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After finally persuading my cousin to get a PlayStation 2, I have now managed to detach myself from the dual shock controller in order to write a review of Sony’s monolithic demon of a games machine. Needless to say, this review will be extensive, so get ready for a catalogue of important information that you should know about PS2. I’ve been thoroughly impressed, my cousin slightly less, and I’m going to explain why this machine is the safest, most appropriate choice for your next generation of games console. Sit back, get some coffee and stay awake!
The past: Sony break free from the PlayStation one’s tremendous success as the number one 32 bit games machine to own and bring out something in March of the year 2000 that could totally destroy everything else in the market, or possibly, destroy Sony themselves. You maybe pondering about buying one, hopefully I’ll persuade you to set your doubts away to some far off place and you’ll be a PlayStation 2 better off within a few days. It sold. Oh yes it sold like the hottest piece of hardware that it actually is, demolishing all previous gaming console records. The PS2 was an instant hit in Japan, with those ‘horrendous’ (although some just laughable) scenes of fighting – everyone wanted one, and now some 13million people worldwide have one in their homes. The launch wasn’t smooth, oh no! Memory cards faulty, machines that refused to be played upon – even a case or two of exploding consoles! Surely not!
Anyway, Sony, being the market leaders that they are managed to sort everything out within a few weeks and now the PS2 is dominating the Jap’s charts with games like Tekken Tag and SSX starting off the launch, and still selling well today. Then came the USA. Unlike the kindred spirits of good old Sony Europe (Sony UK to be more precise), Sony of America forgot to include a launch pre-order scheme, like the one we had, hence more and more insane fighting and queue jumping in the malls of the good old US of A, thanks to a demand that outstripped the supply by almost 5:1. Our turn. Again, supply had been restricted and only 165,000 units had been allocated to the UK, as opposed to the 200,000 that we were led to believe. Fortunately I pre-ordered and got one on launch day, and was I tempted to sell for £600 on the auction sites? You bet! I doubled my money, got another PS2 the next day along with 7 cracking games! Fantastic – thank you Sony!
By the way, supposedly the shortages were down to a tiny chip or part that couldn’t be manufactured in time in such a scale that would have kept supply in sync with demand. God bless that little chip. Anyway, I saw some PS2 fly for £1200! (Fly = sell) wow! And they said we were getting ripped off? Those who pre-order always prosper. That’s my new motto anyway! So, last November - 26th to be precise, was the UK’s launch of the PS2 and obviously the allocated amount was sold out on day one. The launch titles weren’t as bad as some people make out, I for one was delighted with the amount of variety, and I easily selected seven games! So, why should you get one?
Graphically, the PlayStation 2 has the power to surpass anything out there – even the latest Pentium processors and all the current consoles. But I have seen some games that look more at home on the original PlayStation. It’s a well-publicised opinion, which has unduly become a ‘fact’ suggesting that the PS2 hasn’t got any decent games, that the graphics are all shoddy, and the DVD player is useless. Absolute rubbish (no not the PS2 – the supposed fact) – I will be the first to admit that games like Midnight Club street Racing and Wild, Wild Racing are hardly the sort of mouth watering prospects that you expected when you paid out your £299.99, but there are a lot of superb games with some fantastic graphics (and gameplay) that you shouldn’t overlook. The PS2 has 128bits and 291.3mhz of pure processing power. This demon can perform – negative comments only make it more powerful, thus Gran Turismo 3 will blow your socks off. Eat that Sega fans! SSX looks deliciously fresh, Moto GP and Fantavision make full use of the incredible lighting effects that the SP2 can achieve, and Tekken Tag shows just how realistic the FMV start ups are going to become.
Sound. Yes the PS2 is sound & it’s also awesomely crisp and clear with Dolby Surround Digital sound (or something). Stick your favourite CD into the stylish CD opening slot and listen to it the way Virgin/Emi or Sony intended. The crystal clear sound is apparent in all the games available, except perhaps the original PS one games that can actually be used on this new console! It’s not just two in one you see. So I recommend you invest in a decent set of speakers to accompany your television and PlayStation 2 to fully appreciate such quality.
