The PlayStation 2 is the most successful console of all time. It blew past all of its contemporaries on the sales charts and has yet to be topped. With all of that success, it’s safe to say developers were falling all over themselves to drop new games on the platform. The PS2’s catalog reaches well into the thousands, giving players plenty of options. While many of those games are exceptional, quite a few of them are downright stinkers. What’s even worse are the games that looked promising for one reason or another, but turned out to be steaming piles of garbage. Those disappointments will always hurt worse, because there was some hope they’d turn into something great.
Here are seven of the biggest disappointments on the PlayStation 2.
7) The Sopranos: Road to Respect
Video game adaptations are generally terrible, especially in the PlayStation 2 era. However, The Sopranos had a few things going in its favor. Most importantly, crime-themed games were all the rage in 2006, and several publishers (including THQ with Saints Row earlier in the year) had proven they could make quality takes on the Grand Theft Auto formula.
On top of that, Road to Respect brought most of the important characters from The Sopranos into the mix. That included James Gandolfini, Michael Imperioli, Tony Sirico, and Steven Van Zandt. Plus, series creator David Chase came up with the original idea behind Road to Respect‘s story. That all sounded promising, but then, Chase had an interview right around Road to Respect’s release and made it clear the game had no actual connection to the show. That tempered expectations a bit, but it still stung a bit when Road to Respect turned out to be a simplistic, slapdash effort, seemingly only made to make a few bucks.
6) Fight Club
Again, having a bad video game adaptation of a popular movie or TV show wasn’t exactly novel in 2004. That said, if anything was going to easily translate to gaming, it was Fight Club. It’s just a couple of dudes fighting each other. We see that all the time with hit games like Tekken, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat.
Unfortunately, the developers at Genuine Games decided the move was to copy elements of several games and mash them all together. You have the permanent damage from Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus, environmental traps from Mortal Kombat: Deception, and strikes that seem eerily similar to Tekken 4. It’s a slurry of concepts that don’t really work together, making this another cash-grab that tricked far too many players with the promise of gritty, realistic fight clubs.
5) Mega Man X7
Mega Man X is a beloved update on the classic formula. The series got its start on the Super Nintendo, captivating fans with all of the new bells and whistles added when X took over as Mega Man’s successor. The series had a great run leading up to Mega Man X7. Sure, the first game is often seen as the peak, but every sequel has had its moments.
Then, Mega Man X7 hit the PlayStation 2. The 2003 action platformer tried to mix 2D and 3D gameplay, but it just did not work. The camera was wonky, and the controls never really made sense after switching between perspectives. And while switching between characters was great, they weren’t well-balanced. Thankfully, the series had a slight rebound in later years, but it’s never been as good as it was back on the SNES.
4) Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
The Tomb Raider series was one of the original PlayStation’s biggest hits, establishing Lara Croft as one of the platform’s most successful characters. However, after those first three games, the series started to drop off slightly. Thankfully, the PlayStation 2 was around the corner, which would hopefully breathe some new life into Tomb Raider.
Unfortunately, The Angel of Darkness was mostly a flop. It looked great, but was filled with bugs, bad combat, and an even worse camera. It’s a shame because the developers were trying to build a compelling story and innovate on the series’s formula. It never panned out, and it would be three years before we heard from Tomb Raider again. The good news is that the later reboot in 2013 brought the series back to the forefront after a decade out of the spotlight.
3) EOE: Eve of Extinction
This one might be on me, but it seemed like something special was brewing when Yuke’s signed with publisher Eidos Interactive to make a new 3D beat ’em up. Both companies had a relatively solid track record at that point, and the marketing materials hyping up all of the weapons you could unlock seemed promising.
Unfortunately, EOE had the same problem as many 3D games of the era: an atrocious camera. Developers just hadn’t quite figured it out yet, at least across the board. Plus, the enemy AI was dumb, and the controls were confusing. Still, dodging bullets in slo-mo while techno music blared was a blast. It just couldn’t save Eve of Extinction.
2) Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly
Like Tomb Raider, Spyro went on a generational run during the original PlayStation era. If only the developers had left it there. Enter the Dragonfly tried to bring the series to a modern console, but struggled to make any notable improvements on the formula, even backsliding in places.
Granted, that might not all be on developer Equinoxe Digital. Reportedly, it was under a strict time crunch, leading to a rush job. That led to countless bugs and glitches. It didn’t help that the controls were frustrating, and it routinely dropped frames. After the success of the first few Spyro games, it’s a travesty that fans had to endure this rushed game.
1) Devil May Cry 2
Oh, boy. The original Devil May Cry is one of the best games of its era. Capcom put players into a stylish action game that featured difficult fights and gorgeous visuals. It was a critical and commercial success, so many assumed the sequel would only make things better.
Sadly, a new team was dropped in to make the sequel, which meant it lacked much of the expertise the previous team had developed by making the original. They decided fans wanted an easier Devil May Cry, so they cut off the difficulty and then completely changed Dante’s personality. It was a huge miss by the studio, leading to several critical reviews from across the board. Devil May Cry 2 sold relatively well on the back of the first game’s success, but didn’t meet expectations. Thankfully, they quickly got back on track with Dante’s Awakening.
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