I mean really really good games. I've found some by searching on GameRankings.com, but with the PS2 it's very difficult to seperate potential classics from the rest because of the sheer number of games.

Kingdom Hearts
Burnout 3

Gran Turismo 4
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (if you like them)
Jak and Daxter series
Katamari Damacy
Ratchet and Clank series
Metal Gear Solid 3

That should get you started off

I agree with all of the above. Some of those may appear in my list, but will have explenations to avoid redundancy:

Metal Gear Solid 3
One of the greatest games of all time, by far. Fantastic gameplay, interesting storyline, tons of unlockables, every single reason to replay the game multiple times, amazing graphics, and perfect story telling. Trully one of the greatest games ever.

Kingdom Hearts
With a lovable cast, suprisingly interactive and fluid combat system, and a very suprising storyline, one would be a fool to miss this game. Sure, it's disney, but really? It's amazing.

SNK VS Capcom SE
A great fighter. Period.

Rachet and Clank Sereise
Take everything you hate about platformers. Cram it in a bag and toss it into the ocean with a block tied to it's crappy feet. Take what's left, add everything you'd like in a platformer, were it there, and you've got this game. Never bland or boring, the game constantly throws new and interesting things at you, instead of the same old boring platforming quests to save something. The storylines are lovable too. The sense of progression in the game is VERY rewarding, as the game IS doable, unlike some 'extras' in other platformers that'd take a crapload of searching and secret-looking.

NBA Street Vol 2 and 3
We all hate sports games, right? Well, I do. This isn't a sports game in the least. It's tony hawks gone basketball. A fantastic time is spent on this game playing friends and family. Get this game with a multitap, and then get 3 friends. It'll be worth all the personal hygene.

Zone of the Enders sereise
VERY fun game, and exactly what we all have ever wanted in a big robot game. The controls can be sickening at times, and you really wish you had a NORMAL boss fight to which you can use your special attacks on, but generally, a fantastic game. Multiplayer, better levels, and ship upgrades and hardware purchasing would make this one of the greatest games of all times.

Silent Hill 3
The only scary game, ever. And not at all crappy like some games similar to it coughResident Evilcough. Trully the best thriller game out there.

Max Payne
Worth playing, but rather repetative in the end. Get it for PC instead, imo.
Enter The Matrix is worth a try, by the way. It's nice to see what potential a matrix game has.

I'm going to be honest and say that the PS2 lacks a lot of really GOOD games, and shines more for people's particular interests. I've listed here a handful of games that pretty much anyone can enjoy, and are still not generic. The PS2, however, has MANY titles that specific fans of the sereise would absolutelly love. NASCAR Race For The Cup, the Madden Sereise, Tiger Woods, Final Fantasy 10, and other games fit people's particular interest.

JediKirby

Metal Gear Solid 2
Final Fantasy X

Tribes: Arial Assult

Deus Ex (not as good as PC version...)

XIII

Soul Calibur II (Best specialty char. <3 huge arse combos)

kingdom hearts

Ico
Great platformer. Fun story. AMAZING surroundings.

Wild Arms 3
Just...awesome.

THPS4--it's my favorite of all the THPS iterations. I personally hate the THUG series...meh.

Chris Edwards Aggressive Inline
Oh wait, this got its name changed to Aggressive Inline. :\ Chris Edwards is an old fogey...guess they just didn't want him on the title Great Rollerbloading game, if you liked any of the THPS games, you'll love this one. Probably extremely cheap now too.

God, they just keep coming.

Mark of Kri
Devil May Cry Series
GTA3/VC/SA - Play them in the order they came out
Metal Arms

There will be some repeats, but only for games that i can't stress enough to get

MGS3
GTA San Andreas
Devil May Cry 3
Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal (GC is damn good too)
SSX 3 (I still love this series)
Ace Combat 5
Red Faction II
Mercenaries (all platforms, but still awesome game)
TimeSplitters 3 will be out very very soon
Soul Reaver 2
Viewtiful Joe

My top games? MGS3 and San Andreas. MGS3, like kirby said above, is one of the greatest games ever. Hands down. It's just extraordinary in every single aspect of a complete game. San Andreas of course, is freaken awesome. It's GTA, what else?

The games I own/like a lot organized into catogories. Hope it helps

Sports/Racing
MX Unleashed
Need for Speed: Underground 2
Tony Hawk's Underground
SSX3
Burnout 3


FPS/Stealth/Action
Star Wars Battlefront
Splinter Cell and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Red Faction
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
007: Nightfire

RPG
Kingdom Hearts
FFX


Platformers
Jak and Daxter series
Ratchet and Clank series
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger (one of the first games I bought...I thought it was good)


PS1
Chrono Cross
FF7

Suikoden III and IV

hell, why not the whole series

Timesplitters 2

Rygar hasn't been mentioned yet and it should be

.hack/Infection series-- I ate slept drank and dreamed about this game for abut 2 months, playing it every time i was near a console [eg any time i wasn't at my own place].

The graphics were gorgeous, the plot was entrancing, the combat was actually fun and not totally tedious and intrusive as in eg FF games [not that i haven't tried or wanted to play them, but aside from ff7 once, i really truly cannot get over the random encounters and always just quit].

Probably the best description is it is a single-player mmorpg, different main cities with their own shops and big 'player' population.

It has lots of diffferent zones with a keyword system to determine where you go and the sort of environment [eg Radiant Octahedral Teaspoon might take you to a level 30 marsh zone or summat]. Almost all of the other 'players' have items for trade, eg for 20 holy saps they'll trade a Magic Tab or suchlike, or more common ones that just will trade x value of stuff for y. Moreover scattered throughout the zones are magic pools into which you can throw weapons or armour to upgrade them based upon weather conditions and daytime/nighttime and such.