Games? Yes at heart the PS2 is a games machine, it will always be a games machine but it’s also got an integrated DVD player, meaning you won’t have to fork out £150 or so on a standalone player. It’s region 2 so you can’t play imported DVD films but I have never needed to, and the DVD offers a good standard of picture quality. I’ve only got 5 DVD films – namely Gladiator, Road Trip, Terminator and the epic of last millennium – The Matrix and all play to a good quality. I have had no trouble whatsoever so I can only assume people that slate it either haven’t even got one or are comparing it (ridiculously) to some £700 Sony state of the art machine! Do you know what I mean? Yes so, games wise it’s already got a good few classics in my eyes and there are plenty more to come. Here’s six of the best:
Zone of the Enders proved a popular hit, partly due to the Metal gear Solid 2 demo disc included, but mainly because it’s actually a highly playable and visually impressive mech game! I’d say this was a must have to be honest. Certainly one of my favourites at the moment!
Crazy Taxi I just had to get. All these Dreamcast owners started ripping me unduly because apparently the PS2 had no good games? Yeah right, but anyway I was glad to see this Sega game appear on the Sony machine because it’s one of the few Dreamcast games I actually thought ‘if only that was on PS2’ and now it is! Worth every penny, it’s the best one player game I have.
Tekken Tag Tournament or TTT for short was said to be exactly the same as Tekken 3! Well ok, it does play similarly but it looks stunning, a few dodgy backgrounds aside, this is a supreme fighting game that is definitely as good as the Dreamcast only Soul Calibur – I feel anyway. The characters are great, the scenery is alive and the music is classy. This was one of the 7 games I got with that handy £300 8)
Moto GP is another Namco game, this time they take to the roads and shake off the ugliness of Ridge Racer 5, which didn’t do anything for me at all, and provides realistic super bike action – race on real tracks with real riders’ names. Good handling, great replays and roaring engine sounds does make this an essential.
SSX Snowboarding is a superb extreme sports game that probably is the polar equivalent of the Tony Hawk’s Skateboarder game, which isn’t yet out on PS2. You can race at the same time as pulling off spectacular tricks to gain points and help you progress through the World Series. The snow is realistic, the music is wonderfully addictive and the control system is flawless. It’s got it all – snobby, cocky characters, great circuits and pumping music.
Ready 2 Rumble boxing round 2 is another game that I highly advise you to get for your gaming delights, as a huge fan of the original which appeared multi format, I tell you now – this game is hilarious yet strangely authentic and is the post pub game of the year. It’s go your favourite boxers like Afro Thunder and Butcher Brown, but there’s also the king of backwards walking – Michael Jackson, the evicted White house couple Bill and Hillary Clinton and a strange robot type thing. It looks good and plays even better. Now who said there were no good games?
The future: The greatest game of all time, hopefully, is about to embark it’s mission to sell more copies than any game before it is to be released sometime in July over here and already my girlfriend’s been complaining about my salivating at the mouth whilst gazing into some astounding screen shots. You know what it is yet? I’m talking Gran Turismo 3 of course. I’ve exhausted the first one, and the second still pops into the PS2 now and then, but next to my latest next generation games, GT2 doesn’t cut the bill and just looks dated, as sad it as it is, the graphics are making me not want to play it any more! SO I just have to get GT3. Oh, and so do you!
MGS2 is probably the most highly anticipated game of all time, after the classic that saw Solid Snake stealth and slyness lead him through the first one. Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty, all being well should be released a few weeks before Christmas. Excellent – I know what’s on my Xmas list! EA sports are backing Sony’s console very well at the moment with loads of Sports games being unleashed onto the PS2 world. Fifa 2001 is actually better than a lot of people say, in my view at least, but the new Fifa – 2002 most likely, should really show the PS2s capability. Konami titles, Eidos, Capcom, even Sega, THQ, Namco and about 100 other developers make the PS2 the horse to back.
