PlayStation (PS1)

The console that made 3D normal

Sony’s first console reached Japan in December 1994 and the rest of the world in 1995. Its CD drive is the reason the library feels the way it does: discs held far more than cartridges, so studios filled them with recorded soundtracks, full-motion video and voice acting. That is the difference you hear the moment Metal Gear Solid starts talking to you.

The catalogue on this page covers the western releases plus a number of Japanese titles that were never localised. Everything runs on a PlayStation emulator compiled for the browser, so a game boots in a few seconds and needs nothing installed.

What to play first

If you have never touched the console, start with Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon: short levels, generous checkpoints and the look people remember from the era. Tekken 3 is the one to open if someone else is in the room — it still reads as a fast, fair fighting game three decades later.

For something heavier, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night shaped much of what people now call metroidvania, and Resident Evil is worth playing with the original tank controls at least once, to understand why the fixed camera angles were a design decision and not a limitation.

Racing, fighting and everything else

Gran Turismo was one of the first console racing games to take car handling seriously, and Crash Team Racing is the kart racer people still argue about. Tomb Raider and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater round out the shelf of games that defined what a PlayStation afternoon looked like. Wipeout 2097 and Ridge Racer belong on the same shelf: both reward running a circuit until the racing line stops being a decision.

How the controls work

Everything is playable on the keyboard by default, and the on-screen controls list on each game page shows the exact mapping. Any USB or Bluetooth gamepad is detected as soon as you press a button on it, and the analogue sticks map to the DualShock sticks — which matters for the racing games and for anything that expects analogue steering.

Progress is kept in your browser, so you can close the tab and pick a run up later on the same device.