15. Vagrant Story
Square had fully mastered the PlayStation hardware by the time Vagrant Story arrived, and the game is absolutely stunning when you consider what the developers were working with. While the cutscenes are breathtaking to behold, they’re not the key focus here – in fact, Vagrant Story is a surprisingly streamlined take on its genre, with action and adventure taking priority instead of the usual RPG fetch quests and NPC interactions. There’s some real depth to the combat, too – you can even target the individual limbs of enemies, in order to strategically break them down and reduce their ability to function.
14. Spyro The Dragon
It seems like a silly question looking back, but there was once a real debate over whether or not the PlayStation could actually do a 3D platform game – a proper one, with big open stages, not the corridors and caverns of Crash Bandicoot and Croc. Spyro The Dragon was the emphatic answer to that question. Not only could the PlayStation do a 3D platform game, but it could do one very well indeed. It’s not the hardest PlayStation game you’ll play, but the locations are wonderful to explore, and controlling Spyro feels great, so you’ll enjoy breezing through to the end.
13. Tomb Raider
While there are five PlayStation games to choose from, it’s Lara Croft’s first adventure that really does the trick for us. There was simply nothing quite like Tomb Raider when it first launched in 1996 – that combination of exploration, puzzle-solving, and gunplay in a 3D environment was wholly unique. It’s also quite a different experience from its successors. Though it features memorable set pieces like the famous dinosaur encounter, the original Tomb Raider is more reliant on mental challenges than action, and sticks closely to the theme of tomb raiding rather than venturing out into the open air.
12. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
The very first Oddworld game put you in the role of Abe, a poor meat factory worker who accidentally discovers that he and his Mudokon buddies are about to be turned into tasty treats. Your job is to liberate as many of your fellow enslaved Mudokons as you can, by ordering them about, telepathically controlling dangerous enemies, throwing grenades around, and more. It’s something of a hybrid puzzle platformer, with the cinematic ambition of Another World and the character management of Lemmings, but with the added bonus of some excellent pre-rendered visuals and rather dark humor. Also, Abe can fart.
11. WipEout 2097
The original WipEout had done a lot to establish the PlayStation as a cool console, and the fast futuristic racing action was just as exciting the second time around. WipEout 2097 was far easier to get into thanks to more forgiving collisions and the new Vector speed class, a slower standard to ease people in. But the challenge hadn’t been stripped away – you could now destroy your rivals with new weapons like the iconic Quake Disruptor, and the Phantom speed class and secret Piranha team awaited master racers. Licensed music from The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers just sweetened the deal.
10. PaRappa The Rapper
Apart from being a brilliant source of canine rhymes, PaRappa The Rapper is a poster child for the creative, whimsical side of the PlayStation. As well as being a whole generation’s introduction to the concept of music games, the colorful cartoon graphics, strange paper-thin characters and bizarre situations that PaRappa gets into are a world apart from anything else on the system. Plus, PaRappa himself is perhaps the most relatable character ever to star in a videogame – after all, his main concerns are getting a cute partner, learning how to drive, and having a desperately needed poo. We’ve all been there.
9. Silent Hill
Other survival horror games might have been bloody and even tense, but Silent Hill was one of the very first to be genuinely unsettling. A lot of that was down to the psychological horror approach adopted by Konami’s developers, but equally, they did a lot to make the small things matter. Sure, Silent Hill might be using fog to cover up a limited draw distance like so many other games of the era, but few of them incorporated it as an atmospheric touch in quite the same way. And that Dual Shock heartbeat when you’re low on health? Brrr.
8. Gran Turismo 2
Back in the late Nineties, it was hard to imagine how Polyphony Digital could have possibly improved upon the original Gran Turismo. The game was by far the biggest and most realistic racing game available on not only the PlayStation, but any console, and players had gone wild for it. The simple solution was to just have more of everything. While the racing felt pretty similar and the astounding graphics remained, Gran Turismo 2 features more cars and more tracks to race them on – including the brand new inclusion of rally tracks, introducing off-road competition to the series.
7. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
As the unofficial mascot of the PlayStation, you just knew the bonkers bandicoot would show up here. The first two games became famous for their high-quality platforming, across 3D into-the-screen sections as well as more traditional 2.5D areas. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, this third game just adds heaps of extra stuff to do. The game offers motorbike rides, jetski sections, underwater adventures, and more, all with the same excellent presentation you’d expect. That’s all great for newcomers, and the challenge is still there for fanatics, with some truly testing time trials to tackle for 100% completion.
6. Tekken 3
The Tekken series was the premier 3D fighting franchise on Sony’s console from the moment it arrived, and the third installment was easily the pinnacle of Namco’s achievements with the series in that era. The core fighting action was refined, with animations that more naturally flowed into one another, and the visuals were better thanks to the high-resolution mode and more solid character models. That wasn’t all though, as Tekken 3 was packed with things to do. There were plenty of unlockables from bizarre characters like Gon to odd modes like Tekken Ball, plus the scrolling beat-’em-up Tekken Force game.
What's our top pick? Click 'next page' to see our countdown of the top five best PS1 games.
