Weird PS2 Games That Are Actually Good

Weird PS2 Games

The early 2000s was a crazy, weird time of defeating dystopias with karate, sending texts via Microsoft Excel, and ignoring your pets so you could look at jpegs of pets. As its adverts might have suggested, the PlayStation 2 was no stranger to getting a little bit freaky either.

 

Katamari Damacy

I don’t think you can physically talk about weird PS2 games without bringing up Katamari Damacy, or Katamari at large. It’s been around for so long now and has grown to be so beloved that it’s almost become a bit normal.

Katamari is like the Donnie Darko of video games in terms of weirdos reaching mainstream acceptance, except with zero Patrick Swayze. At least all of Katamari’s sequels have been better than that Donnie Darko sequel that you all memoryholed until just now. Sorry.

But as for Katamari Damacy itself, you probably know everything there is to know about the series at large by now if you’ve been on YouTube for longer than a week. You are a very small boy, your dad is a very big alcoholic, and so you’ve got to clean up his mess. You do so by becoming a dung beetle, except the dung is human beings, cows, and everything in between.

Katamari hits the same ball-based dopamine receptors that Super Monkey Ball does in that you can just completely tune everything out and return to monke with a ball. Throw an amazing soundtrack into the mix, as well as that wholly unique aesthetic, and there’s no wonder Katamari is loved by normals and freakazoids alike.

Katamari Damacy received a sequel on PS2 by the name of We Love Katamari as well as Me & My Katamari on PSP. We did actually get a remaster of the first game in 2021, but it’s a real horror show that we haven’t had a new Katamari since Touch My Katamari on the Vita.

 

Gregory Horror Show

Based on the Japanese show of the same name, Gregory Horror Show is a, jeez, I don’t even know, soul collection simulator? After finding yourself lost in the woods, you wind up at Gregory House, a bed and breakfast run by a deranged mouse named Gregory. You are tasked with collecting the souls carried by the strange and bizarre guests, including Judgement Boy, a set of scales with a moral compass, Clock Master who can manipulate time and Catherine, a horny pink dinosaur-nurse with an unhealthy obsession with taking blood.

As much a puzzle game as it is a horror affair, you’ll need to ascertain what makes these guests tick. Observe them, spy on them and follow them around, learn their patterns and devise a way of stealing their soul. If they see you, they’ll run, so don’t let them catch on to your devious plan. However, once you have possession of their soul, they will remain active in the game world, and will chase you should they see you with their soul.

Unfortunately for all you freedom lovers, Gregory Horror Show never came to the United States. It did come to Europe, but in a fairly low print run, and whichever amount of copies were produced did not sell well. Kind of predictably, Gregory Horror Show is now an absolute horror show for your wallet. I do own it, but it’s somewhere lost deeeeeeeep in the depths of my game collection.

 

Red Card

Sports games are far, far too serious these days, particularly when it comes to football, or soccer if your star sign is Bruce Springsteen. As well as being a serious drain on your bank account, modern football games manage to completely bastardise how football actually is without ever being goofy with it. Where are the power ups and ability to become Salomon Rondon for no reason?

With Red Card on PS2, that’s where.

Also called Red Card 2003 in the US, dream big guys, where it also featured another Everton legend, Brian McBride, on the cover, Red Card basically only has the ball in common with games like FIFA, and that’s why it’s so great.

As arcadey and stupid as a football game can get, Red Card lets you create your own team, make them as deranged as you like, and then turn off the great enemy of football: the offside rule. And then you can karate kick your opponent off the ball completely cleanly, and then pull off Shaolin Soccer-esque tricks complete with Matrix slow motion to score bangers. Oh, and also you can put aliens up against dolphins.

It’s just about the goofy brilliance you should expect from Midway in their peak silly era, and the developers of NFL Blitz. Listen, Red Card is not a serious game, and it should absolutely not be played as such. Get a mate around, humble some dolphins with a two-footer, clothesline the referee and then look at your favourite EA Sports FC creator unpacking their little digital men in disgust. “Ooh I got a walkout,” shut up.

I actually only just realised that FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer both technically don’t exist anymore, and that’s not right. Adriano didn’t shoot a hole into the surface of Mars for this. Guess we better visit another planet instead.

 

Giants Citizen Kabuto

Everyone has a PS2 game from their youth that they memoryhole in their adulthood to make room for supposedly more important  stuff, like what an ISA is, and remembering not to apply to work at Boeing. For many years, this game was my gray matter whale.

It wasn’t until I saw Giants Citizen Kabuto 4 years ago at a convention and paid about twice its value through the sheer power of nostalgia that it all came flooding back to me.

A port from PC that took two whole years to happen, Giants Citizen Kabuto is a crazily ambitious blending of genres that was the first game from Planet Moon Studios. The studio was formed by some of the minds behind MDK and Earthworm Jim, so yes, expect something a bit different.

