15 Best Looking PS2 Games

God of War was first released for the PlayStation 2 on March 22, 2005. You play Kratos, a Spartan warrior sent by Athena to kill Ares, the god who tricked him into killing his own wife and daughter. It is loosely based on Greek mythology, with vengeance as its central motif. Critics praised its graphics along with the sound, the story and the gameplay, and it sold over 4.6 million units by June 2012. For about three months early on, Jaffe seriously considered making it a first-person game.

Players who were there still talk about how it bowled them over, and the cutscenes come up again and again. It sits lower here than you might expect for one reason only: its sequel looks even better.

Harada aimed to make Tekken 5 the best game in the entire franchise, to celebrate the series' 10th anniversary. It was the first Tekken to let you customize fighters with accessories and clothing bought with in-game currency. The home version added a beat 'em up mode called Devil Within, and the arcade cabinet was notable for letting players use their PlayStation 2 controllers. It was a critical and commercial success, selling over 9.43 million copies.

When players list the best-looking games on the PS2, Tekken 5 tends to show up right next to Gran Turismo 4. It is the only fighting game on this list, which says a lot about how good it looked next to everything else in the genre.

Valkyrie Profile 2 takes place hundreds of years before the first game. Two characters, Silmeria and Alicia, share the same body, and together they try to stop a war between people and the gods. Time only flows when you move, so you can freeze a dungeon and plan your path around the enemies. It came out on the PS2 in 2006 in Japan and North America. Reviews praised its beautiful graphics and complained about a convoluted interface and a high difficulty.

Players call it gorgeous, and they like to point out that it had a 1080i resolution option. Very few PS2 games offered that. It is also the least known game on this list, so if you only know the famous ones, start here.

Resident Evil 4 began its development on the PS2 in 1999. One early version, directed by Hideki Kamiya, strayed so far from the series that it became Devil May Cry instead. The finished game launched on the GameCube first, and the PS2 port had to give a little: almost all of the GameCube's real-time cut scenes were turned into movie files, and the voices and sound effects lost some quality. Capcom made up for the late release with new content, including minigames and costumes.

Even in that trimmed-down form, players say it blew them away back then.

Gran Turismo 3 was first planned as a launch title for the PS2 in 2000, and its development focused on the new hardware. It has over 150 detailed cars, each built from more than 4,000 polygons, plus effects such as sun glare, heat distortion and reflections. It became the best-selling game in the series and the best-selling PlayStation 2 exclusive, with over 14.8 million copies sold.

For a lot of players this was the moment the new generation arrived. They remember being amazed by how good it looked. Its sequel sits at the top of this list.

In Ōkami you play Amaterasu, the Shinto sun goddess, in the form of a white wolf. The whole world is drawn in a cel-shaded style inspired by sumi-e, so it looks like an animated Japanese ink painting. You paint on the screen with the Celestial Brush to perform miracles, and the gameplay is modeled on The Legend of Zelda. It was one of the last PS2 games before the PS3 arrived. It sold poorly but received universal acclaim and was IGN's 2006 Game of the Year.

Most games on this list chase realism. Ōkami went the other way, and that look has aged better than realism ever could. Players call it a visual masterpiece and put it among their top picks, right next to the realistic heavyweights.

Shadow of the Colossus was developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan. A young wanderer brings a stolen magical sword and his horse into a cursed land and makes a deal with an ancient being: kill sixteen colossi and a sacrificial victim will be brought back to life. To beat a colossus you climb it and stab the sigil on its head. Monster movies like the original Godzilla inspired the idea, and the game won several awards for its audio and design.

Players single out the size of the colossi. The land between them can feel empty, but the draw distance lets you see a long way, and watching a giant walk out of the distance is what people remember. They agree it looked unbelievable for the hardware it ran on.

