Let's wind back the years to look back on some of the best PS1 games from Sony's ground-breaking games console, the original PlayStation.
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00:00 Ready to go back to the 90s, and yes, we mean even more than the current trend for bucket
00:17 hats and crop tops. It's time to turn back the clock and travel back to the birth of
00:22 PlayStation with Sony's original little grey box. How many of these classic PS1 games
00:28 do you actually remember? And hey, remember how cool it was that the discs were black?
00:36 Let's kick things off with a nostalgic heavy hitter. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 was a formative
00:41 PS1 game. If you didn't have the muscle memory to get all of the goals in Hangar in
00:45 under 2 minutes, were you even alive in the year 2000? Not only had we never seen anything
00:50 like these levels, but the incredible mixtape of a soundtrack is what cemented Tony Hawk's
00:55 2 as a stone cold classic that no remake can truly recapture the magic of. Admittedly though,
01:00 the new one does come pretty close.
01:09 Yes our next game is a rabbit bouncing along a string in a minimalist black and white world,
01:14 and hopefully you remember it. Incredibly, Vib Ribbon actually started life as part of
01:18 a tie in promotion for a Mercedes car. The promotion was dropped, but Papa the Rapper
01:23 lead Masaya Matsuura took over and the rhythm platformer was born regardless. Vib Ribbon
01:29 epitomises the weird joy of the sudden potential of the PS1, and even better, you could play
01:35 your own music CDs. The game was so small it loaded onto the PS1's RAM, so you could
01:40 swap out the game's disc for your own albums and platform across your favourite tracks.
01:54 Say it with me now, Cool Borders! It didn't quite do for snowboarding what Tony Hawk's
01:59 2 did for the wheeled variety, but Cool Borders was a chilly solid addition to many a demo
02:04 disc back in 1996. Even if you never played the full game with its various tracks, chances
02:09 are you got a chance to hurtle down a polygonal slope and choose between a selection of colourful
02:14 boards. It's probably borderline unplayable now, but games like Cool Borders and its sequels
02:20 paved the way for many solid winter sports games we love today.
02:28 Let's face it, whenever anyone talks about their first classic Silent Hill experience,
02:32 it tends to be James' misty trip in Silent Hill 2. Some of us found our nightmares much
02:37 earlier playing as Harry Mason when we headed to the infamous town in search of his daughter
02:42 Cheryl. It's in much more pixelated form, but everything terrifying about the series
02:46 was born here in the first game. Deformed creatures stumbling in the darkness, twisted
02:50 screaming fire babies chasing you through dim basements, and a complete inability to
02:55 run for any length of time. Survival horror in 1999 was truly scary, and that definitely
03:00 isn't just because we're about 10. It is official, it's against the laws of the
03:16 internet to make a list of best PS1 games and not mention Metal Gear Solid. It might
03:21 sound like the start of it, but MGS was actually Hideo Kojima's third addition to the Metal
03:26 Gear series, but was specifically designed to make the most of the fresh 3D tech inside
03:30 of the PS1, hence the 'solid' part of the title after two previous 2D games. Among
03:36 many other gifts it gave Kojima the ability to smash down the fourth wall with Psycho
03:40 Mantis reading your memory card and forcing you to change controller ports to keep your
03:45 mind free of invaders. Such was the impact Snake's stealth adventures on PlayStation
03:49 are considered a historic achievement that changed the way the world perceived video
03:53 games.
04:13 If kick punch it's all in the mind has instantly appeared from nowhere in your brain,
04:16 then you definitely remember Parappa the Rapper. This surprisingly tricky rhythm game, one
04:20 of the earliest of the genre, follows young Parappa as he trains in the art of rhyme with
04:24 none other than Chop Chop Master Onion. The game spawned a spin-off with Um Jamma Lammy
04:29 and a sequel was released for PS2 in 2001, but we'll always remember the true frustration
04:34 of thinking we were hitting the beat, and well, just not, as Parappa would say, we've
04:38 just gotta believe.
04:46 Another PS1 game, more revolutionary game design and another astonishing soundtrack.
04:51 No wonder we all have such good music taste. Wipeout 2097 was the second in the now legendary
04:56 series and didn't just feel like the future because of the 21st century title. Whether
05:00 you were Flying Vector, Venom, Rapier or Phantom, the speed of these futuristic craft felt genuinely
05:06 game changing. Soaring through the air, risking boost zones and carefully handling turns with
05:10 air brakes meant Wipeout was a whole new level of racing games, and now we're off to listen
05:15 to Firestarter.
05:24 Truthfully the PS1 was a golden era of brilliantly colourful platformers, and move over Rayman,
05:29 Spyro and Crash because we want to talk about Toy Story 2, Buzz Lightyear to the rescue.
05:34 It was Traveller's Tales already showing off the skills that would become the lifeblood
05:38 of the Lego adaptations, but in 1999 it meant taking on the role of everyone's favourite
05:43 space ranger and diving through the technicolour world of Pixar to save the rest of Andy's
05:48 toys. The result is a dizzying platformer that you can still play on the PlayStation
05:55 Classic Store, if you want to go and play it now. Well, actually maybe wait until this
05:58 video's over.
06:03 Ok, this next game has a slightly different title depending on where you are in the world,
06:10 but regardless of whether you know it as Twisted Metal 2 or Twisted Metal World Tour, we're
06:14 sure you're in agreement that this demolition derby was absolutely the best in the series.
06:18 Twisted Metal 2 was many people's first introduction to the terrifying Needles Cane,
06:22 driver of an ultra deadly ice cream truck known as Sweet Tooth. Don't worry if you
06:26 still get panicked when you hear one in real life, Single Player was brilliant carnage
06:30 but the local split screen offering meant things could get truly personal. Sorry not
06:35 sorry.
06:37 Let's end on a fiery curveball with Rosco McQueen Firefighter Extreme. If you're wondering
06:43 why you're so at home playing Powerwash Simulator, it might be because in 1997 you were handling
06:48 high pressure water and putting out fires in various towering infernos. The intrepid
06:52 Rosco didn't review particularly well at the time, ok, badly actually, he reviewed very
06:57 badly, but we have fond memories of battling robots with our fire axe and collecting water
07:01 bottles to keep our house topped up. Hindsight is a dangerous thing, hey?
07:07 So hopefully we've stirred up some PS1 nostalgia to send you into the cupboard looking for
07:11 your original Playstation, and wires that definitely don't have connection to modern
07:15 TVs. Good luck with that.
07:21 [Music]