As the darkness of winter descends and people are driven to gather indoors for the holidays, it suddenly becomes a lot more important to have good board games on hand. If your board game shelf is looking a little barren, worry not; Amazon’s Black Friday sale has the excellent Azul for just $21.49 – a 33% drop from its usual price.
For the uninitiated, Azul is a strategic tile placement game in which two to four players are tasked with creating mosaics to win. It’s on IGN’s best beginner board games list – so at over $10 off, if you’ve never tried it, now is a good time.
Black Friday Deal: Azul Down to $21.49 at Amazon
Azul made our list of best board game classics for good reason. In our review, writer Matt Thrower said that, “Between its beautiful presentation, simplicity and depth there’s little doubt that Azul has earned its place as a modern classic.” And at this price? It’s certainly worth picking up for your board game collection.
If you’re looking for more board game deals, there’s plenty to explore from non-Amazon Black Friday sales. At the moment, Target has a ‘Buy 1 Get 1 50% off Board Games and Puzzles’ offer going on as part of its Black Friday sale, and other deals will surely pop up as the week continues. For more, check out our full breakdown of Black Friday 2025.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Black Friday Deal: Save on Catan at Amazon and Target
Catan is meant to be played with three-to-four players aged 10 and up, perfect for holiday game nights with family or friends. As you play, you’ll trade resources and construct roads and settlements in a race to 10 points. We rank it among the best classic board games to play overall, and it’s still one of the best strategy board games in 2025.
Far Cry is taking its special brand of mayhem to FX and streaming service Hulu with a new series based on the games. Alien Earth’s Noah Hawley is producing with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Rob Mac starring and producing.
“What I love about the Far Cry game franchise is it’s an anthology. Each game is a variation of a theme, the same way each season of Fargo is a variation on a theme,” said Hawley.
“To create a big action show that can change from year to year, while always exploring the nature of humanity through this complex and chaotic lens is a dream come true. I’m excited to partner with Rob and bring our shared irreverent, ambitious sensibility to the screen.”
The plan is for each season of the show to take on a new setting, similar to the games with Mac in the starring role. Details on the release date or content are still under wraps, but the games have given us everything from Montana, USA to the Himalayas and cults, insane dictators and pirates, so there’s plenty to work with.
“Getting to work alongside Noah Hawley is a dream realized,” added Mac, who also worked with Ubisoft on Apple’s Mythic Quest, where he played a game developer.
“Ubisoft has been remarkably generous, entrusting us with one of the most iconic video-game worlds ever created. And through it all, my FX family continues to lift me up with their constant belief and support.”
Rachel Weber is the Senior Editorial Director of Games at IGN and an elder millennial. She’s been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, and French Bulldogs. Those extra wrinkles on her face are thanks to going time blind and staying up too late finishing every sidequest in RPGs like Fallout and Witcher 3.
We’ve officially entered the week of Black Friday. Pretty much every retailer under the sun has already unleashed a whole bunch of deals, so there’s no reason to wait to do your holiday shopping. If you or someone on your list is into Sonic the Hedgehog video games, you’re in luck: a bunch of them are on sale across the Switch, Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox. Here’s a rundown of every Sonic game that’s already on sale for Black Friday 2025.
Sonic Games – Black Friday Deals
There’s no shortage of Sonic game deals for Black Friday. Here’s the full list.
Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
The newest game on the list is Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Amazon), a kart racer with enough speed and new ideas that many think is actually better than Mario Kart World. In her review, Jada Griffin wrote, “Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds fires on all cylinders with a fantastic roster of 24 of my favorite hedgehogs, foxes, echidnas, and more. The lineup of 24 main tracks and 15 Crossworld tracks is the best designed selection we’ve ever gotten in any Sonic racing game, and there is a generationally great soundtrack to accompany them. The racing itself feels fast, fantastic, and intuitive, with lots of options to tweak your stats to your preferred playstyle.”
