Making a game look like a PS2 title

Unity Engine
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1

Hello everyone.

How would one go about making a game that looks like a PS2 title in Unity? Specifically, the titles that did not have an exaggerated art style, like Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Spy Cooper, etc, moreso “realistic”-looking titles like Urban Reign, The Warriors, Dead to Rights, Rise to Honor, Devil May Cry, God Hand, Conflict: Desert Storm 2, Tony Hawk, Free Running, and so on.

What are some common rendering, texturing and shading techniques that they all used? I tried searching for an answer before, but there was nothing conclusive, particularly in the context of the more realistic titles.

Thank you.

2

The question is a bit vague. I would say, there are four major components

  • Technical limitations of the PS2
  • The art style of those titles
  • The game design of those titles
  • The characteristic sound of the sound chip

Regarding 1, this video should give you some insight. It’s about the PS1, but the principles are the same:

Regarding 2, obviously, you have to use low-poly models and low-res textures.

Regarding 3, certain style of games are more common when the hardware can only do certain things. However, the PS2 had already a 3D chip, so it was not as limited as the Amiga, for example.

3

You see, this is why I asked this question to begin with - so there can be more precise, concise information regarding PS2 aesthetics and how to achieve them. When looking for the answer myself, I mainly obtained statements similar to yours (With all due respect).

I understand that there are some similarities between the PS1 and PS2 even on a hardware level, but there were simply things that PS2 games didn’t do compared to PS1 titles, like the watery polygon jitter effect as a result of vertices being stored with less precise ints rather than expensive floats. Trying to work in how PS1 games achieved their look simply muddies the water.

As far as the art style is concerned, I saw prior posts that mentioned asking this question is vague when there were various cartoony and/or cel-shaded games that permeated the console.

This is why I purposefully excluded those, as a lot of their aesthetic styles comes from the specific visual design to begin with, rather than common PS2 visual development practices and limitations. I am asking how to make a game that looks, specifically, like the non-cartoony titles that effectively passed for “realistic”, such as Urban Reign, The Warriors, Rise to Honor, Devil May Cry, God Hand, Conflict: Desert Storm 2, Tony Hawk’s Underground, SOCOM US Navy Seals, Free Running, Yakuza, RoadKill, ATV Offroad Fury 2, 007: Everything or Nothing, NARC, and so on.

I’m not even mentioning games like The Red Star, TimeSplitters, Def Jam: Fight for NY, The Bouncer, or Second Sight due to their very specific, still exaggerated aesthetics being owed to their artstyle, nor titles like Fight Club or Metal Gear Solid 2 or 3, since their aesthetics were very specific and stemmed from particular shaders and filters that were far from commonplace compared to the other titles.

So with this criteria in mind, do you think you could please be more specific? Screenshots for the intended visuals added for extra clarity:

9005923--1241188--UrbanReign1.jpg 9005923--1241191--UrbanReign2.jpg 9005923--1241194--UrbanReign3.jpg 9005923--1241197--UrbanReign4.jpg 9005923--1241200--UrbanReign5.jpg

4

Low poly models:

Max 256*256pix 256color textures, vertex lighing, per-vertex LDR lightmaps, gamma space rendering.

5

And are there any specific tutorials to accomplish this, or perhaps extra packages that I might need for Unity? Or could I accomplish this without needing to get any external packages?

6

Mostly these are all simple settings. No need for a tutorials

low res textures, low color textures: do this in your image editing app when you make your textures.

Vertex lit stuff:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/RenderTech-VertexLit.html

Gamma space rendering:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/LinearRendering-LinearOrGammaWorkflow.html

7

Also infamously - no (or very little) anti-aliasing.

Honestly though the screenshots kinda tell you most of what you need to know. The tech basically just hardware accelerated 3D with no bells or whistles. No shaders (though screen buffers could do some surprising effects) meant that you basically just threw polys at the screen and let them render our as normal.

8

I’m also trying to create a PS2-style game in Unity, focusing on more realistic titles like The Warriors or Conflict: Desert Storm 2. From what I’ve researched, using low-poly models, small textures, simple baked lighting, and adding fog for limited draw distance seems key to capturing that PS2 feel. Does that sound accurate? I’ve been reading the Unity docs on lightmapping and fog settings Unity - Manual: Fog, but I’m still unsure if I’m on the right track. Also, for anyone who’s worked with emulation or PS2 file setups, would a site like https://psbios.com/ be useful for reference? They have BIOS files—can those be injected automatically into a game in Unity? Sorry if this sounds like a newbie question, but any help would be really appreciated!

11

These screenshots that it would be just amazing!!

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