Here's the port that nobody expected the PS1 to pull off, a very playable, excellent looking version of Quake II. The game leaves the medieval setting of the original and puts you into a futuristic, alien world setting, the visceral gore and action is here with a vengeance, and the game ambitiously attempts to create a seamless gameplay world which avoids the usual level structure. On top of the excellent 1-player mode, Quake II also throws in the best 4-player deathmatch of any FPS game on the system, its fast, with a good framerate and great arena's to play in.

Grandia originally made a name for itself as the Sega Saturn's alternative to the then hyped Final Fantasy 7, unfortunately that version (which is said to be slightly better) was never released in the west for the system, but eventually this very respectable, and fully translated PS1 version did turn up. Grandia was one of the earliest JRPGs to use a fully 3D environment (most had flat 2D pre-rendered backgrounds at the time), and the effect here is very cool, and doesn't really intrude too much on visibility, the plotline is a far cry from the brooding style of many of Square and Enix's offerings, going for a brighter, warmer story that has more emphasis on humour.

Here's an ingenious, and underrated puzzle game where you detonate blocks rolling towards you before they crush you. The game has a fairly simple to learn system where you highlight squares on the floor, and then detonate them after a block has rolled on top, if you detonate a green block it allows you to blow up a bunch of blocks at the same time, if you detonate one of the black blocks by accident you get penalised by having the pathway behind you removed. Whilst easy to learn, the game gives you a lot to master, and it really is a very unique a fun experience.

Here we have the PS1s long awaited answer to Mario Kart 64. Crash Team Racing is certainly derivative, but developers Naughty Dog clearly knew what made titles like MK64, and Diddy Kong Racing the great games they were, as CTR manages to recreate all the fun, and addictive gameplay of those titles, whilst adding crash's distinctive characters and environments, and loads of graphical polish. This is the place to go if you have three friends visiting and a multitap.

Front Mission 3 was the first in the series to manage to make it to the west and happily it was also one of the best to introduce the series. Front Mission 3 is an strategy RPG which has you controlling mechs around grid based environments, taking it in turns to take shots at each other, its battle system is as well thought out as you'd expect from Square, and is very intuitive, the politics driven storyline is interesting and complex, and the developers have really done their best to add all the little details to make the world in the game rich, believable, and in-depth.

With the original Spyro, Insomniac (who now busy themselves with creating the Resistance series on Playstation) knocked all of the platforming pretenders on Playstation aside to provide a hugely polished game with a big free roaming environment, and lots to do. This third sequel tightened up all the gameplay and presentation, and added loads of new minigames, and different playable characters (including a flying penguin) to keep the gameplay fresh throughout.

Special Edition is the quintessential Wipeout game on the system. Psygnosis took all the best points from Wipeout 3, such as the phenomenal graphics, and presentation, improved them even further, and then looked at some of the criticisms and did some gameplay balancing (handling has been improved for some of the craft). Those things alone may not sound like enough for a new release, but that's not the best of it anyway, the best of it is that Special Edition actually contains three extra tracks from the original Wipeout, and five extra tracks from Wipeout 2097/XL, making it essentially a compilation of all the best Playstation Wipeout games. Special Edition was unfortunately only ever released in Europe, and for those without access to Special Edition I feel that Wipeout XL slightly edges out vanilla Wip3out in quality.

Konami's answer to the Resident Evil series was a creepy, atmospheric, and original survival horror title. Whilst you explore the dimly lit, foggy town solving puzzles there's an ever present feeling of danger and tension, you're always wary of what could be just outside of your vision. The storyline here is very well crafted, and the game, at is best is genuinely unsettling.

The original Command and Conquer (and its forebear Dune II) revolutionised real time strategy games, with its intuitive, accessible, and ultimately fun gameplay set-up based around mining resources, and creating buildings and units to attack the enemy base. This sequel was a big improvement on the original's formula, containing improvements to the units and graphics, as well as adding a healthy dose of humour to the proceedings, the PS1 port is a very nice conversion which also, happily includes mouse support.

With Vagrant Story developer Square focused on making one of the deepest battle systems of any PS1 game, using a slightly more hands on approach (the battles are still menu driven, but you run around in real time trying to get into a good position between strikes), its strategies are deep, with all weapons having their own in-depth stats, types of combo's, and custom attack choices, so deep in fact that to master it you have to pretty much move into micro management territory! The main gameplay takes place in dungeons, and feels a little bit more adventure flavoured than you'd expect, with a multitude of puzzles to solve and maps to check. As a late PS1 title Vagrant Story has some of the best graphics on the system, unlike many RPGs of its time it eschews FMV movies and does everything with the in-game engine (which still looks excellent). Story wise its a littler slower than many of the other big titles, but is quite unique and interesting when it fully gets going.