Sonic Superstars
If price is your main consideration, you can’t beat Sonic Superstars, a throwback side-scrolling platformer you can pick up for less than $10 at Amazon. That’s a killer deal on a game about which the very same Jada Griffin, in her review, said, “Most Sonic games put the pedal to the metal, having you travel at blindingly fast speeds while avoiding hazards on your way to the goal. Unlike its predecessors, however, Sonic Superstars trades that traditional breakneck pace for new abilities, more exploration, multiple mini-games, and slightly more challenging bosses. Most of that stylistic shift works well for the majority of Superstars’ roughly 15-hour multi-campaign story.”
Sonic X Shadow Generations
In addition to those, you can pick up the excellent 2024 game Sonic X Shadow Generations for the new all-time low price of $24.99 at Amazon. That’s for all consoles, including Switch 2. This game is comprised of two parts. One is a remake of the 2011 game Sonic Generations, and the other is a brand-new Shadow-centered addition. It adds up to a killer package we gave 9/10 in our review.
Sonic is far from the only game series getting Black Friday discounts. Tons of other PS5, Xbox, and Switch games, consoles, and accessories have gotten discounts. Or you can check out the Black Friday sales at Amazon, Best Buy, or Target. And remember, this is only the beginning of the Black Friday season. More deals will go live on the day itself, November 28, and even more on Cyber Monday, which lands on December 1.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.
Black Friday is an excellent time of year to stock up on video games. Especially with the holidays right around the corner, now is a great time to fill up your library with options to play when you’ve got downtime. If you’ve been looking for a big, open-world game to jump into during that time, Star Wars Outlaws has received a major price drop in Black Friday sales.
The PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of Star Wars Outlaws are down to just $19.99 right now, and even the Switch 2 Gold Edition is on sale for $39.99. These discounts make for the lowest prices yet for PS5, Xbox, and Switch 2, which is even better news. Don’t miss out on these excellent Black Friday deals.
Save on Star Wars Outlaws
For Switch 2 users, the Gold Edition of Star Wars Outlaws sets you up with the base game alongside the season pass, which includes the Wild Card story pack, A Pirate’s Fortune story pack, Jabba’s Gambit exclusive Day 1 mission, The Kessel Runner character pack, The Hunter’s Legacy bundle, and The Cartel Ronin bundle. On the other hand, if you’re scooping up the PS5 or Xbox Series X Amazon Exclusive copies, these come with the Rogue Infiltrator Character Pack, which includes cosmetics for both Kay and Nix.
Back when it was released, we called Star Wars Outlaws “a fun intergalactic heist adventure with great exploration,” in our review. If you’re looking for gift ideas for the Star Wars fan in your life ahead of the holidays, we also consider it one of the best Star Wars gift ideas for an adult fan, so you can surprise them with a fun new game to kickstart the new year.
For even more Black Friday video game deals, check out our individual breakdowns of Xbox, PS5, and Nintendo Switch Black Friday deals to see what else we’ve found on sale so far at various retailers. For an overall look at the sale event this year, check out our full page on Black Friday 2025 for more information on participating retailers and deals we’re expecting to see this year.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Publisher Devolver Digital and developer Sam Eng have announced their celestial skateboarding game, Skate Story, is launching day one for the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog on PlayStation 5.
News of the bonus for Sony’s gaming subscription service was unveiled in a PlayStation.Blog post today. It’s a last-minute addition to Skate Story’s launch lineup, which includes PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2.
PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers will have access to the trippy skateboarding game at no extra cost come December 8. Sony has yet to reveal the rest of its upcoming Game Catalog additions for December 2025, with its PS Plus Essential monthly games also under wraps for now.
Skate Story, meanwhile, was announced by Devolver Digital and Eng back in 2022 as an action skateboarding game with a cosmic twist. Its official description teases that players will step into the shiny shoes of an underworld demon made entirely of “glass and pain.” The adventure begins when the devil gives this sparkling creature a skateboard and one simple task: “Skate to the Moon and wallow it – and you shall be freed.”
“Skate fast to destroy vicious demons, help a forgetful frog, and save other tortured souls on your journey from fragile beginner to hardened skater,” the description says. “Push through hell and discover The Devil’s greatest weakness: humility, perseverance, and a disgustingly sweet backside tailslide.”
