Easily one of my top five PS2 games. Maybe even top three.

At first glance, I thought FF2 was a little too similar to the first Fatal Frame: lost and confused female adrift in a phantom reality of gruesome traditions designed to keep the gates of hell closed at all costs. But that's sort of the series' baseline, like how Sonic's baseline is to reach the end of the level. How the game presents that concept, and how you survive the telling of it, is where it has a chance to differentiate itself. Crimson Butterfly, with its one-twin-must-kill-the-other strangulation ritual, manages to even out-creep FF1's infamous Blinding Mask.

The storyline of FF2 is horrifying but satisfying. It hits on family, on tradition, on duty, on suffering, on sacrifice. This game will make your soul hurt.

Like no other survival horror series, Fatal Frame has mastered actually being scary. I don't mean shocking or surprising or gory... I mean scary. This is a game that I still remember like it was yesterday.

Memory Score: To this day, I'm still slightly afraid of a quiet jingly bell noise.

We had some fun with this one. It's a great idea - have a video game judge your singing ability - but the weak presentation make it seem like it was put together in a month. And I still don't see why the song list caps out at 30 or so... there should be 3x that many songs. Needs more unlockables too.

Make one of these with a downloadable and upgradeable jukebox, and you've got something. These one actually has a menu option for accepting a booster disk of new songs, but, surprise surprise, they never actually delivered on that. Instead, if you want new content, you have to buy a whole new game. Way to avoid the technology.

Memory Score: Rhonda unlocked everything in one day when she was off work and I wasn't.

I'm a Lupin fan, so no amount of mediocre reviews could warn me off of this one.

I probably should have heeded them. It's a weird little entry-level Metal Gear with a ton of problems. Lame graphics, a storyline that gives up on making sense halfway through, and lots of good ideas with bad implementation. (The disguise system is remarkably tedious. Dressing as a security guard, for example, also requires that you salute each guard every time they suspect you for a fraud. And since they look at you every three seconds, that means you are saluting every three seconds.)

Still, the voice work was great, the character designs and movements were very true to the anime, and it didn't take very long to beat.

Eventually, you start wondering why Lupin the master thief is facing off against giant mud gargoyles. Luckily, once you hit that point, you're about done.

Memory Score: Something for the fans. And people who like saluting.

Next time: A big franchise online game that completely sucked, an action game that is the best of a rarely seen genre, and a cult favorite that I just could not get into!