Yeah from a personal standpoint it's hard for me to pick between all of them. PS2 I think is just let down by me not liking old-style GoW, and never playing SOCOM / Ico / Shadow of the Colossus, at least for more than a few minutes, so I can see how for others it could be a big winner. As even without those there's still a lot to go at.

I will not tolerate the Mario Kart Double Dash slander in this thread! DD was awesome! If you want to drag a title through the mud, do that with Mario Sunshine, the game that truly deserves it (it's basically the theme of the game)!

I think the gamecube is actually a weird one where a lot of the best gamecube exclusives were not first party. it was actually a pretty weak era for nintendo publishing. There great ones like monkey ball. they published eternal darkness but to this day never gets tied to the nintendo brand. they published fzero gx but it was a full sega effort so it feels weird to give them credit.

Meanwhile sony publishing i feel was on even footing with the 3rd party exlusives for once.

The only thing the Gamecube had better than the PS2 was graphics. Sony owned that gen like a pimp owns a whore.

I take exception to saying WindWaker was mocked. At first reveal it was, but once folks played the demo or got their hands on it in some way it was a complete 180.

I also don’t understand how you omitted Smash Bros Melee. It’s absolutely one of the standouts on the system and should have been one of the first games mentioned.

That being said, I would agree. But I didn’t think about it in those terms. I’m not even sure I was aware at the time that Naughty Dog and Insomniac were first party. I just enjoyed the heck out of those games. I didn’t play the PS2 because I was eagerly awaiting Sony’s first party offerings. I played it because I was eagerly awaiting ALL of the games coming to it and with the exception of the Nintendo first party titles, everything did.

But unlike Nintendo, Sony decided not to lean into these IPs they had created and continue to expand their worlds and their gameplay styles. Most of the games that came out in that era are still stuck in that era as if Sony is ashamed of them for being their younger, more childish years.

Crapping on Mario Kart Double Dash Battle mode invalidates that review completely for me. Sure, the balloon battle is sub par. But Shine thief and Bob Omb battle are the best and second best battle modes in the series.

PS2 was my most played console that gen but...

I played Nintendo and MS 1st party games far more than Sony 1st party games that gen.

Twisted Metal Black and God of War were peak, but I didn't enjoy the other 1st party games so much.

You just can't compete with Super Smash Brothers Melee and Halo 2 in terms of playtime with friends.

RTCW (for Xbox) and Halo 2 were way ahead of their time. Especially RTCW. It was the first legit online shooter for consoles, imo.

It's not just this though. PS2 had a massive number of exclusives that were not on Xbox or GC. It doesn't matter whether an exclusive is 1st party or not. As long as it's an exclusive it counts. Sooooo

5 Armored Core Games
2 Monster Rancher Games
Odin Sphere
2 Onimusha Games
8 SMT Atlus RPGs
Radiata Stories
Phantom Brave
Shadow Hearts Trilogy
Sly Cooper Trilogy
3 Suikoden Games
3 Tekken Games
Tenchu 3
Twisted Metal Black
Time Crisis 2 and 3
Wild Arms 3
Xenosaga Trilogy
Maximo 1 and 2
Klonoa 2
Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2
Growlanser Generations
2 Ar Tonellico Games

And honestly this is just out of my personal collection. There's a boatload of game that I don't care for and skipped. PS2 was king for a reason.