Wildly ambitious, Giants has you taking the reins of three different races, one of them basically being marines from Halo, a second that are like magic mermaids, and another that’s pretty much just Godzilla. You’re all squabbling on an alien planet across three distinct campaigns, and those Marine guys are apparently British. Even in space, we can’t resist a cheeky bit of colonising, what are we like.

As well as offering some pretty fun shooting with tonnes of verticality thanks to jetpacks in not quite sandbox but close missions, Giants Citizen Kabuto also boasts the random ability to do some base building with the ultimate goal of building a  party house. Add in a brilliant soundtrack and the irreverent humour you’d expect from ex-Shiny devs, and you have about 6% of my personality.

Sure, the PC version is obviously going to be better to play these days, and also it’s just a couple of clicks away instead of getting scammed, but this is a killer 7 out of 10 game if ever there was one.

 

Killer7

I like to think that, before he starts making any game, Suda51 approaches an empty whiteboard, writes down “MINDFREAK???” in all caps and then gets to work on making the most weirdgame possible.

Killer7 was a pretty early indication of what madness he and the rest of Grasshoper Manufacture would get up to for the next 20 years when it launched in 2005. It was originally meant to be GameCube exclusive, but the GameCube being what it is, a beautiful little baby too pure for this world and also a console with no way of watching Bulletproof Monk on it, the decision was made to release Killer7 on PS2 as well.

So, what is Killer7? Well, it can be very easy to overcomplicate what this thing actually is. Basically, it’s like cel-shaded Time Crisis meets Shin Megami Tensei 3 meets House of the Dead meets Ichi the Killer meets that Identity movie meets your brain constantly scratching against your skull. Simple really!

Throughout the game, you’re switching between members of the killer7, the alter-egos of the wheelchair bound Harman Smith, who absorbed their souls after death, as they look to stop a terrorist group by the name Heaven Smile.

The game gets into some heavy stuff regarding US and Japan relations, as well as how governments mistreat their people. There are also anime girls and masked wrestlers.

Yes, Killer7 is Suda51 through and through, which does mean that it’s not for everyone. The controls are a bit odd, the general feel of gameplay as you basically point and click your way through corridors before switching to first-person shooting can be tough to click with, and the story is tough to keep up with if you aren’t fully switched on. But those who can’t get on Killer 7’s very particular wavelength will find an absolute chef’s kiss of a game.

 

Chulip

Have you ever wanted to be a 70s game show host with all of the extremely weird benefits and none of the potential mumps and, um, jail? Well then, friend, do I have the weird PS2 game for you.

Chulip is a game all about having a big snog, but respectfully. In it, you play as a young man who has a dream about the…woman of his dreams, and then somehow by happenstance meets her in the quaint village he moves to. After she brutally shoots him down for basically being poor, the protagonist doesn’t just move on with his life like any normal person would. Instead, he decides to go around town to kiss everyone he can lay his lips on, whether they be the weirdos on the surface or those dwelling underground.

It’s a pretty cute premise, despite the implication, and there is a lot more going on here than you might expect from the cutesy graphics and art style. For instance, some people require you to complete quests for them to give you a kiss. Others, meanwhile, can only be kissed at certain times of day, meaning that you have to properly time out your escapades throughout. It’s a bit like Shenmue, sort of slightly.

However, Chulip can also be surprisingly very frustrating, as everything needs to be timed to the finest detail, and also just figuring out what the hell to do at times can feel like you’re trying to sell an underwater Range Rover. 

That might explain why reviewers didn’t fall in love with Chulip, but those with a guide to hand will probably fall in love with Punchline’s bonkers simulation RPG detective kiss em up. Weirdly enough, the game never officially came to Europe, but we did get Punchline’s second and final game, Rule of Rose. Don’t freak out when you see the prices on both these games though.

 

Stretch Panic

Ah, Treasure. If there’s ever been a developer who’s deserved a better hand than the one they’ve been dealt, it’s the Japanese studio behind the likes of Gunstar Heroes, Mischief Makers, Ikaruga, Sin and Punishment and many more underrated bangers.

While I’ll admit Stretch Panic might not belong in the upper echelons of Treasure’s vast banger pantheon, their first proper 3D outing absolutely fits the bill of being a weird PS2 game that deserves a second look. And not just because of the bazoongas.

Also known as Freak Out in Europe, Stretch Panic follows a young girl called Linda after a strange scarf comes to life. It’s not long before she has to take on all twelve of her evil sisters. Similarly to Mischief Makers, players can grab pretty much everything within the environment and then stretch them around. Linda is even able to grab objects and then use them to propel herself forward, which is pretty neat.

As well as giving you plenty of challenging, interesting bosses with unique twists to, um, twist, Stretch Panic also isn’t afraid to indulge its basest of early 2000s desire: stupendous honkers. To earn enough points to take on those bosses, Linda first has to take on EX stages featuring enemies with ginormous kerdonkers who’ve made a deal with the devil. I’d be able to take Koopa Troopas more seriously if they had a GGG cup to be honest.

