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Best looking PS2 game?

MGS3 doesn't get enough credit for how much it pushed the PS2's capabilities. It was better looking than a lot of PS3 games for the first couple years of that generation.
 
There are quite a few games that allow widescreen and 480p on real PS2's that previously were thought impossible. I know that MGS3 will run in 480p 16:9 on a real PS2, so will FFXII and many other games with the right hex code patches. I'm pretty sure Silent Hill 3 has codes for 480p 16:9 as well, but it may have some graphic anomalies.

Love all the games posted so far, I'll give honorable mention to Snowblind Studios Champions: Return to Arms which used downsampling on PS2 and looks incredible on a good 480i display.
 
Valkyrie Profile 2.

6irdsj.png
 

Dunkley

Member
The apartment in Silent Hill 4 aged pretty gracefully in my opinion. It holds up well in emulation:

15031345465_2ea26287c5_o.jpg


15030995852_e5eff13f81_o.jpg

Too bad the rest of the game looks absolutely dreadful outside of Software emulation.

But I say, I was always surprised how good Silent Hill 4 looked and how well it ran on the PS2. Although not as impressive as Silent Hill 3, it was still an amazing piece of tech at the time as well.

My vote goes to MGS3. No scale/visuals ratio impressed me more than that on the Playstation 2.
 
Shadow of the Colussus. The sheer scale and attention to detail of the colossi alone make it the best looking PS2 game.

YEU0RVo.jpg


Though if I had to pick another game I would say God Of War 2 comes in second place.
 

Bio

Member
I really appreciated the Budokai Tenkaichi series, honestly they nailed it pretty hard. DBZ games haven't gotten all that much better looking since, because there hasn't been much improvement to make outside of HD-ifying.

Z72QMd3.jpg
 
MGS2 looked like cg when it first came out, the ship was just AMAZING

Gran turismo 3 and 4

Resident evil 4 I owned a Xbox that gen, and was so amazed how good resident evil 4 looked on ps4 that I questioned the power difference between ps2 and Xbox.
 
Gow 2 stands in my mind as a titel the really blew me away even after next gen had arrived.

Other strong contenders are SH3 and MGS3. I love the look and aesthetic of Shadow of the Colossus, but that game had so many framerate dips on ps2, that I don't feel like it can take it.
 

Overside

Banned
Lets see...

Ghost Hunter
Shadow of the Colossus
God of War 2
Transformers (2005?4?)
Silent Hill 3

Great generation. Each system had their own little list of stunning looking games that could go toe to toe with the other systems stunners, and they all were great looking in different ways, because they had to use the specific systems strengths.
 
Hard to narrow it down to one.

Black
GT4
GoW2
FFXII
ZOE2
MGS3

They were all impressive in their own way. I don't include SOTC because the sacrifices it had to make to performance were beyond what I consider acceptable.

In the end I might go with GoW2.

I see some people mentioning Odin Sphere. Only game I ever stopped playing because of how bad the frame-rate was. If you're talking about the game that looks prettiest in pics then sure.

VP2 is a good call by the OP, gorgeous game indeed.
 
I was about to post this as well, the game is really pretty.
00128.jpg


Rule of Rose also looks very nice


Survival Horror games really shone on PS2.

Yes!!
I love Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose. Both have such good art direction. Also dog companions. <3
Even though some cruel stuff happened to the poor doggies.

Silent Hill 2/3/4 also left big impressions on me. Even though 3 is the GOAT graphically, 4 has some memorable moments, like walking through hallways with blood and guts over the walls and floors and corpses lying around, it looked really great. Some of the effect in the apartment as well.
 

Jisgsaw

Member
I always found SMT: Nocturne te be quite nice and clean looking.

Aesthetically, I'll go with Nocturne too.
It has a very clean and singular look ,they perfectly nailed down the artwork -> ingame implementation (I recently learned its singular look comes from special shadows they used, that don't exist in real life).

However, technically it's rather weak (Atlus is a small studio making niche games after all).
Technically, I'll go with either GoW2 or Black for the graphics, or FF12 for the massive and beautifull world.
Didn't play Silent Hill 3, but that looks great too.
 
Unfortunately only few people played it and even fewer liked it, but I always thought Death by Degrees was a visual stunner, and in some instances really pushed

In-game graphics:
wfRXd8I.jpg


real-time cut scenes
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and pre-rendered cinematics
Nina-Williams-Costume-Death-By-Degrees-Customization.jpg
 
Lot of bullshots in here lol

Anyway
Silent Hill 2, 3 and 4 for texture work
God of War II for scale and lighting
Gran Turismo 4 for IQ/performance
Resident Evil 4 in general (even though it was an inferior port)
 

Bamihap

Good at being the bigger man
The amount of bullshots in this thread is too damn high! (PS2 doesn't run in 1080p with 16x aa, people).

Best looking to me means:
- Great artistic AND/OR technical graphics.
- Readibility of the graphics (good enough framerate, draw distance choices made by the team etc. A low camera angle can be pretty, but with 480i graphics it can be a bad decision).

GOW2 is a great looking game. Artistically and technically. The 'fixed' camera is a example of how to hide the ugly and only show the pretty.
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
Bamihap said:
- Great artistic AND/OR technical graphics.
Does "or" really work here? Ghost Hunter was a nice tech-demo showcase but it's butt-ugly in how it all came together on screen. On flip-side, FF and GT games were low-tech in system-utilization but it would be hard to argue about them not looking great regardless.

Anyway I would add SSX3 and Burnout3 to the already long list(can't really pick any one single game). They held-up to test of time better than a lot of other games and BO3 in particular was a nice demonstration how "less is better" with their choice of what tech to use (downgraded lighting and shadow model from previous BO games, but end results are better).
 
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