Happy 15th Birthday PS2

It's hard to believe that it's been FIFTEEN years to the day since the PS2 arrived. The PS2 would end up being the biggest selling console of all time with a whopping 155 million units worldwide, and it was home to some of the most groundbreaking games of its generation.

I was a late adopter of the PS2 (I opted for Microsoft's Xbox), but I eventually picked up a bundle with an additional controller, Canis Canem Edit (also known as Bully), and Rampage World Tour. I think I got the whole lot for £90, bargain!

With that being said; here's some of my favourite PS2 games and memories.

Grand Theft Auto 3 ... D??? - When it was revealed GTA would be making the transition to 3D there was a lot of excitement. The controversial crime-a-thon's third game offered a huge city to roam around, a ton of vehicles, stacks of weapons and an engrossing story filled with action, betrayal and profanity. When the story was over you could attempt to seek out all of the hidden packages scattered throughout the city, or just take turns with a mate going on a rampage.

Half Life on Console!!!- Originally slated for Sega's Dreamcast, Half Life made the jump to PS2 when Sega bowed out of the console race. Half Life on console isn't anywhere near as good as the PC version (the loading times are terrible), but it did have some console exclusive features like a terrific split-screen multiplayer mode (Snarks FTW), and a co-op campaign called Decay.

Decay followed the story of two scientists that prepared the test sample for Gordon Freeman and thus triggered the Black Mesa incident. It didn't last very long but as it was exclusive to PS2 it made the game a must-have for Half Life fans, although it was just fun activating invincibility and shooting each other during cutscenes.

We Love Katamari- One of my all time favourite games; We Love Katamari is a wonderfully insane, yet simple, puzzle game where you have to roll up objects. You start off small by rolling up things like pencils and sweets, but towards the end of the game you're rolling up cities, countries and even the entire solar system! All of this was wrapped up in a brilliant J-Pop soundtrack and even included co-op multiplayer, which my wife and I played non-stop for months.

If you do somehow manage to collect everything in the game, you unlock one more quest to roll up 1 million roses. Unfortunately you can only roll up the roses in bunches of ten, so we may have to take a year off work in order to accomplish this.

Let me know your favourite PS2 moments in the comments. :P