Hello ladies, gentlemen and those of a non-binary nature, my name is Daibhi and this is the Gamerhub. PlayStation is a brand that is polarising. For some, it’s the name of the antichrist and for others, it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Personally, I can say to you that I’ve only not owned one of their consoles since the branch launched 30 years ago. That one is the PS Vita, but I’ve owned all the other consoles through my time gaming. Speaking of it launching, it’s PlayStation’s 30th birthday this week. So, at the Gamerhub’s office, we got talking about our favourite games for the consoles. As such, I’m going to go through the consoles and tell you my personal favourites for each consoles, and explain why.
The PlayStation 1 didn’t start life as the trigger of the Sony juggernaut of gaming. It actually started life as an attempt to get Sony into the gaming sphere, by collaborating with Nintendo. Why the Nintendo/Sony PlayStation didn’t launch is for another article, but Nintendo pulled out. This left Sony on their own to develop the PlayStation 1 and well… it dominated the gaming market. It’s widely considered to have brought down the beloved Sega Saturn and sold a record breaking 102.49 million units worldwide. In Japan, it had online services using an i-mode Mobile Phone Connection Cable. Elsewhere, a connection CD made by third parties could enable online play. The PS (and later PSone) broke the domination of the video game market by Sega and Nintendo. To this day, it’s still considered one of the best consoles of all time.
One of the reasons for this is simply the incredible raft of games made for it, both domestically in Japan and worldwide. With over 4000 games made for the console, and such iconic games made for it such as Crash Bandicoot and Grand Turismo, I’ve spent nearly a week preparing this article, celebrating the 30th anniversary of this magnificent machine. So, happy birthday, PlayStation. On with the list…
- Metal Gear Solid (1998).
This was the game that spawned the goliath of a franchise, and a million imitators incapable of telling such a story. Directed, written and produced by Hideo Kojima, this game was actually the third in the franchise, but the first one to reach a huge audience. It was a game given to little Daibhi in 2003, accidentally, and became my firm favourite for years. Running and gunning through this game is impossible, as if you’re spotted, it’s game over. This game requires serious thought into every movement as Solid Snake infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility in order to stop the bad guys.
From a technological standpoint, this game is a revolution on it’s own. Kojima-san considered first person perspectives typical of the genre impractical and difficult. We got the iconic overhead in 3D perspective as a direct result, and the world is all the better for it. It was received with universal acclaim from just about everyone for both the plot, the gameplay, the soundtrack and most importantly, how it changed the genre. I will forever than my granny for getting the game I wanted mixed up with this one, as it’s genuinely brilliant.
- Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro (2001)
Okay… Let’s get the bit everyone talks about out of the way: the events of September the 11th in New York might have basically killed this game and condemned it to bargain basements, but this game is spectacular. For a start, Spider-man actually defeats thugs in the neighbourhood, something the predecessor couldn’t do. It had a brilliant soundtrack, great game designs, and some really difficult bosses to beat. I defy anyone who hasn’t played this to try the level “Hangar 52” and not die at least five times. Even on “kid mode”, this game doesn’t let up here.
So, I’ve sold you on playing it, what’s to like? Well, my readers, the simple answer is A LOT. There’s a lot more options in this game than you’d expect. From a never ending Danger Room (with a lovely cameo from Beast, Professor X and Rogue from the X-Men), to the comics archive. My favourite extra bit to the main game is the “create-a-Spidey” option, where Spider-Man can have up to 3 additional powers, and a choice of over 20 costumes. The costumes aren’t just your traditional ones either: there’s some deep cuts for Spidey fans.
There’s also a trailer you can unlock for the game featuring Motorhead, so yeah, don’t sleep on this game.
- X-Men Mutant Academy 2.
“So, Daibhi, why have you put a street fighter clone on this list?” I hear you ask. Two reasons. Firstly, it’s my list and this game was an important part of my childhood. Secondly, it bloody rules. Coming off the back of the highly successful X-Men Mutant Academy, this game upped the ante and showed a lot of developers and publishers that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This game moved the series from 2D to 2.5D, and was an exceedingly difficult game for the time and platform.
The game hasn’t got too much of a plot, but that’s one of only two weak points in the game. The game has 4 main modes, namely Academy (a training sim to teach you how to play), Versus, a multiplayer mode which had me and my little brother playing for hours. Survival does what it says on the tin: Beat enemy after enemy with your health bar until you lose, and Arcade. With Arcade mode, you play through a series of matches with opponents from AI to unlock different ending movies. If you manage this with every character, you unlock some niche characters with their own movies. These include Spider-Man, but also most notably, Professor X himself. I don’t even know how to describe it to you, so I’ll let the picture below do the talking.