New consoles will arrive, but they won’t bother me in the least. Sure they’ll have better graphics and fresher games, more hype and so forth, but when you’re part of a community – a growing one, with loads of top games, hundreds more to come, then I won’t be trading in. No way! The Game Cube from Nintendo and the X Box from Microsoft both look like strong contenders, but Sony have over a year head start, so there’s no worrying on their part. The only other console, which could be said to be in opposition to Sony, is the Sega Dreamcast, but it’s discontinued now, and won’t be getting many more games.
Size and looks? The PlayStation 2 is a lot heavier than the PS one, it’s also three times the size (of the new compact PS one), but then it has got a lot more goodies stuffed into it. A4 minus a margin is the area of the front panel, and it’s about 4 inches deep. Unlike nearly every other console, you can lay your PS2 flat or vertically, and pay out £10 for a stand if you so wish, it does honestly add support and make it look better. It looks alright I’d say with a swish purple fading to blue logo on the front with engraved PlayStation 2 underneath the PS2, and it’s black so it blends in nicely with your VCR, should your VCR be black of course. 2 memory card slots, 2 control pad ports and a USB connection with various other ins and out located on the machine – an expansion bay will allow the modem to fit in when it’s released, so no the PS2 isn’t online ready at the moment. A mouse, keyboard and other peripherals should arrive soon. It kind of looks like a stylish black skyscraper – not really anything like a radiator. It does collect dust. You must use duster!
I’m very, very pleased with mine. It’s a giant leap from the PlayStation and can even play your old PlayStation games, which is something – you won’t have to sell them if you get rid of the PSX. It’s ensured a long and prosperous life, with games being released all the time, the genres are rapidly being filled and some should be created soon! Get one is my advice. For your £270 you’re getting a decent DVD player, the best games machine out and a superb CD player. What more can you ask for?
This has been my review. Ta.
Ice
The past: Sony break free from the PlayStation one’s tremendous success as the number one 32 bit games machine to own and bring out something in March of the year 2000 that could totally destroy everything else in the market, or possibly, destroy Sony themselves. You maybe pondering about buying one, hopefully I’ll persuade you to set your doubts away to some far off place and you’ll be a PlayStation 2 better off within a few days. It sold. Oh yes it sold like the hottest piece of hardware that it actually is, demolishing all previous gaming console records. The PS2 was an instant hit in Japan, with those ‘horrendous’ (although some just laughable) scenes of fighting – everyone wanted one, and now some 13million people worldwide have one in their homes. The launch wasn’t smooth, oh no! Memory cards faulty, machines that refused to be played upon – even a case or two of exploding consoles! Surely not!
Anyway, Sony, being the market leaders that they are managed to sort everything out within a few weeks and now the PS2 is dominating the Jap’s charts with games like Tekken Tag and SSX starting off the launch, and still selling well today. Then came the USA. Unlike the kindred spirits of good old Sony Europe (Sony UK to be more precise), Sony of America forgot to include a launch pre-order scheme, like the one we had, hence more and more insane fighting and queue jumping in the malls of the good old US of A, thanks to a demand that outstripped the supply by almost 5:1. Our turn. Again, supply had been restricted and only 165,000 units had been allocated to the UK, as opposed to the 200,000 that we were led to believe. Fortunately I pre-ordered and got one on launch day, and was I tempted to sell for £600 on the auction sites? You bet! I doubled my money, got another PS2 the next day along with 7 cracking games! Fantastic – thank you Sony!
By the way, supposedly the shortages were down to a tiny chip or part that couldn’t be manufactured in time in such a scale that would have kept supply in sync with demand. God bless that little chip. Anyway, I saw some PS2 fly for £1200! (Fly = sell) wow! And they said we were getting ripped off? Those who pre-order always prosper. That’s my new motto anyway! So, last November - 26th to be precise, was the UK’s launch of the PS2 and obviously the allocated amount was sold out on day one. The launch titles weren’t as bad as some people make out, I for one was delighted with the amount of variety, and I easily selected seven games! So, why should you get one?