We’ll know more about the experience Devolver Digital and Eng are spinning up when Skate Story launches for PC, PS5, and Switch 2, as well as PS Plus, in a few weeks. In the meantime, PS Plus subscribers can see which games joined the Game Catalog and Essential list for November 2025 and prepare for December 2025 with a list of every game leaving the service. Sony typically waits to reveal which Essential games it’s adding until closer to the end of the month, so be sure to stay tuned for updates.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Ubisoft has confirmed Attack on Titan as the next big brand crossover coming to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, with a free story quest and paid cosmetics arriving this week.
From tomorrow, November 24, players will be able to take on a new free mission and purchase a series of in-game items. But you’ll need to act quickly, as the Attack on Titan mission content will only be live until December 22.
Hit anime media franchise Attack on Titan is the second crossover for Assassin’s Creed Shadows following the game’s earlier Dead by Daylight collaboration. Similarly, that offered up a simple mission (which lasted around 15 minutes) and then let you pay to adorn Shadows’ main characters in themed cosmetics, if you so chose.
Black Friday deals get messy fast, especially in the games world. Retailers love to hurl half-baked offers around in the run-up to what I like to call “Black Friday proper,” the day after Thanksgiving.
While there are some genuinely good deals already available, it can still get a little tricky to work out what is actually worth your time, especially if you’re on a limited budget.
That’s where I’m here to help. Sure, there are plenty of strong 2025 releases on offer, with big PS5 and Nintendo Switch titles in the mix, but the real gold right now is the slew of games sitting at 20 dollars or less at retailers like Amazon.
That slice of the sale is stacked with some genuine heavy hitters from across the current generation’s almost five-year life cycle. If you want actual bargains, this is the bin worth digging through.
Elden Ring
Hard to believe it has been more than three years since Elden Ring landed on consoles and PC, and somehow it still lived up to every wild expectation I had for it.
If you’ll allow me to immediately skirt around my $20 or less rule, I do highly encourage you to check out the full package if you can. Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree Edition is also discounted, $49.99 on PS5 and $39.99 on Xbox Series X, and is well worth it. Still, if $20 is your limit, the base game has hundreds of hours worth of content already waiting for you.
Horizon Forbidden West
Once again, slightly overshadowed by Elden Ring (sorry, Guerilla Games). Horizon Forbidden West is another 100-hour plus game that is an absolute bargain for $19.99 on PS5. Yes, it’s also on PlayStation Plus if you’re signed up. But do you remember the feeling of owning games? Like actual physical copies?
My advice? Pick this up for 20 bucks, and never have to worry about your PS Plus sub lapsing if you want to replay it, or perhaps spend more than a month getting through it (which is likely, this one is big). If you can stretch to $30, the complete edition is also on sale, and includes the games entire DLC collection as well.
Star Wars Outlaws
Okay, here’s one that might take a little more convicing. But, trust me, even a 7/10 game can be worth $20.
It’s another fairly sizable entry into this list as well, and I truely think there’s a lot of fun to be had with Outlaws. Sure, it’s got a bad rep, but for 20 big ones, you’re actually getting so much genuinely great Star Wars content, it’s no joke.
If anything, I really think it’s worth a go for anyone who was ever on the fence about buying it. Dropping this down to just $20 for both PS5 and Xbox is a great deal, and it’s also $39.99 for the complete Gold Edition on Switch 2 right now as well (but again I’m breaking the rules by mentioning that, woops).
Resident Evil 2 + 3 + 7
Hey, look at me, cheating at my own game again. Yeah it’s supposed to just be 10 games in this list, but I’m having some fun with it, sue me.
Here’s our first picks that are hitting the “or less” part of the article, and no $19.99 doesn’t count, that’s just $20, so don’t start on me.
Three brilliant Resident Evil games for just $14.99 each, now that’s hard to argue with. In my opinion, Resident Evil 2’s remake on PS5 is the best of the bunch, but there’s still a lot offun to be had with the RE3 remake, and Resi 7 as well.