- Spyro: Year of The Dragon.
No PS1 game list would be complete without the best Spyro game made for the console. I said what I said. Yes, Ripto’s Rage/Gateway To Glimmer fans, the second game in the franchise is good, but the final one for PS1 is undoubtedly the best in the franchise. Why? Well… lets start with the story. There’s an egg hunt on the way as Spyro has to venture down into the worlds that dragons used to live in. Along the way, Spyro and Hunter make a bunch of allies as they take down the magical Sorceress and a whole bunch of Rhynocs.
Those allies? An experimented-on-yet-sentient monkey with an obsession with James Bond, an incredibly loquacious abominable snowman, a Kangaroo with attitude and a few others. There’s some incredible minigames including skateboarding, some brilliant boss battles and a few returning characters from previous games. However, the thing I want to point out is the soundtrack. The music in this game was made by none other than Stewart Copeland, the drummer from the band The Police. Spyro is voiced by the brilliant Tom Kenny (of SpongeBob SquarePants fame). Seriously, this game rules.
- Crash Bandicoot (1996).
I’m honestly trying to avoid the obvious for this list, but there can’t be a list of good PS1 games without Crash Bandicoot. Like Spyro, Crash was made to be the mascot of this console during the late 1990s and early 2000s, but he did a lot better commercially. Crash Bandicoot was the platforming game that spawned hundreds of imitators, but none come close. This is down to two primary reasons. The game was made with both kids and adults in mind, and there’s a lot of crude jokes cleverly disguised in the game (Hog Wild, anyone?). Unlike Spyro, who was more of a traditional hero, Crash was the perfect hero for the jaded audience of the era. Whilst wrestling fans were pointing at their crotches and telling people to “suck it”, Crash Bandicoot was a hero cute enough for kids, but with enough jokes for the adults.
The game was brilliant from the moment go. A crazy doctor on a fictional island tries for world domination by making mutant soldiers out of animals. So far, so 1990s. However, one Eastern Barred Bandicoot doesn’t fully accept the brainwashing and tries his best to take down the doctor and take his bandicoot girlfriend on a date. There’s a lot of laughs along the way, particularly the first time you see the results of missing a few crates.
The technology used to create this game was innovative and fresh. Pretty much nothing like this had ever been done before, and it had one up on it’s competitor (Super Mario 64): It used a method of interpolation in computer graphics that nobody had used in video games to this point. The method’s called Gouraud Shading, and it’s pretty common with polygonal gaming. However, Crash Bandicoot on PS1 was the first to use it. Honestly, get the remastered trilogy on whichever console you use. This game is special.
- Tomb Raider (1996).
Take a pinch of Indiana Jones, a pinch of Tank Girl and add in a female lead with a very posh voice, and you have the game that broke nearly every boy’s controller trying to find a cheat code. What I mean to say is that without Tomb Raider on the PS1, there would be no Assassin’s Creed, no Prince of Persia and certainly no Uncharted franchise. This game wasn’t the first in the genre by a long shot, but it was by far the most successful. Selling by the bucketload is no guarantee of quality, but this game was solidly good from beginning to end.
The marketing genius of this game is what set it apart from other games of this genre. There’s a film adaptation featuring Angelina Jolie as the titular hero. One of the funnier aspects of this game’s marketing happened by word-of-mouth. In those heady, halcyon days of the internet before social media, people were sharing cheat codes about how to play as Lara Croft nude. Gross, am I right? Anyway, the developers got wind of this and for the sequel, they inputted the supposed code as a cheat, making Lara explode. Nice try, teenage boys.
- Grand Turismo.
Sega has OutRun. Nintendo has MarioKart. But the year is 1997, and so the Xbox and Forza don’t exist yet. Still, the people behind the PlayStation are trying to make a racing game that is solely for their console. Colin MacRae’s games are doing well, and ToCa is selling like hotcakes, but nothing seems to be working to stamp PlayStation down as the premier console for racing. Enter Grand Turismo. The idea was beautiful in it’s simplicity. OutRun has a time limit, MarioKart has weapons. Grand Turismo has a bunch of licenced tracks and cars, in a fairly realistic racing simulator. Each race win gets you closer to a better licence with better cars, harder races and more tracks to race on. Featuring over 130 different cars and 22 tracks (if you count the reverse tracks separately), this game sold 10.85 million copies worldwide.
