Welcome to part 3 of five underrated PS2 games. This is not a top five list, and whether you use the term hidden gem, or underrated gem, these are games that, despite review scores, or pre-release coverage, were completely undervalued by the general gaming public. Maybe they were buried in the launch of a more popular game or busy season of high profile releases or just weren't in the popular tastes of gaming at the time. For whatever reason, these games quickly slipped into obscurity. If you've watched my channel for long, I have covered all of these at least once previously, if not more, so there won't be any big surprises for long time viewers.
Number 1: Alien Hominid
This game put players into the shoes of alien hominid, who's upon having his UFO shot down by none other than the F.B.I., is on a quest to recover his craft, and have his revenge.
Starting it's life as a flash game on Newgrounds.com, Alien Hominid is a tough-as-nails shooter blatantly inspired by the Metal Slug games. Alien features it's own unique and humorous art style, tough, but fun run and gun gameplay replete with one-hit deaths, weapon upgrades, vehicles to commandeer, and big boss battles with patterns to memorize
Hominid also has a number of fun, unlockable minigames to play as well, and in similar Contra/Metal slug vein, it also supports two-player coop play for fun with a friend. In typical fashion, I am actually quite terrible at this game, personally, even on easy, but I still enjoy it every time I play it. This is certainly for those with a persistent gaming personality. I certainly am not one with an iron-will when it comes to mastering games of this type, but still enjoy playing them, and Hominid is a good time for all types of gamers.
The Game's art direction certainly gives it it's own unique style, but sometimes objects in the foreground can block your view, and there was noticeable slowdown in portions of the game. The controls are solid, and the various maneuvers are easy to learn and implement in the gameplay.
This game was re-released on Xbox Live as Alien Hominid HD, but was also released on the Xbox in Europe, the Game Boy Advance in Europe and Australia, and the Game Cube in North America. You can also still play it on Newgrounds. The developers of this game would go on later to develop the highly praised game Castle Crashers.
Number 2: Cold Winter
Cold Winter follows the story of Andrew Sterling, a British MI6agent captured for spying in China, and set for execution until an old acquaintance springs him from a Chinese Prison and asks him to work for his private security company. Essentially, the game starts out with the same plot as Die Another Day.
To best describe Cold Winter, if you took the gritty, gory limb destruction gameplay of Soldier of Fortune, and combined it with the debonair style of James Bond, you would get the formula for the dark, gritty spy thriller.
Cold Winter's levels have all the gory, grimy style of Soldier of fortune, but keep the more objective-based format of games like Goldeneye, but also has a good degree of interactivity in it's levels that rewards exploration.
Outside of being able to open cabinets to search for items, and do pointless things like flush the toilet, Cold Winter also allows players to search dead, or what's left of the dead, enemy soldiers for items like keys, body armor to replenish their own, and even things for your combine items, like strips of cloth, which allow Andrew to combine with other items found throughout the level to make things like Molotov cocktails.
That's another really nice touch in the game, acquiring various items in the game allows players to go into the menu and create new items. Find an alarm clock, and some C-4 explosives, and create a timed explosive. Some wire cutters, and some wire, and you can create lock picks in order to pick certain locks in the level, to get extra items, and etc. The game also has extra side objectives to complete, like finding Intel documents hidden in each level.
Graphically, the game looks good, running on a renderware engine, but the frame rate does bog down when there's too much action on the screen. There also seems to be a but of a blur filter which shows up when playing on an HD TV that you won't notice if you're playing on a good old CRT TV. The filter can be disorienting during play if you can't adjust to it.
The music in the game is excellent as well, from the title theme to the level music, I really dig the tunes. The voice acting in-game and the story elements is also pretty well done overall, and the sound effects seem a bit muffled, but have their own pleasing appeal to me for some reason.
The controls also work well. Andrew moves slightly sluggish, and you can't adjust the aiming speed, like Black, it is stuck at the developer chosen speed, possibly to keep the framerate at a playable level, however, the aiming still feels very accurate, the developers did a good job in setting the default. The game doesn't allow you to aim down your sights, but ever gun has a zoom, and unique for the time of it's release, Cold Winter uses the L3 button to allow players to sprint.
When the game was online, it's 8-player matches usually made for a fun time. Certainly nothing flashy by today's bloated standers of free kills, and perk systems, but they made for some simple fun. They did sometimes devolve into cheap kill fests where someone would just go grab the explosive weapons for easy kills, but not nearly as badly as Killzone's online matches did. Personally, I would love to thank IGN for buying gamespy, and dismantling it, otherwise, the servers would still be online for this, and all other gamespy hosted PS2 games, but we can't have that now can we.
