PCSX2. It’s an open-source PS2 emulator, and a dang good one at that. It has a high degree of compatibility and functionality. I absolutely adore it since so many of my favorite games happen to be PS2 games, and after playing some of my favorite games on this emulator, I realized just how much the PS2’s native resolution doesn’t do the graphics of the PS2’s best games justice.
It is also free and available for Windows, Linux, and macOS!
Same! Have you played the Ratchet and Clank original trilogy? The old games have this special charm to them that I don’t really see in the newer games of the series.
If you happen to have easy access to the ROM, how’s “Star Wars: Racer Revenge” run?
It’s the less popular but more fleshed out spiritual successor to the N64 pod racing game - the PS2’s take nailed the physics - the two engines and racer pod are (or at least feel like) three separate entities, and playing in first person view with the engines controlled separately by the left and right joysticks feels fucking magical.
Tried to run it on PCSX2 years ago, but it was one of the few games that meshed so poorly with the emulator that it wasn’t playable. I’m guessing the emulator has seen some improvements since then - could definitely use a nice shot of nostalgia.
I haven’t played that game yet! But there’s an excellent wiki which allows you to check each game’s compatibility. It looks as though the game has some issues with visual glitches when rendering in hardware mode. In software mode, it is rendered more accurately but the resolution cannot go beyond PS2 native.
I haven’t played much of the older ones, but I really enjoyed Rifts Apart. It’s beautiful, but it’s also mechanically super polished and fluid, and while the storytelling isn’t really my style, I think they do it reasonably well.
PCSX2. It’s an open-source PS2 emulator, and a dang good one at that. It has a high degree of compatibility and functionality. I absolutely adore it since so many of my favorite games happen to be PS2 games, and after playing some of my favorite games on this emulator, I realized just how much the PS2’s native resolution doesn’t do the graphics of the PS2’s best games justice.
It is also free and available for Windows, Linux, and macOS!
And if you haven’t used it in a while, we recently made a blog post giving a rundown of the changes leading up to our most recent major release.
Love PCSX2. I play a lot of old games as they have a charm to them and no micro transactions
Same! Have you played the Ratchet and Clank original trilogy? The old games have this special charm to them that I don’t really see in the newer games of the series.
If you happen to have easy access to the ROM, how’s “Star Wars: Racer Revenge” run?
It’s the less popular but more fleshed out spiritual successor to the N64 pod racing game - the PS2’s take nailed the physics - the two engines and racer pod are (or at least feel like) three separate entities, and playing in first person view with the engines controlled separately by the left and right joysticks feels fucking magical.
Tried to run it on PCSX2 years ago, but it was one of the few games that meshed so poorly with the emulator that it wasn’t playable. I’m guessing the emulator has seen some improvements since then - could definitely use a nice shot of nostalgia.
I haven’t played that game yet! But there’s an excellent wiki which allows you to check each game’s compatibility. It looks as though the game has some issues with visual glitches when rendering in hardware mode. In software mode, it is rendered more accurately but the resolution cannot go beyond PS2 native.
I haven’t played much of the older ones, but I really enjoyed Rifts Apart. It’s beautiful, but it’s also mechanically super polished and fluid, and while the storytelling isn’t really my style, I think they do it reasonably well.