Armored Core 6
Okay here’s where I’ve got to start admitting when I haven’t played some games. Armored Core 6: Fires of My Rubix Cube looks mighty cool, and it’s just $19.99 on PS5, PS4, and Xbox right now.
To help me sell it a bit, I’m going to refer to our handy IGN reviewer, Mitchell Saltzman, who awarded AC6 an 8, stating in his review: “Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon’s stellar customization options feed into its excellent mecha combat, and the result is challenging combat puzzles that kept my attention all the way through its 15-hour campaign and beyond. It’s let down by a dull story, but lands direct hits where it counts.”
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade + Final Fantasy 16
Oh no, I haven’t played these either. Again, cheating with the entry double ups, but it’s Final Fantasy! What, am I just gonna dedicate three slots of Resident Evil, and two more to Final Fantasy, that’s half the article? … and I haven’t even played these two either.
Look, look, look, put the pitch forks away. I’ve never been a Final Fantasy kind of guy, and that’s okay, I can still trust in the many, many friends and collegues who tell me these games rock. For $20 each for FF7 and FF16, I definitely think it’s worth it, even for how little I know.
Red Dead Redemption 2 for $14.99
Hey, I’ve played this one! It’s great, we all love Red Dead Redemption 2, even if it is still stuck at 30fps. Another banger from Rockstar, and another game you can drop over 100 hours in, no questions asked.
If you’re looking for another brilliant game to sink your teeth into while we wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 (which just got delayed again, ouch), then this is a pretty solid pick for just $15. It’s discounted at GameStop for a physical copy, or both PlayStation and Xbox have it for the same price digitally.
I loved my time with it, and was even considering a cheeky replay over the holidays as well. IGN’s Luke Reilly also awarded it a 10 in his review from 2018… seven years ago! Oh no, I’m getting old.
Mortal Kombat 1
Okay, so I’ve played some Mortal Kombat 1, I didn’t finish it, but I enjoyed my time with it.
Not as much as the previous two games, if I’m being honest, but it’s still a good time, especially if you have a few mates you can crack a few beers with and just mess around with every so often. At $20, that sounds pretty great to me.
Look, not every game in this article has to be certified 10/10 banger like RDR2 or Elden Ring, sometimes it’s also nice to spend a reasonable low amount of money on games that are just plain, simple, fun. And Mortal Kombat 1 is exactly that: fun!
Shin Megami Tensei V
I really should’ve put more games in that I’ve actually played. What is that, like four now? Yeesh, that’s kinda rough. Okay, so at least ign.com’s 7/10 review team can back me up again with this one.
Leana Hafer reviewed this one, and awarded it a very respectable 8 in her review back in 2022, stating: “Shin Megami Tensei V’s excellent JRPG combat and deeply rewarding customization shine bright, even when it sometimes feels like Persona without the heart.”
Sounds pretty good to me, maybe I should actually start checking out some more JRPGs. In any case, this is down to just $17.99 at Amazon for PS5, Xbox, and Switch, and that’s a certifiably great deal.
Tekken 8
Final game that’s worth picking up for $20 or less! It’s Tekken 8! No, I haven’t played this one, either! Yes, I’ve heard it’s very, very good! Listen, I spend way too much time just playing Darkest Dungeon on my Steam Deck, and maybe I should find more time to play fighting games. Okay look, I promise I’ll buy it and give it a go over Christmas. Happy?
Ronny Barrier reviewed this one for IGN, awarding it a fantastic 9/10, and stated: “Tekken 8 is an incredible evolution for the series, with tons of single player content, an excellent suite of training tools, a great online experience, and exciting new mechanics that make Tekken more dynamic than ever.”
But, anyway, like I said near the start of the article, there’s actually loads more great games in the sales, and plenty I couldn’t include (even with me already breaking the rules a few times).
If you’re budget is more in the $30-$40 range, then I can recommend plenty of other top titles, like one of my favorites of the year, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 for $30, or 2024’s Game of the Year winner, Astro Bot, for $39.99.
