As a child of the gaming line of Sony, house PlayStation, my childhood was rich with titles for the second generation console; a litany of incredible video-gaming experiences by which my young mind could be enthralled and engaged, rendering me a higher being than had I not encountered it. But the days that such thrills hit as hard as they did are long gone, instead we are left to sort through the memories of gaming titles to determine what was a truly fun experience.
There are some people whose experiences and childhood memories lead to them having embarrassingly incorrect memories of terrible games that have aged like absolute garbage. People will valorize the most redundant, obsolete nonsense on the entire planet while overlooking the truest gems of the era. You absolute fools, you imbeciles sing the praises of nonsense simulators like “Ratchet and Clank.” or “Sly Cooper”.
Boo! Boo, I say! Move forth! Play a REAL video game. Cease hiding behind your conventional classics or your baby-themed busy-box platformers like Crash Bandicoot. Find a title that is worth the critical eye of an evolved intellectual.
Perhaps a diamond in the rough, my highest recommendation of a carefully curated classical library of PlayStation 2 titles: “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow” (2006). I first encountered this game in such a phase that I was quite simply, a boy. I played it day in and day out, not quite able to afford a memory card and pushing as far as I could each day before being conquered by the supernatural forces that blocked your way. While the gameplay may be a bit clunky for the very best that 2024 has to offer (but was surely groundbreaking for its day), the aura of the game and its sense of primordial terror and absolute godhood, wreaking havoc over the impoverished masses as a pirate of legend. It even trades in the darkest fables with the undead, terracotta soldiers and all manners of horrors that challenge not just your skill with a controller, but your absolute sanity.
It’s mixed-to-negative reviews on fraudulent hack meters like “MetaCritic” or some such nonsense are only a testament to the title’s genius. It has an energy that is reminiscent of the horrifying, eldritch horror of PlayStation 2018 favorite, “Bloodborne,” a title that is a spiritual sequel to the themes presented in this game. Truly, I think it is intellectually honest, if unpopular, to say that this is the genesis of the “Soulsborne” style video game. But they’d never admit it.
While you fools jump form platform to platform and clap your hands like seals, I will be venturing through the dark mind palace of one of our culture’s most disturbed pirates. A journey into his mind is sure to yield horrors, the truth of which will irreparably alter the way you engage with movie-tie-in video games.
