As the gaming industry continues to roll endlessly towards the future, it makes older generations of games much harder to access for a lot of people, especially as working original hardware begins to dwindle in supply. Not only that, but scarcity makes getting into retro games such an expensive hobby, especially the PS2, as childhood favourites can often be sold for more than a modern AAA game. Just look at the prices of God Hand, for instance.
Those two factors combine to force players looking for a nostalgia fix to emulate their games, often downloading ROMs online and playing them on their PC or Steam Deck. While downloading ROMs from the internet instead of dumping them from your own disk is technically piracy, there’s thousands of retro games out there that are impossible to legally buy first hand these days, meaning that plenty of people are looking for where to find PS2 ROMs online.
With that out of the way, here’s some of the best PS2 ROM sites out there to help you get started in your emulation quest.
1. Vimm’s Lair
A veritable institution in the world of emulation, Vimm’s Lair has been around for years, and with any luck, it’ll be around for a long time to come.
If you’re looking to download ROMs for your emulation set-up, Vimm’s Lair is a solid port of call, with a Vault filled with ROMs for not just the PS2, but other platforms too. Vimm’s Lair only allows for emulated titles from two generations back and older, so you won’t find anything older than the PS3 or Xbox 360 there, but still.
For the PS2 library alone, Vimm’s Lair has an almost exhaustive list of games, and players can even filter their searches to include a number of regions, which is excellent for people looking for games that were never released in your area. Users can even leave ratings for the game they’ve downloaded, which should help you pick which ROMs to avoid when you’ve got thousands of games to sift through.
2. Internet Archive
A general purpose website dedicated to preservation of all kinds, Internet Archive’s libraries are filled with curiosities and forgotten pieces of pop culture for a variety of different mediums. Internet Archive isn’t a perfect website, as it can be quite hard to search for precisely what you’re looking for, but the odds are strong that someone, somewhere will have uploaded what you’re after.
As far as PS2 ROMs are concerned, Internet Archive plays host to thousands of uploads, including folders and bundles of dozens of games, which can make your emulation aspirations much easier. On top of that, you can find content and ROM dumps that have been uploaded by developers and publishers, who support what the Internet Archive is doing to preserve old media.
If it’s ethics you’re concerned about when it comes to PS2 ROMs, the Internet Archive should ensure your conscience remains clean.
3. CDRomance
On face value, CDRomance might just seem like your regular old ROM dumping ground, but there’s plenty of reasons why you should keep coming back here, the primary one being a typically active comments section that’ll respond to your queries if you need help. Given that emulation can be a trial and error process sometimes, it’s good to have a community to fall back on should you require assistance.
On top of that, the site design and layout for CDRomance makes it incredibly easy to find what you’re looking for, even if it’s just a couple of quick PS2 ROMs. However, the real crowning jewel of CDRomance is the burgeoning library of translated games, which compiles fan projects of games (often those only released in Japan) that have been translated into English, Spanish, Italian or French.
These translation patches come with the ROM download, making the process of playing obscure games like Shadow Tower: Abyss so much easier.
Why You Should Beware of Some PS2 ROM Sites
There are countless other ROM sites out there on the internet, but there’s also plenty of dodgy sites riddled with malware and other nasty viruses looking to infect your computer. This is why we’ve limited this selection to just three ROM sites, as these seem the most trustworthy and easy to navigate. It’s also worth noting that the ROM community on r/ROMs use the Internet Archive for their MegaThread of ROMs and ISOs, as it’s considered by them to be the safest option. Others in the comments of some posts swear by Vimm’s Lair and CDRomance, making them worthy of merit.
Either way, it can be quite dangerous out there in the world of emulation, so try not to stray from the path too much, and definitely don’t click on any suspicious links. You know, unless they promise Ape Escape 4, of course.
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