One of my other top picks from 2024 is also just $25 in the sales, for both PS5 and Switch 2, Sonic X Shadow Generations. This is well worth it simply for the new Shadow levels alone.
That’s all she wrote! Well, apart from this bit. And then this bit as well… and the rest of everything I’m going to write now.
Good job getting to the end of this article and my non-sensicle ramblings about 13 cheap games I may or may not have played (also in an article that’s meant to be limited to just 10).
Right, that’s me actually done now, if you pick up anything good over Black Friday, or just want to tell me how much of a fool I am, let me know in the comments ASAP. Have a great Thanksgiving, and see you next time.
Robert Anderson is Senior Commerce Editor and IGN’s resident deals expert on games, collectibles, trading card games, and more. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter/X or Bluesky.
The PlayStation 2’s meteoric journey to become the best-selling console of all time transformed not just gaming, but culture at large. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, God of War, and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty started a new era of interactive stories – one where games competed with films for prestige and attention, and were discussed not just in specialist magazines and forums but in mainstream newspapers and national TV shows.
Today, on the 25th anniversary of the PS2’s launch in Europe, IGN has spoken to two people who witnessed the console’s launch, and rapid rise, from different angles – one insider and one outsider. Shawn Layden was a vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and would later hold some of the most senior roles at Playstation, and Daniel Griffiths was the deputy editor for Official Playstation Magazine in the UK.
They told IGN about their personal memories from that period: Griffiths recalls the panic at the console’s surprise reveal, how Xbox were “in awe of” the press, and how one Sony party turned ended with a river of melted chocolate coins; Layden describes his astonishment at first seeing a PS2 demo, the fear of failure in the console’s first year, and how it made gaming became a hobby you could discuss “in polite company”.
The Insider – Shawn Layden
IGN: What was your first memory of seeing the PS2?
Shawn Layden: The first thing I saw was a demo for Gran Turismo on PS2. We were at a corporate meeting and they had a video of it. And it just knocked us off our chairs. Sadly, Gran Turismo 3 didn’t launch with the hardware because that team takes forever to get their games done, but it gave us a glimpse. That leap, I don’t think, has ever been met again in the console generations, the jump from PS1 to PS2. It took you to a different f*cking planet. And on this planet, everything runs in 60 frames per second.
IGN: How did dev teams react when you knew PS2 was coming?
Shawn Layden: You had to start peeling off teams to put them in a double-secure locked room where no one could go in without security clearance because we had the prototype dev kits there. The rest of us [were] just trying to do the day-to-day. If someone who’s not cleared sees the dev kit, then you’ve got to ship them off to an island somewhere. So there’s a lot of energy around the secrecy and the confidentiality around it, but the excitement was off the charts.
IGN: Was there a rivalry between those teams chosen to work with PS2 and other developers?
Shawn Layden: It wasn’t so much a rivalry as it was a sense of awe and wonder. There were our top engineers, our top designers, our top physics guys. They’re all going into this one room in the studio, which no one else can get into. But everyone knows what’s going on there, right? It was as if an alien ship had landed in our backyard. We’re trying to analyze the tech that it brought to us.
IGN: How did the PS2 change the kind of games you could make?
Shawn Layden: In [PlayStation’s London Studio], it created the opportunity for us to make a game like The Getaway, which is the first – in my view anyway – cinematic gaming experience. It was a Guy Ritchie film, except you were in it. It’s not quite Hollywood, but we knew that the game was not just the gameplay itself. And for that story to be compelling and realistic, you had to get real story writers. You had to hire folks who would write scores for movies to write scores for games. It was crazy to be in the studio and have like four or five London-based actors just coming in to do the overdubs and to do the motion capture. Trying to get them used to being in a mocap rig is like trying to teach a bear to do scuba diving. It was fascinating. You realize you’re making a game that’s actually not just going to be a shoot-’em-up, it’s going to be a story. And that was probably the most exciting PS2 moment I had in London.
The PS1 generation was great and wonderful and brilliant, but it was kind of like your dad’s game console. PS2 became a completely different way to create and appreciate gaming – it was really the beginning of narrative-driven gaming.