All that said, the game does still offer local 4-player split-screen multiplayer with bots which is always a great addition to any First person shooter, especially if you have a couple of buds to come over, and a multi-tap, or even just by yourself fragging bots. Bot deathmatches never seem to get old for me, so I really appreciate it's inclusion.
The only two dowsides to this game I can really think of, are, for one Cold Winter inexplicably uses over a quarter of your PS2's memory card, and I am not sure why. Maybe the developers programmed the game to store game assets on the card, or maybe they added an online patch before the game shipped. Honestly, I really can't speculate as to why this game is a memory card hog. The only other downside for some gamers out there is, this game doesn't auto-save your progress requiring gamers to save their progress from the pause menu instead. So, if you're the forgetful type, and forget to save your game, you could lose hours of progress. Those two small gripes aside, Cold winter is still one of my favorite PS2 shooters, and I highly recommend it.
Number 3: King of Fighters: Maximum Impact
While not SNK's first foray into the 3D realm of fighting games (see Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition on the PS1 for a previous example), Maximum Impact is SNK's first foray into 3D with their Beloved King Of Fighter's series, and is a very solid 3D fighter with 2D fighting mechanics. In fact, Maximum Impact brings King of Fighter's into 3D much better than games like StreetFighter EX3 did for it's respective franchise.
King of Fighters purists may want to look away from this game with it's jump to the 3D realm, and it's largely scaled back character selections (though it has all the characters I care about which is a plus for me), but for those purists, there are plenty of SNK compilations, and Anthology type disks in the PS2 library to quench their thirst for glorious 2d fighting, and even King of Fighters 11 which I also highly recommend.
By my own admission, I have a bit of a soft spot for the King of Fighter's series. During the mid-to late 90's I fell out of 2D fighters. That period of time for me was the time of the Tekken's, the bloody roars, the Virtrua Fighters. #d was the new thing, and having played tons of 2D fighters in the 16-bit era, I was looking to the future, which was 3D fighters for me. 2d fighters were placed in my dust-bin. However, eventually I cam back around to 2D fighters, picking up Games like Marvel Super heroes, and the verses series, and eventually, even picking up Street Fighter Alpha 3 on the Dreamcast. The only problem was, though I could get into verses games, I just couldn't get back into Alpha 3, despite it's high praise.
Enter 2000, or 2001 when browsing my local Walmart, I saw a copy of King of Fighters 99 for a mere $10, having seen a strong review for the game in an issue of PSM, I decided to pick it up. At first, I was doing quite terrible at the game, not that I still don't butI realized that I was playing it all wrong, taking the street fighter route of spamming the special attacks (not that Street fighter is all spammy, but that's just how I played it), and giving almost not thought to the intricacies of the KOF gameplay mechanics.
I eventually learned the mechanics, and was really impressed that the game played a lot more like a 3D fighter than I expected. SNK had been busy refining things I didn't even know where available in 2D fighters, like the ability to fast step back an fourth, the ability to dodge right past your opponents projectiles (which helps against spammy opponents), and had a bigger emphasis in defeating opponents with your regular attacks as opposed to just pulling off special moves the whole time. Most fireball type moves don't even go across the screen, so the game had a bigger emphasis on close range attacks than throwing fireballs at opponents. After playing this game, I was able to play the more traditional Street fighter type games, and not just the flashy verses type games.
I still highly recommend King of Fighters '99 to any PS1 2D fighting fans for a very fun, and surprisingly playable 2D fighter on a system that wasn't known for it's 2D abilities. I liked it so much, I bought Evolution on the Dreamcast later.
Despite my soft-spot for the franchise, Maximum Impact is still worth a look for those wanting a good blending of 3D fighting gameplay, with 2S fighting mechanics. While Rival Schools is still my favorite blending of the genres, Maximum Impact certainly ranks up there with it's smooth running tight gameplay, Spot on controls, and while not as detailed as other Fighting games, good looking visuals. This is another game that runs on a renderware engine, and it moves smoothly, and looks crisp, even on the cheapy HDTV I use in my youtube office.
Maximum Impact has most of the default fighting modes you can expect, but not a team battle mode like other do, however, it does have a Challenge mode, similar to the Edge Master mode in Soul Blade where fighting matches, and completing the objectives unlocks new things in the game which ads a good degree of extra depth to the game. I love when fighters add modes like this.