Stretch Panic is a pretty repetitive game, and the art style does cover up some fairly cheap graphics, but it’s a quirky bit of weirdness for an afternoon that absolutely doesn’t believe in physics, the science of cowards. Now, you might not know this, but Treasure are apparently still around. They’ve not released a game since 2014, but they are working on something as we speak. Yeah, let’s hope they get that helping hand sooner than later.

 

God Hand

Alright, it’s been like what, two weeks? We can talk about God Hand again. But this is it now. We genuinely might need to change our channel name to Gene’s Ball Busters if we talk about it one more time. Like and subscribe and we definitely might do that.

God Hand was Clover’s final game as a studio when it was released in 2006, cementing a short but hall of fame worthy run. This second run might have a lot to live up to.

Many of the talents from the pretty OK Resident Evil 4 were responsible for God Hand’s development, including the legendary Shinji Mikami taking the director’s…chair? Controller? Anyway, God Hand is one of the weirdest, most singular games of all time, let alone on the PlayStation 2.

A brawler with a similar over-the-shoulder perspective to Leon’s day at the bingo, God Hand follows Gene who is in possession of one of those titular God Hands as he looks to stop Four Devas, a maniac group who are also somehow the sanest enemies in the game. You’ll also be encountering a giant ape, discount power rangers, and more BDSM bandits than is probably hygienic. You’ll be pulling off mad combos while someone absolutely shreds a guitar in the background, and before you even know what’s happening, your shirt will be off and you will be howling at the moon.

God Hand is, in no uncertain terms, a goofy arse video game, feeling like a mix of Kung-PowL Enter the Fist, Monty Python, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s also harder than running against a brick wall. Or falling under it. God Hand is unapologetically not for everyone, but making stuff for everyone sometimes means you make stuff for no-one.

 

Culdcept

There were a few things on my video game bingo card I never could have imagined getting ticked off. The Silent Hill 2 remake being amazing was one of them, and Astro Bot becoming the certified stud of the PlayStation brand as a whole was another. I also never would have believed card games would have such a wild mainstream renaissance, especially when Solitaire onWindows 95 was where it all should have peaked.

But Culdcept was there before the Balatros, Slay the Spires, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns…es made it sexy and cool.

Probably one of the most notable franchises for getting plenty of releases but very few successes, Culdcept began life on Sega consoles before the second game was eventually ported from Dreamcast to PS2 in 2003, some two years after its initial release.

So, what it do, baby boo? Well, Culdcept has you travelling around a board with dice rolls at the behest of a hideous man cane Umbrella creation to stop the ascension of a Cepter into the destroyer of mankind. A few more stakes than your mate winning your Bulbasaur card off you. How do you appease your weird cane worm dad? By playing Magic the Gathering meets Monopoly in which you claim the land by laying down all manner of beasties in empty spaces, battling opponents, and upgrading your spaces to continue to expand your territory.

It’s neat, but as you might guess, Culdcept was a hard sell for an estimated 99.5% of the PS2’s playerbase. What’s funny is that this game would absolutely sell like hot cakes these days with a growing Steam Deck audience who love this kind of thing…me. Culdcept was most recently seen with the also weird and also underrated Culdcept Revolt on 3DS in 2016, so it looks like the chances of a return like that happening are pretty slim. Sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

 

The Adventures of Cookie & Cream

When you think of FromSoftware, the first thing that fat rolls into your mind is probably Eternal Ring. No, sorry. Elden Ring. Or perhaps that Souls stuff. Or Armored Core. Or maybe even King’s Field if you’re a big freakazoid like us. What you’re probably not thinking of is a PS2 precursor to something like It Takes Two.

The Adventures of Cookie & Cream, also known as Kuri Kuri Mix here in the land of chippy chips, is a game in which you must track down the moon — FromSoftware are just obsessed with the moon apparently — alongside a friend while playing as two bunnies. You see, the fact that this was developed by FromSoft isn’t the only thing carrying this game’s weirdness.

This is a split-screen co-op platformer in which players must co-ordinate to reach the end of a level and defeat bosses by getting past puzzles, avoiding obstacles, and all those classic platformer basics. Where Cookie & Cream gets brutal, though, is in the fact that each level is timed, and to make it worse, every time one of you gets hit, you lose more time.

Yeah, if your non-gamer partner barely made it through It Takes Two without having a breakdown, they’re not going to be the cream of the crop here. You can also take part in versus mode, which lets you enact revenge on them by beating them mercilessly by collecting more points than them.

The Adventures of Cookie & Cream may not be the most complete or even fun co-op platformers these days when there’s stuff like Rayman Legends and Unravel Two knocking about, but its off-kilter nature, jaunty arse soundtrack and general opportunities for mania mean that this cream will always rise to the top.

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