This game broke records in both sales and development. On the dev side of things, they spent $5 million, and recycled a game engine used for a dying franchise. It took them 5 years to make the game, and it shows. This game has a massive amount of polish for the console, and the graphics are spectacular. You can show this to the non-gamers and they’ll guess it comes from the early PS2 era. They even used the prototype of the DualShock controller to test it, making this game the first game to fully support the controller’s functions. Let’s thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster it did, because it made analogue sticks a default on controllers these days.
3. Dino Crisis
I’m not putting this on the list just because it’s Galadrius The Mighty’s favourite franchise. Nor am I putting this on the list because the development team was also behind the first Resident Evil game. I’m putting this on the list because it’s fun. Sometimes, games don’t need to tell epic stories. Sometimes, there’s nothing better than shooting a dinosaur in the face. Also, for modern PlayStation gamers, this game is available on both PS4 and PS5 if you’re a PlayStation Plus Premium tier subscriber.
Dino Crisis shouldn’t have worked. It borrows quite heavily from the first Resident Evil game, and when you have to survive on a tropical island full of dinosaurs, I’m surprised Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton didn’t come asking for royalties. But this game is so much more than running and gunning against velociraptors. It’s got a high level of intensity, some insanely difficult puzzles and jump-scares galore. We at the Hub are really, really hoping for a remake soon, but either way, this game is GOATed for a reason. Thank you, CAPCOM. (Please can we have a remake soon?)
2. Silent Hill.
You know this game was going to be on the list. The game that is single handedly the biggest cause of childhood nightmares for those of us of a certain vintage. (Side note- don’t buy your children mature games if they’re not old enough). This game was many things: Too much for the PS1 to handle at first, a haunting experience of horror and loss, and the game that consumed hours on end for most people. Published by Konami for the PS1, this game uses third-person perspective alongside real-time rendering to create a story that still haunts gamers to this day.
Harry Mason, the protagonist, searches for his daughter in the eerie titular town of Silent Hill. As he does so, he encounters a cult and discovers the true origins of his offspring with horrifying consequences. So far, so B Movie shlock. That changes with how this game works and functions, however. Because the PS1 wasn’t capable of rendering a whole town and surrounding environment, they covered the town in a thick layer of fog. This allowed them to render the town as you venture through it, giving a psychological horror aspect which is often imitated today.
The miracle of this game isn’t just how it changed the horror videogaming world, but on the budget for which it was made. Silent Hill was made relatively on the cheap at the time, and went against every held notion of videogames development. Instead of making a game to be sold by the bucketload, the developers aimed at making a gaming masterpiece. They didn’t miss, that’s for sure. Time Magazine in 2012 named it as one of the 100 greatest videogames of all time, and for yours truly, it’s in my top 20.
- Time Crisis.
It was mentioned on our X account (FKA Twitter) earlier today, but Time Crisis is my out-and-out favourite game on the PS1, and that takes some doing. Why? Firstly, nostalgia. Little Daibhi couldn’t play a lot of games at the amusement arcades as a kid, but he could play this one. Second, when it came to the PS1, they brought out a peripheral that actually worked and worked well. Thirdly, it was no end of amusement for little Daibhi as he pretended the guns were real and made “pew pew” noises.
Gun games on rails are nothing new to the videogaming world, and Time Crisis isn’t the best selling (that’s the House Of The Dead franchise) nor the oldest. What it is, is the most fun. You can play this solo or with your little brother (as is my case) as you try to take down an evil villain who has a plan truly worthy of a Mission Impossible film. What makes the PS1 version truly special is the secret level. You could spend a lot of money trying to get your way through the arcade version, but the PS1 version has a hidden ending you won’t see at the seaside. Complete with a guerrilla-researched hotel, you fight your way through PlayStation and Sony’s hotel in Tokyo to defeat the boss and complete the game. And get the best high score, of course. That always counts.
The PS1 was the console that launched my journey from disabled child to game reviewer and writer. Without that console in 2002, I have no doubt I wouldn’t be the man I am today. Nor would the Hub be anything like it is today, with the brilliant writers we have on board. Seriously, Gavin, Mars and Galadrius are both brilliant people and amazing writers I am proud to know. Duncan is a spectacular guy I wouldn’t have known without this either. And none of this would have been possible without the console that is the Sony PlayStation One. So thank you Sony, thank you for so many memories, and a brilliant console that made all this possible.
For The Gamerhub, I’ve been Daibhi and you are all legends.
Now, who fancies a race on Ridge Racer?