Metal Gear Solid 2 was developed over four years by a team of over 100 people, and Hideo Kojima directed, produced, designed and wrote it. It added multi-level environments, squad-based enemy AI and first-person aiming. The aiming mode let you blind guards with steam or distract them with a flying piece of fruit. It came out in November 2001 in North America and Japan, and an expanded edition, Substance, followed the next year.

On a technical level, players see this as the PS2's first real showpiece.

Snake Eater was first meant for the PlayStation 3, but Kojima moved it to the PS2 because of the long wait for the new console. The jungle setting was hard to build: the team needed a new collision engine and cut planned features. You climb trees and hide in tall grass in camouflage, and some food you catch rots over time. Critics praised its narrative and its graphics, and the later Subsistence version added a third-person camera.

Players remember the detail. The jungle is dense in a way few PS2 games tried, and it still holds up next to anything else on the console.

God of War II came out on the PlayStation 2 on March 13, 2007. Zeus betrays Kratos, strips him of his godhood and kills him. The Titan Gaia rescues him, and he goes looking for the Sisters of Fate, who can turn back time. Early on, the giant Colossus of Rhodes comes to life and attacks. It was 2007's PlayStation Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards and sold 4.24 million units by June 2012.

Players say it pushed the PS2 to its limits, and that parts of it could pass for a PS3 game. One player remembers thinking "THIS IS ON THE SAME CONSOLE???"

Black is a first-person shooter set in Chechnya. You play Jack Kellar, a black ops soldier being interrogated about his missions, and each mission is separated by a cutscene. You can only carry two weapons at a time. The game was heavily promoted for its destructive effects and explosions, and for its cinema-inspired action and sound. Critics praised the presentation and the sound design. They also criticized its short length and the lack of a multiplayer mode.

Players back up the marketing. They talk about the dust and particle effects, and the way windows shatter and concrete falls apart when a grenade goes off. Some say it still looks like an early PS3 game.

Final Fantasy X was the first game in the series with fully three-dimensional areas and voice acting. Development started in 1999 with a team of more than 100 people and a budget of more than $32.3 million. Its world, Spira, is modeled on Southeast Asia, and Okinawa was one of the places the team based it on. Motion capture and skeletal animation gave the characters realistic lip movements that match the voice actors. It shipped over 8.5 million units on the PS2.

Players remember the jump from the PS1 games best. Suddenly the characters looked and talked like real people. Plenty of them still call it one of the most beautiful games on the system, along with Final Fantasy XII.

Silent Hill 3 follows Heather Mason, a teenager pulled into the plans of the town's cult. It is a direct sequel to the first game. It was first planned as a rail shooter, and it was made alongside Silent Hill 4: The Room. The final version was developed from scratch in 10 months, between August 2002 and May 2003. A remastered high-definition version came out in the Silent Hill HD Collection in 2012.

Ten months, and players still say it has no right to look this good today. Many of them put it on par with games from the Xbox 360 and PS3 era.

Final Fantasy XII is set in Ivalice, where the small kingdom of Dalmasca is annexed by the Archadian Empire. Its princess, Ashe, starts a resistance and teams up with Vaan, a young adventurer who wants to fly an airship. For the first time in the series you can control the camera with the right analog stick, and enemies are visible in the field with no random encounters. It earned several Game of the Year awards and sold over six million copies on the PS2 by November 2009.

Players call Ivalice a gorgeous world. Some say its cutscenes look almost like PS3 graphics. It is the PS2 doing its best impression of the next generation.

Gran Turismo 4 was delayed for over a year and a half by Polyphony Digital and lost its online mode along the way. It came out in Japan on December 28, 2004, and in North America on February 22, 2005. It has over 700 cars from 80 manufacturers and 51 tracks. It is also one of only four PS2 games capable of 1080i output. It became the fourth best-selling game on the PlayStation 2.

When we asked players about graphics, Gran Turismo 4 came up more than any other game. Players say it does not even look like a PS2 game, and that it has aged better than most. If the PS2 had a ceiling, this is where Polyphony hit it.