The only two complaints I would add against the game, would be the aforementioned scaling way back on playable King of Fighter's characters, (sorry Andy fans, or Kyo clone 583 fans), and the fact that the end boss is 2D fighter end boss cheap. Oh my goodness does fighting him ever make me so angry!!!! SO ANGRY!!!! Aside from that I have a lot of fun with this game everytime I boot this game up, and my copy also came with a bonus DVD with behind the scenes featuretts.
KOF: MI is also available in an upgraded version on the Xbox as King of Fighters Maximum Impact Maniax which has a Japanese language option, and also had online play.
And I have still yet to pick up, known in North America as The King of Fighters 2006, and everywhere else as the aptly named King of Fighters Maximum Impact 2.
Number 4: Project Eden
I own three out of the four Core Design PS2 releases. As you may know, Core Design was most famous for the original Tomb Raider series, but sadly, despite their success on the PS1, they were one of those developers that just couldn't quite make a successful jump from the PS1 to PS2. The only PS2 Release I have yet to acquire is Thunderstrike, but of the other three I own, Herdy Gerdy, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, and This game, I would have to say that Eden is my favorite Core release on the PS2, even if it can be just as glitchy as all of Core's PS2 releases.
Project Eden is a squad based puzzle action game. There are some shooting elements, however, Eden's main focus is on solving each level's puzzles by using each character's abilities in order to progress. On the plus side, not only are there quite a few split screen modes, like deathmatches, and even races, but the single player is also up to four-players with a multi-tap. And all other players can enter the game, and leave on the fly. I've never played it this way, but I bet it would add to the fun I have with this game.
The game starts out with your four protagonists, members of the Urban Protection Agency, being called in to investigate strange happenings as the real Meat factory, which leads them on a journey that spans 11 lengthy levels, which will test their best puzzle solving skills.
Project Eden manages to draw me in every time I boot it up, and is for the more discerning gamers out there who love a good mental challenge. As I said, the game is predominantly a puzzle-heavy game, with a little action thrown in for good measure. What else would you expect from the creators of Tomb Raider? The game focuses around it's four playable characters, and each of their abilities, and is set in a cool cyber-punk Blade Runner-esc world.
Each character's specialties is needed for each puzzle element in the game. For example:
[to the 80's/90's TMNT cartoon theme] Carter leads, Minoko hacks machines, Andre fixes stuff good, And Amber is your hazmat environment Dude.
part of the challenge is figuring out not only which character is needed for each situation, but also how to get them there.
Playing by yourself, the game still manages to make controlling all four characters a cinch, by having each one assigned to each direction on the D-pad, and asking your comrades to follow you, or stay put is a simple one-button affair, however, when the computer is controlling them, they do a so-so job of following you. Sometimes they just randomly stop or get stuck, but other times they follow you perfectly.
Overall, there a lot of glitches, and flaws in the game, however, the overall experience for me has always been more positive than negative. The positives will help those who get drawn into this one overlook some of the issues the game has. The only really big problem is that, in some parts of certain levels, the game can actually glitch to a game-ending degree, making progression impossible, because something went wrong. I definitely get the feeling that all of Core's releases were rushed to the PS2 market. However, I try to offset the danger of a game ruining glitches by having three seperate saves running for the game, saving each portion in sequence.
Otherwise, as in Tomb Raider, the game allows you to return to any level you have unlocked at any point, meaning you can always start the level over from the very beginning, which, with the size of the levels, may completely demotivate you from playing the game again. The glitches don't always occur, but it's always smart to run at least two saves in the game just in case, that way you don't have to start the level over again.
The game's framerate can also take drastic dives at times, usually during the action sequences, but other times, just because. I have never been able to test how much this effects the multiplayer aspect of the campaign. Perhaps, those who have played this game with more people can comment on that for me.
There also never seems to be enough ammo. The game does give some items here and there to refill your ammo, but the game forces you to refill your ammo at charge points, placed sparingly throughout the map. This can be a bit frustrating, considering how many rounds it takes to put down enemies, and that every weapon uses the same ammo meter.
On a plus side, should your character succumb to an enemy, it isn't game over, and all characters are respawned at the checkpoints upon dying. This gives the game a more, drop-in and play feel. The only penalty for dying is having to get back to the point you were before death.
