Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

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Cult Classics: PlayStation 2

Part 1: Games you really should try!

Dog's Life

  • Developer: Frontier
  • Publisher: Sony

Predating Nintendogs by several years, this utterly surreal canine adventure (from Elite creator David Braben) is certainly one of the least likely PS2 games to grace this list. You play as Jake, a talkative mutt on a mission to save his bitch (hey, that's what they're called) from an evil cat-food magnate. You do this by completing challenges - or what many would now sniffily dismiss as mini-games - to find and earn bones, the game's currency. Along the way you pick up a posse of pooch pals, each of which has their own useful skills. You're free to wander around a town, a holiday resort and a city, while the human population remains oblivious to your quest. Where things really enter the See It To Believe It zone is in the way the natural functions of being a dog are included in the gameplay. Yes, you can piss and poop at will, and even enter Smell-O-Vision mode to sniff other dogs in the bumhole. It's certainly not a great game, unless you have a fetish for weird toilet-fixated collect-'em-ups, but at second-hand price it's definitely worth experiencing for the sheer "HUH-BUH-WHA?" factor.

What we said: "A fairly innocuous curiosity rather than the great game it could have so easily been."

Ebay price guide: GBP 5-10

Extermination

  • Developer: Deep Space
  • Publisher: Sony

A good way to guarantee a decent game gets swiftly forgotten is to develop it for the launch of a new console, promise great things and then deliver something that doesn't shatter the planet asunder with next-gen awesomeness. That's what happened with Extermination, an exclusive horror-action game that was going to do very rough things to the mouldering carcass of Resident Evil. Yet somewhere between the announcement and the actual release, the fickle tide of gaming opinion ebbed away and lapped against a different shore. Nobody would hold Extermination up as a beacon of original thinking - you're in command of a crack assault team investigating the monstrous effects of a mutating virus in a secret base, for Wesker's sake - but that's not to say it deserved to be so thoroughly overlooked. For one thing, the game actually does something with the idea of contagion - turning it from trite plot device into central gameplay mechanic. Characters can become infected, and must then try to slow the spread of the virus while hunting for a cure. And besides that, it's an above average action game with some nice atmospherics, fun squad elements and plenty of gooey creatures to shred with bullets.

What we said: Not reviewed

Ebay price guide: Less than GBP 5

God Hand

  • Developer: Clover Studios
  • Publisher: Capcom

One of the more recent games in this rundown, and a deserving entry in the achingly controversial 2007 Top 50 list, God Hand will probably go down in history as the most insane fighting game on the PS2. It may even end up as the most insane fighting game ever, on any format, ever. Ever. Have you ever seen a Stephen Chow movie? Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle, that sort of thing? If so, you'll have a good idea of God Hand's appeal. Much like Chow's energetic action comedies, this is what you'd get if you put Tekken in a blender with Jackie Chan and every Looney Tunes cartoon ever made, and left it whirring away for longer than is strictly healthy. On a technical level, it's an accomplished brawler with a deep and rewarding combat system geared towards hardcore beat-'em-up fans. On an aesthetic level, it's all about going over the top. So far over the top that it comes back down on the other side as a work of deranged genius. There are spankings, killer haircuts, groin kicks, Chihuahua racing and explosive special moves that send enemies soaring into the stratosphere. And, all the while, an unseen audience cheers and boos your performance, urging you on to ever greater acts of lunatic violence. It's hard, but even fighting game wimps should play this at least once, just for the experience.

What we said: "A third-person brawler that lets us kick gorillas into space. Awesome!"

Ebay price guide: GBP 12-17

Gradius V

  • Developer: Treasure
  • Publisher: Konami

Old-school shoot-'em-ups, be they vertical or horizontal in nature, remind me of vinyl records. I don't have much use for them any more, but there's a part of me that feels a bit warm and fuzzy that they're still around thanks to the devotion of dedicated hobbyists. It's nice to know that, should I want one, I'll be able to find one. Such is the case with Gradius V, yet another entry in this list from those perverse geniuses at Treasure. As with most titles in this long-running series - this, despite the name, is something like the ninth - you pilot the Vic Viper against sundry alien foes. There's a tactical escalation of power-ups, and the expected focus on lightning reflexes and quick-fire pattern recognition. And, yes, for the majority of the bipeds on this planet, it's ferociously difficult. So why is it here? Because there's something quite awesome about the fact that such an ancient genre is still being refined after two decades, and few do it better than Treasure.

What we said: "If stupendously hardcore shooters that require the skills of other worldly beings are your thing, then the chances are you'll be in some sort of perverted masochistic heaven."

Ebay price guide: Around GBP 15

Part 2 coming soon, featuring some old rolly friends. And no it's not entirely alphabetical, so don't complain about absentees yet.