Just a quick post today, I’ve shared the story of how I got into gaming on here a couple of times now – but here’s the full blog post if you’re interested – and while raiding my spare room/dumping ground with no window I found my silver PS2 and all my old games. Ah, memories.

I thought I’d share the ones I absolutely loved to play today, just for nostalgia purposes for those who remember them too:

Primal

Every time I ask someone if they played this game I always get the same response: ‘nope’ and I just don’t understand why. Sure, I picked up my copy in a bargain bin in Argos and my Dad kindly bought it for me (I think it was like £2) but it really isn’t that bad a game. In fact, the story is great (and right up my street), featuring a strong female protagonist, demons, a witty playable sidekick and fun powers to experiment with.

Following the story of Jen Tate, a girl who is the very definition of cool rock chick that I desperately wanted to be at the age of 16, the game features her heading into the spirit/demon realms when she is knocked out and in a coma, after trying to save her boyfriend from a demon attacking them.

Jen then has to defeat the demons in each realm to take on their powers until she reaches the one who is holding her boyfriend captive. It’s a great story lead game and the graphics are actually pretty great for its time of release.

I loved the various types of gameplay Primal entailed, each demon Jen takes the power of has different powers, there are also parts of the game where you are underwater offering a really varied experience. My favourite part though, has to be when she enters the Wraith realm and encounters Count Raum, Countess Empusa and their daughter Elizabeth, who are noble demons that remind me of some sort of vampire cult. I always remember killing those two was super hard.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds

Anything Buffy is a win in my books but I think I must have played this game until I reached the Faith level and died every time I entered the warehouse to fight Kakistos. I’ve never finished it and I still don’t think I can.

The game is great because you get to play as all the characters and even though I’m much more of a storyline gamer I did enjoy the puzzle elements that featured throughout the gameplay. It’s also great when it comes to weapons, you can’t kill vamps without a stake and while you don’t see many of these lying around throughout the game you can smash up objects in the environment, such as chairs and wooden boxes, to create them.

The graphics are actually pretty good, the characters look like their real life counterparts and Sunnydale is accurately portrayed, you even get to explore areas that aren’t really focused on in the series such as the high street where the magic shop is based.

The Sims

Yes, I was one of those people who played the Sims on a console. And I enjoyed it dammit. I have to admit though, it was simply because my computer couldn’t run the game properly, so it was a good alternative since the PS2 was basically on in my room everyday.

I also had The Sims 2 and Urbz: Sims in the City which featured the Black Eyed Peas on the Soundtrack and as characters in the game. These were all just easy games to stick in the console and lose a couple of hours on, simply because I wasn’t quite ready for the FPS and immersive story gameplay yet, which I usually play now.

It appears my obsession with the franchise hasn’t stopped though, I’m pretty hooked again on Simcity and have been playing it most evenings for the past couple of weeks.

What were your favourite games to play on the PS2?

Jade