IGN: How big a deal was the DVD player?
Shawn Layden: We were selling bundles of PS2 hardware and a movie copy of The Matrix. We chose the DVD format early on for PS2 to give us more memory, give us more real estate to build our games on. When it was ready for launch, we recognized that DVD was this emerging format and people were getting rid of their VHS player. I don’t think there was a lot of intention around linking those two things, but serendipity is a great thing, right? Lucky happenstance. It turned out to be a huge accelerator because so many people could convince their spouse or their parents that, hey, this game machine, you can watch DVDs on it too.
IGN: Did you know early on that the PS2 would be a success?
Shawn Layden: It wasn’t preordained. We launched PS2 on the back of Ridge Racer, Tekken and Fantavision, the fireworks simulator. Later on we became sanguine about it but, at that moment, it was like, ‘Oh, dear God, are we going to be okay? We can’t just sell three games for 10 years.’ There was a learning curve, and so some teams took some time to figure out how this worked. The first couple of years of PS2 was fairly white-knuckled, riding it out, hoping that some more games are going to come, right? This is going to be awesome, right? The first year was pretty much fear-driven. Once teams got into the swing of it, the games were coming thick and fast. There was a lot of risk-taking, a lot of games where you’d look at it and go, ‘What is that?’ And you want to discover it.
IGN: How did it change the way gaming was viewed in wider society?
Shawn Layden: People started to accept gaming as not just a bunch of spotty-faced teenagers in the basement. PS2 was when gaming really broke out into a cultural phenomenon. It was the first time where you could talk about your game machine in polite company and not feel embarrassed. Before that, with PS1, you’d hear someone say Tomb Raider in a party, and you go, ‘Oh, do you know Tomb Raider? Oh, that’s amazing?’ But with PS2, we’re all out there. We’re wearing logos on our t-shirts. We’re having conversations at bars and at pubs and wherever about the new game we’re playing.
When we launched The Getaway, we had a premiere in Leicester Square and we showed the 27-minute lead-up reel to the game. And it was like a full-on movie premiere, red carpet, the whole bit, those searchlights going up in the sky, The Times of London covering it. It did give the feeling that, wow, games are at the next level now. It’s not just something happening down at Electronics Boutique – this is happening in Leicester Square.
The Outsider – Daniel Griffiths
IGN: Can you remember your first encounter with the PS2 console?
Daniel Griffiths: The call came that there’s a big announcement in Japan. When my editor, Mike Goldsmith, went off [to Japan] we were speculating as to what it was going to be, but it wasn’t certain it was going to be PS2. That issue, Ridge Racer Type 4 was the cover game, and then the announcement of PlayStation 2 is below that, because we weren’t certain [it was going to happen].
Mike went to the PS2 reveal press conference. He’s got no laptop, no computer. He gets given some slides and goes to some Japanese printer and tries to fax them, and he can’t do it. Then he phones me. We’ve got our [Ridge Racer Type 4] front cover, the mag’s all finished. The double spread of news is held back for whatever Mike’s seeing in Japan. He’s like, ‘I’ve got PlayStation 2, I’ve seen it.’ And we’re like, ‘Oh f*ck, what are we gonna do?’
He says, ‘I’ll describe to you what I’ve seen and you write it like you’ve seen it.’ So he read from his notebook, and I literally typed up what he said just from his description. I’d never seen it, but I wrote the whole thing: ‘We’ve been to Japan, we’ve seen this.’
IGN: What happened when you got your hands on it?
Daniel Griffiths: We had the first one in the UK, pretty much. [PlayStation Magazine owner] Future Publishing did football magazines and knitting magazines and canoeing magazines, even the people from the needlecraft magazines came to see [our] PlayStation 2. Everyone was just absolutely knocked out. There was a game called The Bouncer, with depth of field, there was focus and planes. It was incredible. And Fantavision had layers and clouds and the light would be reflected in things. All of these tricks that PS1 couldn’t do, they just went all out on PS2. At the time it was photoreal to me, it was such a step up.
