That's all I need. Let me play!

Meanwhile I also miss objective-based FPSes. Something like TimeSplitters, but less wacky and more GoldenEye-y is something I feel we're never going to get to experience.

 

[Tawpgun]

I socked the shit out of the PS2 Ghost Recon games. Those were HARD.

 

[Locust Star]

as someone who grew up on doom, wolfenstein, quake, duke nukem 3d, and unreal, they always seemed incredibly subpar and disappointing on all fronts. But I'm glad that console players got to experience them in their own specific way

 

[5taquitos]

You're missing Project Snowblind!

I cannot for the life of me remember if it is good or not, even though I beat it.

 

[ShaggsMagoo]

Yeah, the time to shooting shit ratio is incredibly out of wack with the current crop of shooters. Just give me a gun and let me kill some stuff, we can worry about the story later.

 

[woolyninja]

I haven't revisited it since launch but playing Red Faction 1 while my wife watched is still one of my favorite video game memories. The game story quick enough and what I had to do was clear enough that she enjoyed watching it just as much as I did playing it.

 

[Zaied]

Medal of Honor: Frontline and Delta Force: Black Hawk Down were my go-to shooters back in those times. I replayed Killzone 1 this past fall; while it had some pretty innovative ideas for its time, it was let down by the checkpoint system and performance issues.

 

[Asbsand]

Yeah I loved gaming before everything became standardised garbage.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

The PS2 Dual Shock was horrible for the genre. I didn't really enjoy FPS on Sony systems until the PS4's analog sticks. I did like some of the PS2 era FPS on Xbox and PC but the stuff listed in the original post was just decent.

 

[NealMcCauley]

Dual wielding in RF2 was so damn fun.

 

[Moist_Owlet]

I like shoot mans games. Where is time splitters 4?

 

[AztecComplex]

I don't think I ever played a single FPS on PS2. I did play a ton on Og Xbox and a couple on GameCube, of all consoles, but not on PS2 I don't know why. I just didn't associate FPS games with PlayStation (1 or 2) I guess.

Did all the FPS on PS2, especially the early "pre-Halo" ones from 2000-2001, did they all have modern FPS controls like we expect now from? Or did they still come with Goldeneye-style Legacy controla like, say, Metroid Prime where forward-backwards was paired with turning left and right on the left stick with strafing on the right stick?

 

[tommyv2]

I like shoot mans games. Where is time splitters 4?

Click to shrink...

This is a perfect example of Poe's Law.

 

[Poimandres]

The PS2 Dual Shock was horrible for the genre. I didn't really enjoy FPS on Sony systems until the PS4's analog sticks. I did like some of the PS2 era FPS on Xbox and PC but the stuff listed in the original post was just decent.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this is where I am at. Never felt good playing FPS games on PS2 for me. Xbox was easily the FPS console of choice that gen, and had plenty of options beyond what the PS2 received.

But, I do feel like the move towards "cinematic shooters" started that gen. I prefer the purity of 90s PC FPS.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

I certainly think there were a lot of interesting directions and design choices made in shooters of the late 90's and the early-mid 00's that were abandoned in favour of increasing mechanical homogeneity. Doom was really refreshing for this exact reason, although it was certainly not the only shooter to try and buck the trend.

 

[TaySan]

The '90s and Early-mid 2000's shooters are superior to anything we got today. Duke Nukem 3D I go back to every year and it never gets old. Same with Doom, Unreal, Half-Life, FEAR, etc. They don't make them like they used to anymore.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

You know what game I really liked? Area 51.

 

[Deleted member 14735]

I was going to say, I wasn't super into FPSes but most of my fonder memories of them are from that era, going through the thread I was a lot more into them than I remember. Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Revolution, Nightfire, TimeSplitters 2 and Future Perfect were all really popular in our house. I wasn't into it as much but my brother was also super into Killzone, and that might've been the first online multiplayer game we'd played. It was the era I spent the most time with the genre for sure.

I think I started losing interest when they got a lot more modern military like, I was pretty into the early WW2 CoD games (really into UO and 3) but starting with CoD4 I fell off on the series and that was around the time there seemed to be a strong shift in the genre both in setting and how they played, which kinda lost me. Mostly I miss the more arcadey style of shooter. The only FPS I've really been able to get into since then is Overwatch.

 

[Cranster]

How can you bring up this era without mentioning Halo? It set the standard for the FPS games that followed.

 

[Inuhanyou]

There were only like 3 FPS's on PS2 even worth anything. Black, Darkwatch and timesplitters 2/future perfect. Maybe COD3 if you want to lower your standards that much.

XBox was where it was at that gen for FPS

 

[JahIthBer]

Shame Black hasn't got a remaster, if there is one game that needs it, it's this one.

 

[JaseC64]

Yo Cold Winter. That shit was og. You could even put things together mcguiver style. I remember the explosives were really fun to make and use. Gun play was ACE.

 

[Diego Renault]

We need a new Timesplitters game!!

 

[True Prophecy]

Shame Black hasn't got a remaster, if there is one game that needs it, it's this one.

Click to shrink...