Graphically, aside from the framerate issues, on a level of detail, the game looked poor, even for a 2001 PS2 release. There were other second generation PS2 efforts that leave Eden in the dust, however, where Eden shines is in it's ambiance and atmosphere. What the game lacks in flash and detail, it makes up for with an impeccable atmosphere. Core nailed that futuristic, yet urban decay type atmosphere. If you're not a fan of, I guess the the term is, tech-noir, style, then cool blending of futuristic environments with run-down dilapidated ruins of old urban areas may not do much for you. Overall, the visual detail isn't terrible, but you definitely won't be playing this game for it's visual quality, outside of the atmosphere. On a different note, the game actually does support 16:9 Amimorphic widescreen.
The controls will also take a bit of getting used to. While swapping characters, and getting them to either follow, or stay put is a simple one-button affair, most of the other mechanics feel a bit clunky to use. For example, hitting a switch requires the player to lock onto the switch with the r2 button, and then press the R1 button to press it, this can also be used to lock onto enemies during combat.
The menu system also feels pretty clunky, and is also required in order to check your objectives, or to use things like the rover, and the fly cam (which by the way are both really cool additions that help with the puzzle solving or just scoping new areas out).
The movement and aiming, is the modern dual-analog style. Move with the left stick, aim with the right which will help those more accustomed to modern controls schemes feel right at home. The only downside to the aiming is that the analog stick has a large deadzone which almost reminds me of how it would feel to play a Wiimote shooter with an analog stick. Moving the aimig curser doesn't instantly turn the camera, but you get used to it after a while of play.
On a similar note, character movement feels almost as if it has a deadzone as well. Characters don't start out in a full sprint when you hold the analog stick all the way in the direction you are running, each character has a bit of a wind-up which means it takes them a short time period to get up to full running speed. This can be a bit frustrating, especially when moving platforms are involved (there is no jump in this game), but you can adjust to it, even if you'll never like it fully.
Overall, despite it's quirks, and it's technical problems that rear their head at times, Project Eden is a game that always draws me in. It's cleaver puzzle elements, impeccable atmosphere, and multi-player appeal are it's strengths. There was a lot of thought put into the level designs of this game, and the game shines for those who enjoy using their problem solving skills, either alone, or with friends. There is also a PC version of Project Eden, but now owning it myself, I can't comment on what the differences may be between the two. If you're interested in Eden, look into both versions to see which one suits your tastes the best. A Flawed, but still engrossing game.
Number 5: Skygunner
If you're a fan of Starfox 64, and Panzer Dragoon, then Skygunner will be right up your alley. While Skygunner isn't an on-rails shooter, it is a free flight game, with Rail Shooter and perhaps even shoot 'em up mechanics. If you so choose, you can play each mission in free flight mode, however, the lock-on system is one of the primary gameplay mechanics you will need to master is you want to be successful. Your gunner has the ability to lock on to enemies, which changes the feel from being free-flight shooter, to feeling more like a rail shooter. Destroying chains of enemies also gives you special items that lock on to enemies, similar to the lock on systems in the previously mentioned games.
With only five levels, the game can be seen a short, but with the the extra characters to unlock and play through the game with, extra modes to unlock, and a good degree of difficulty there is plenty of content to keep you coming back. The general gameplay is simple fun, yet still very engaging. Not quite Shoot 'em up, not quite rail shooter, and not quite free-flight shooter, but a good combination of all of them. Skygunner still stands out with it's unique mixture of styles. If you're a fan of all the niche genres I just mentioned, then you'll have a good time with this game.
The storyline features a main villain that has all the competence of Tiesel Bonne, and has it's own charm, told both through in-game cutscenes, and hand-drawn comic-book style cells, it definitely adds to the charm of this game.
Graphically, I really enjoy the art direction in the game. I don't know if there's an official name for the style, but Skygunner's look reminds me a lot of games like Tail Concerto and even Mega Man Legends on the PS1. However, if there's one big flaw with the graphics, and with the game in general, it's there is a severe amount of slowdown in this game. The slowdown won't keep you from enjoying this unique shooter, however, the developers really should have spent more time trying to optimize the game to run better.
The controls are smooth, so long as you choose the easy control mode like I use. There is an expert mode, but it reminded me a lot of trying to play this game with Sky Odyssey's (which I covered in part 2 of this series) control scheme. I couldn't get the hang of it, but saw little reason to with the ease of using the easy setup. The music is upbeat and adds to the experience nicely. Anime purist types can even turn on Japanese voices with English subtitles in case the english voice acting doesn't do it for you.
Don't let the cutesy look of Skygunner throw you off, between the timed objectives, and even the ability to run out of fuel and fail the mission, there is a good degree of difficulty to be had in this fun little shooter. If you're into that niche anime style, and shooters like Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon, you'll enjoy Skygunner.
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