Best PS2 Games that Got Bad Reviews at Release

The current sad reality of the games industry is that if a game isn’t successful upon release, it’ll typically just die, and sometimes even completely vanish — especially if it’s an online game. Back in the early 2000s, however, games were allowed to trip and fall at launch, and despite probably never recouping the development costs, they could endure long enough to see opinions on them change.

The original PlayStation and the PlayStation 2 are home to many such cases, so this list aims to take a look at some of the best games that got an unfair shake upon release.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

An Acquired Taste

• One of the most divisive games in any series.

For casual gamers and many Tomb Raider fans, The Angel of Darkness is one of the most disappointing games of all time. After the longest development period of any game in the series, the final result was marred by some rather clunky controls and a bunch of gameplay additions that most felt contributed nothing (good) to the gameplay.

Still, once (and if) players get past the original awkwardness, there’s an interesting, darker take on Lara Croft that many are sure to enjoy and see as much better than originally anticipated. While still not perfect, players who want to give this one a shot should totally do it through the pretty good Tomb Raider IV-VI Remasters.

Rule of Rose

The Rose Grew a Lot

• The PlayStation 2’s secret holy grail.

Rule of Rose’s biggest problem was playing akin to a classic Silent Hill title in an era after the release of Resident Evil 4. That, combined with some really heavy themes and a weak distribution, led Rule of Rose to gather weak review scores and to sell poorly upon release.

Sad, as it’s quite a memorable game — and would be even if the short supply hadn’t turned it into one of the most valuable PlayStation 2 titles in existence. Yes, the only reason Rule of Rose isn’t one of the best horror games people haven’t heard of is that it became very well known for its rarity and market value.

Urban Reign

The Future of Streets of Rage (that Everybody Ignored)

• Release Date: September 13, 2005
• Platforms: PlayStation 2
• Developer: Namco
• Publisher: Namco, Namco Hometek, Sony Computer Entertainment
• Genre: Beat ’em up

• It could’ve spawned great things.

Games often get bad scores because they’re perceived to have bad gameplay, at least when compared to the games of their time. Urban Reign absolutely does not suffer from that problem. It’s a very solid brawler with a vast set of incredibly fun moves players can use to kick the ass of hundreds of bad guys.

It plays like an improved version of Tekken Force, the Tekken minigame that plays like a 3D take on Streets of Rage. Urban Reign is incredibly fun in both single and multiplayer mode — where up to four friends get to fight it out — but the main campaign is sadly too repetitive, and the game ultimately ended up paying a high cost, review-wise, for that. It’s a shame, as it proved a very solid rebirth of the Streets Of Rage series long before the latest title in the series came out.

The Bouncer

SquareSoft’s First Good Take on the Brawler Genre

• Simple, but not forgotten.

One of the titles that gathered more hype in the time between the reveal of the PS2 and its release was The Bouncer, a rare title in SquareSoft’s library that would have players performing combos in real time on their enemies instead of planning them ahead of time in turn-based battles. The Bouncer was met with average to negative reviews upon release, though that likely happened due to how much hype had been growing surrounding this new title from the people behind the Final Fantasy series.

The Bouncer’s only real problems are that it’s pretty straightforward and also that it features a rather simple story. Those issues might have been the result of the game having been rushed to come out early in the console’s life cycle, and being straightforward isn’t much of a problem when the developers are going for a Streets Of Rage-like kind of game. Also, the story’s simplicity is actually not all that bad when looking at how over-complex the stories of some later Final Fantasy games can get.

Disaster Report

The Original Deadly Premonition

• Release Date: April 25, 2002
• Platform: PlayStation 2
• Developer: Irem
• Publisher: Irem, Granzella Inc., Agetec
• Genre: Action-adventure

Upon release, Disaster Report had a bit of a polarizing effect. A survival game that featured no horror movie elements? One where the only horror ranged from more or less realistic to completely ridiculous? Few knew what to make of this game about escaping disaster-struck areas or saving others in such predicaments.

Still, if the success of the series that has already spawned three sequels is any indicator, people ended up understanding that there’s totally enough space for the “Disaster Horror” genre — even outside of the real world.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex

It Deserved Way More Love Than it Ended Up Getting

• Release Date: October 30, 2001
• Platforms: Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2, Xbox
• Developer: Traveller’s Tales
• Publisher: Universal Interactive
• Genre: 3D Platformer

When transitioning from the original PlayStation to the PlayStation 2, fans of the Crash Bandicoot series likely expected the game to change drastically. It did not. It looked much better than ever before, but it played more or less just like the previous games in the series — and this was viewed as a bad thing. Wrath of Cortex, just like the unfairly maligned Crash Bash, is a great addition to the Crash Bandicoot series that many have only recently been getting into.

So, in case anyone got excited to try this one out, please keep in mind this is not Crash Bandicoot 4, but the first fourth entry in the franchise. Pretty sure that’ll make navigating the continuity much easier.

Enter The Matrix

Brave and Bold

• Release Date: May 15, 2003
• Platforms: Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC
• Developer: Shiny Entertainment
• Publisher: Infogrames
• Genre: Action-Adventure

There are certainly tie-in video game adaptations that are better than Enter The Matrix, but no other movie tie-in fits quite as well into the cinematic whole as Enter The Matrix does. This was an incredibly ambitious title that took place at the same time as The Matrix: Reloaded, and it added quite a bit of welcome content to the overall story.

Some of the game’s animations felt a bit clunky, but the gun play and Kung-Fu action were pretty damn fun for the most part. Plenty of people have gone on to decide that the Star Wars prequels are good, actually, so there’s no reason people shouldn’t also change their minds regarding a game that actually lived up to its ludicrously lofty ambitions.