10 PS2 Games That Still Blow Our Minds

10. Shadow Of The Colossus

A very close runner-up for this list was 2001 adventure title Ico. Team Ico's debut still looks gorgeous today, demonstrating some of the best graphics that the PlayStation 2 has to offer.

And whilst Shadow of the Colossus perhaps looks a tad rougher, it's remarkable that it runs at all considering the demands that the game is making to the console. Colossus' world is sizeable, but what's most important is that it's wildlife is also. In fact, Colossus was perhaps the first game that almost ensured that most players would stop and stare at least once at what they were beholding.

"Wait, you mean... I have to fight that?". Large-scale bosses like this, with full body autonomy, had previously been unthinkable.

The sixth generation of consoles was absolutely where the conversation of "video games as art" picked up and chief amongst titles that people were pointing to as evidence was Shadow of the Colossus. The game was not about instant gratification. Whilst climbing the hulking Colossi was exhilarating in it's own right, it also felt humbling to play because of it's sense of scale and the player's place in that world.

Shadow of the Colossus took big risks by avoiding what most expected out of video games of the era, telling its own tale and forging a path that many games have followed but rarely bettered.