Because it was on DVD, the sound was so much better too. It had genuine music, and genuine spoken word and acting. Things like Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, with Harry Gregson-Williams’ orchestral score, and the fantastic, if slightly dubious, script and voice acting. It was next level. PS1 to PS2 was like going from a brick phone to an iPhone and you could see that everything’s going to be brilliant from now on. The people that had held off on PlayStation 1 could see this wasn’t going away.
IGN: How extravagant was the marketing?
Daniel Griffiths: PlayStation 2 was the time when the money landed, and spending lots of cash on nonsense made perfect sense. Nowadays, I don’t think it exists at all. I remember going to one party where it was, ‘Ladies and gentleman, Pulp.’ They were 20 feet away, doing a full gig, and they were the hottest band at the time
For parties they would take over these weird venues, like derelict car parks, and they would put on art displays and have a stage and a band and an enormous free bar that was just Red Bull and Vodka all night, fill a place with cool people and games journalists, and everyone would just come out and say, ‘Sony, they’re the bomb.’ I remember going to one and there was a perfect pyramid of gold chocolate coins, maybe 12 feet high… then on the way out, it was just demolished, and it had melted, and it was just a slick of chocolate, and people were slipping over on it. It was hilarious.
IGN: What happened when Microsoft entered the scene?
Daniel Griffiths: I had moved from OPM deputy editor to be editor of GamesMaster. I remember Microsoft coming to Future Publishing and they took some PC magazines and GamesMaster [staff] to a posh hotel in Bath. And they unzipped a case and produced this shiny metal box shaped like an X. They were in awe of us, that was the weird thing. They took me to one side and they said, ‘We’ve seen how your games magazines have sold [games] to gamers, we’re completely new to the games industry, we need you to be on side with this.’ It seems crazy, but that’s what it was.
They were running scared. You could see they were kind of like, ‘This might be the biggest mistake we’ve ever made, but we’re making a console.’ PlayStation’s marketing team had got it on the telly and in trendy magazines, and they had footballers banging on about their favorite PlayStation games in the press. It was everywhere… and so I think for Xbox to come in and say, ‘We’ve got a console,’ it was just like, you’re gonna have to really prove it. And to their credit, they worked super hard, and I’ve got nothing but admiration for it.
IGN: When do you think PS2 cemented its reputation as an all-timer?
Daniel Griffiths: I think part of the reason it becomes loved is because of the mess that they made of PlayStation 3. PS1 was a games machine. PS2, with the advent of the DVD player, was home entertainment, and then PS3, god knows what they were thinking of. That was going to replace your computer, your television, your everything. The reason why PlayStation 2 is kind of revered is because they f*cked up PlayStation 3.
The Player – You
Do you have fond memories of the PlayStation 2? Were you there, 25 years ago, waiting in line to buy one at midnight? Did you get it for the DVD player, or for the cinematic narrative games that tech unlocked? Or were you a fan of its early advances in multiplayer, perhaps online with SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs, or splitscreen with Timesplitters 2 via the Multitap adaptor? Let us know your stories from the PS2 era in the comments below. And for more tales of the PS2, check out how Sony secured GTA as a PlayStation exclusive.
The interviews in this story have been edited for length and clarity.
While the Magic: The Gathering community remains split over Wizards of the Coast’s big push for Universes Beyond, there’s no arguing that Final Fantasy’s set from June this year was a set done right – and it set big records for the three-decade-old franchise as a result.
Amazon lists the MSRP for the Final Fantasy box at $209.70 (more on that in a moment), but it’s now down to $162.57.
That’s still more expensive than Universes Within boxes of Play Boosters, simply by virtue of being, well, Final Fantasy. Still, with that taken into account, you are saving almost $50 and still getting 30 Play Boosters of 14 cards each.
That’s 420 cards for $162.57, with some fantastic new designs included among them. Naturally, Collector Boosters, which feature rarer art treatments, have been out of stock (or endlessly marked up) for months, but if you’re looking to kickstart a Final Fantasy collection, this is the way to do it.
This Dragon-themed set has some awesome cards included, and with this deal, you’re paying $3.33 per pack and still getting 420 cards.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