It holds up pretty well on the XB1X enhancements with just a res increase. It's still a really fun game even if some things about it are annoying (unable to skip cutscenes).

I think Killzone was my favorite PS2 (only) shooter with Urban Chaos Riot Response as my second favorite (never played the Xbox version of that strange enough).

Best FPS of that era though for me was Halo 1 and 2 though (not sure if they count in this thread because its an Xbox)

 

[Pyro]

I also liked going back to Red Faction/Killzone a couple years ago. But it's not just FPS for me, I love going on nostalgia trips with my PS2.

 

[zoodoo]

I think the 90's shooters were better. The PS2' era shooter were just average. They did not do anything extraordinary and got boring and repetitive fast.

Black looked and sounded good but that's about it. Levels were bland, story was not good at all and the enemies took way too many bullets. Red Faction had the destruction going for it and that's it. Project snowblind, Red Faction2, Urban Chaos, Turok Evolution were just ok. I have never played the Timesplitters games so i can't judge.

From that era the best ones were on xbox: Halo and 007 NightFire

Edit: Killzone was good. Still my favorite of the franchise.

 

[super moustique]

I bought Killzone a few weeks ago for 3€ ! :P

 

[Zero83]

I agree. I'm playing the Turok remaster now (even older, I know), and it's a joy. Well, except for the first boss fight, that I've been stuck on for a while.

I used to buy so many first person shooters on N64 and PS2/GC, but started to feel that these games weren't for me anymore several years ago. I buy the Call of Duty's for multiplayer, but I haven't really enjoyed a single player FPS since the BioShock games, probably. I will check out Doom, though.

 

[Spark]

No, I love old FPS games, it's my genre on choice, but those old PS2 focused shooters were typically garbage. Linear, ugly, boring, frustating and short are a few things they all have in common. They were the apex of on-rail, mindless throwaway software. There were outliers like timesplitters, but my god there were so many of those unfun cashgrabs released. At least the Xbox had decent exclusive shooter offerings available.

 

[Spark]

I agree. I'm playing the Turok remaster now (even older, I know), and it's a joy. Well, except for the first boss fight, that I've been stuck on for a while.

I used to buy so many first person shooters on N64 and PS2/GC, but started to feel that these games weren't for me anymore several years ago. I buy the Call of Duty's for multiplayer, but I haven't really enjoyed a single player FPS since the BioShock games, probably. I will check out Doom, though.

Click to shrink...

Turok is a far cry from the shooters the OP is talking about. Look up the piece of garbage that is Turok Evolution to see a PS2 designed Turok shooter and you'll quickly learn that newer doesn't mean better.

 

[zoodoo]

You know what game I really liked? Area 51.

Click to shrink...

That game was garbage.
Fight me.

 

[Fisty]

Battlefield 2 Modern Combat was my shit for about a year on PS2, amazing multiplayer and no unlocks or XP... just pure objective/win focus and rigid classes... man those were the good old days.

Had a lot of fun with Black too, ended up unlocking that super-destruction mode and beating that too

 

[zoodoo]

Medal of Honor Frontline was good but does not hold up due to using 1 stick if I remember correctly.

 

[MrNewVegas]

Nightfire was objectively the most fun FPS on the PS2...

That being said they didn't hold a candle to PC. CS1.6, MoHAA, UT03, etc. crushed everything PS2 could pump out.

 

[Akela]

From the same timeframe I really love how the original Half Life 2 had a significant amount of downtime where you can just explore and take in the atmosphere at your own pace without lots of dialog or story moments to listen to (something that was sort of lost in the episodes where you're almost always travelling alongside Alyx and other resistance members). That alongside the fairly simple shooting mechanics actually makes it a really good podcast game to revisit over and over. I feel like we don't really get that sort of thing as often any more (again, even the later HL games became much more plot heavy in the end).

 

[ScOULaris]

Medal of Honor Frontline was good but does not hold up due to using 1 stick if I remember correctly.

Click to shrink...

Maybe you're thinking of the PS1 original. Frontline had dual-analog controls.

 

[Cyros]

I never played it but I always find myself thinking about Project Snowblind for some reason.

 

[Baji Boxer]

I really want a game in the No One Lives Forever vein. I played it on PC though, so I can't speak to the quality of the PS2 port.

 

[Baji Boxer]

I never played it but I always find myself thinking about Project Snowblind for some reason.

Click to shrink...

I remember being excited for it then... not buying it.

 

[Anthony Hopkins]

I found them quite limited by the technology, plus they were all 30fps or lower, not great for shooters.

 

[zoodoo]

Maybe you're thinking of the PS1 original. Frontline had dual-analog controls.

Click to shrink...

Hmmm...
Are you certain? i have never played the ps1 one
Maybe I am remembering wrong

 

[zoodoo]

Nightfire was objectively the most fun FPS on the PS2...

That being said they didn't hold a candle to PC. CS1.6, MoHAA, UT03, etc. crushed everything PS2 could pump out.

Click to shrink...

On xbox, my buddies and I would regularly do 4 player split screen NightFire drinking nights. So many good memories.