20 PS2 Games That Prove It's The Best Console Ever

3. Jak II: Renegade

GTA: San Andreas Follow the train
Naughty Dog

After the original Jak & Daxter was received well enough, it looked like Naughty Dog were ostensibly going to carry forward creating platformers that were as cute and mechanically tight as ever.

Then GTA III happened.

Telling all in their 30th Anniversary book as to how Rockstar's open world crime romp was a major milestone and a huge influence, they set about radicalising Jak & Daxter's core trappings, emerging with something altogether more special.

Maturing their set of characters alongside the studio's internal ethos, Jak II saw the titular hero sprout a very early-2000s goatee, alongside a gruff voice, and a selection of firearms. Thankfully it all worked as Daxter remained some excellent comic folly, and any firepower only contributed to more varied gameplay.

Renegade's sizeable runtime was now taken up with car-jackings, superheroic powers, hoverboards and a city that just begged to be explored. To this day, Jak II is not only the finest entry in the J&D canon, but one of the best post-GTA III open-world games of all time.

Contributor
Contributor

Horror film junkie, burrito connoisseur, and serial cat stroker. WhatCulture's least favourite ginger.

Gaming Editor
Gaming Editor

WhatCulture's Head of Gaming.

Contributor

Writer. Mumbler. Only person on the internet who liked Spider-Man 3

Content Producer/Presenter
Content Producer/Presenter

Resident movie guy at WhatCulture who used to be Comics Editor. Thinks John Carpenter is the best. Likes Hellboy a lot. Can usually be found talking about Dad Movies on his Twitter at @EwanRuinsThings.

Contributor
Contributor

Video Editor and recent addition to the madness of the Gaming team, when she's not chatting about games, thinking about games, or playing games, she's streaming them on twitch. Tweet her pictures of dogs @DontRachQuit