There is a whole desktop/os thing designed for it as well, including a mail client to keep in contact with different 'players', particularly recurrant party members, and gain information about things, and a fairly active and informative bulletin board, and a local news ticker and such.

It was incredibly fun, however i think i burnt myself out from playing too much too quickly, and a good bit of the way through the first game of four [you can keep your character as you go along], and i haven't even looked at it in months. [though i have thoroughly enjoyed watching .hack/sign instead].

The whole sp mmorpg really, was imo brilliant [at first at least], because most of my complaints about multiplayer gaming involve the fact that it involves other people [who just a few of which can utterly wreck it, or just human nature bleeds through the economy or sociology so much that it just is totally bothersome]. I am, for instance, utterly in accord with this pvp strip [mild language i think]:
http://dor.nullmind.org/arc/pa-20040216l-robotworld.jpg


Other than that, i've never really been much of a console gamer. Mostly just things like secret of mana and it's sequels, or zeldas, or of course chrono trigger.

However, i did quite enjoy playing through bits of Prince of Persia, and Prince of Persia 2 is gorgeously sexy, though i mostly just died repeatedly during the first boss encounter even on easy, so i've been having fun back-seat-playing it with my friend instead.. "Turn that crank! Pull that lever! Dodge dodge dodge!"

tekken 4

i heard tekken 5 was out now too

Tekken 5 is out...and it is awesome.

Does anyone own a PS2 slim around here? It seems like it has the network adapter included, is a lot smaller than the regular PS2 and still carries the $150 price tag. I heard it runs very hot though.

The Thing
XIII
Dance Dance Revolution series

I've played one... It doesn't have HDD support, and I noticed no extremely hotness (after about 4-5 hours of play).

Nothing out of the ordinary, just pure sex

Gran Turismo series

Grand Theft Auto series

Prince of Persia series

Metal Gear Solid series

PS2 has a lot of good series

I just don't want to spend money on a new console if it might have issues down the road. Some people say the slim console doesn't run hot at all (and cooler than the original design), others say this:



It's really difficult to get some professional input on this.

Another question I have is if non-MMORPG games like SOCOM 2 work fine with the slim edition. I heard there are some kind of additions that you need to download?

I dunno about that online stuff to download...sounds funky to me.

But yeah, I've heard no qualms about the slim PS2's...meh.

-Gran Turismo 3 (and contrary to THRAWN's opinion - 4. Yes, especially 4. :p) Best, most realistic driving simulator EVER.

-Ace Combat 4 (and 5 when it comes out) <3. That's all I have to say. <3.

-007 series

Star Wars: Battlefront

My personal favs:

-Smackdown Series: if you like wrestling or not, Here Comes the Pain and Smackdown vs RAW are fantastic games. Great with a multitap and several friends.

-Ace Combat Series: Enough Arcade goodness + Good Story Modes = Sex. Can't beat the graphics either.

-Kingdom Hearts: Look past the Disney and Final Fantasy and you'll find a fabulous idea that had a few nagging issues (The Camera!!!) but turned out to be one of my all time fav games.

-Grand Theft Auto: Mayhem. I liked Vice City quite a bit, not too far into San Andreas however.

Other than that its been mentioned above.

I'll be honest I work in an electronics dept and the hardest thing to do is pick out PS2 games for people. Cube and Xbox isn't too bad, but the worst is Playstation because there are just simply so many titles and you have to really know what you're looking for in a game. Lots of the Greatest Hits titles are absolutely fantastic, SOCOM and Rise to Honor... Ratchet and Clank, Need for Speed; all superb games and there is something to cater to everyones tastes.

I don't know how they play on the PS2, as I have not played the games on the PS2, but both of the Prince of Persia games are very, very fun. One of my friends also greatly enjoys the Sly Cooper series, so you may want to look into that. Finally, NOLF is golden.

That game RULED.

The thing I liked most was that the level objectives were fun to watch after you completed them. Like the one where the bus gets run over by that giant ball thing and it makes a half pipe. Friggin awesome.

BURNOUT 3!

BUY IT NOW!

Dance Dance Revolution

All you'll ever need.

Metal Gear Solid 3!

Yeah, that game is pretty awesome too.

Lasts a bit longer than the previous games too.

Crash mode > you

I loved it because it showcased some of my favorite skaters. Though they were missing quite a few (among my favorites, Rob Guerrera, 3 (or is it 4, maybe 5 now?) time IMYTA winner) that I liked. Been a while since I followed that scene, though.

Yosh, you AId?

Used to

PlayStation 2 is AM-A-ZING!!

Up until a year ago, I'd been skating for 6 years. Pretty damn good, but now I don't have the time. Good stuff

God, you never told me! No wonder you're so into bassdrive and all that. Skaters are usually heavy into techno/dnb.

Did you ever go to skatepile.com? Or did you ever get daily bread? Good times, man...

used to have a subscription to daily bread, though I never really went to skatepile or anything like that.

Check out some of the vids on skatepile.com

Pure awesomeness. Where I first saw Brian Shima do a wallride off of a 40 foot deck. Jesus that was insane. They had all the IMYTA vids, but dunno if they still do. I remember watching Shima win that too.

Awesomeness.

I've seen all the IMYTA vids up to now, used to be a skate-dvd-slut.

Wish I had some videos of me and my people still hmm

Get on AIM, damnit!