Graphically, the PlayStation 2 has the power to surpass anything out there – even the latest Pentium processors and all the current consoles. But I have seen some games that look more at home on the original PlayStation. It’s a well-publicised opinion, which has unduly become a ‘fact’ suggesting that the PS2 hasn’t got any decent games, that the graphics are all shoddy, and the DVD player is useless. Absolute rubbish (no not the PS2 – the supposed fact) – I will be the first to admit that games like Midnight Club street Racing and Wild, Wild Racing are hardly the sort of mouth watering prospects that you expected when you paid out your £299.99, but there are a lot of superb games with some fantastic graphics (and gameplay) that you shouldn’t overlook. The PS2 has 128bits and 291.3mhz of pure processing power. This demon can perform – negative comments only make it more powerful, thus Gran Turismo 3 will blow your socks off. Eat that Sega fans! SSX looks deliciously fresh, Moto GP and Fantavision make full use of the incredible lighting effects that the SP2 can achieve, and Tekken Tag shows just how realistic the FMV start ups are going to become.
Sound. Yes the PS2 is sound & it’s also awesomely crisp and clear with Dolby Surround Digital sound (or something). Stick your favourite CD into the stylish CD opening slot and listen to it the way Virgin/Emi or Sony intended. The crystal clear sound is apparent in all the games available, except perhaps the original PS one games that can actually be used on this new console! It’s not just two in one you see. So I recommend you invest in a decent set of speakers to accompany your television and PlayStation 2 to fully appreciate such quality.
Games? Yes at heart the PS2 is a games machine, it will always be a games machine but it’s also got an integrated DVD player, meaning you won’t have to fork out £150 or so on a standalone player. It’s region 2 so you can’t play imported DVD films but I have never needed to, and the DVD offers a good standard of picture quality. I’ve only got 5 DVD films – namely Gladiator, Road Trip, Terminator and the epic of last millennium – The Matrix and all play to a good quality. I have had no trouble whatsoever so I can only assume people that slate it either haven’t even got one or are comparing it (ridiculously) to some £700 Sony state of the art machine! Do you know what I mean? Yes so, games wise it’s already got a good few classics in my eyes and there are plenty more to come. Here’s six of the best:
Zone of the Enders proved a popular hit, partly due to the Metal gear Solid 2 demo disc included, but mainly because it’s actually a highly playable and visually impressive mech game! I’d say this was a must have to be honest. Certainly one of my favourites at the moment!
Crazy Taxi I just had to get. All these Dreamcast owners started ripping me unduly because apparently the PS2 had no good games? Yeah right, but anyway I was glad to see this Sega game appear on the Sony machine because it’s one of the few Dreamcast games I actually thought ‘if only that was on PS2’ and now it is! Worth every penny, it’s the best one player game I have.
Tekken Tag Tournament or TTT for short was said to be exactly the same as Tekken 3! Well ok, it does play similarly but it looks stunning, a few dodgy backgrounds aside, this is a supreme fighting game that is definitely as good as the Dreamcast only Soul Calibur – I feel anyway. The characters are great, the scenery is alive and the music is classy. This was one of the 7 games I got with that handy £300 8)
Moto GP is another Namco game, this time they take to the roads and shake off the ugliness of Ridge Racer 5, which didn’t do anything for me at all, and provides realistic super bike action – race on real tracks with real riders’ names. Good handling, great replays and roaring engine sounds does make this an essential.
SSX Snowboarding is a superb extreme sports game that probably is the polar equivalent of the Tony Hawk’s Skateboarder game, which isn’t yet out on PS2. You can race at the same time as pulling off spectacular tricks to gain points and help you progress through the World Series. The snow is realistic, the music is wonderfully addictive and the control system is flawless. It’s got it all – snobby, cocky characters, great circuits and pumping music.
Ready 2 Rumble boxing round 2 is another game that I highly advise you to get for your gaming delights, as a huge fan of the original which appeared multi format, I tell you now – this game is hilarious yet strangely authentic and is the post pub game of the year. It’s go your favourite boxers like Afro Thunder and Butcher Brown, but there’s also the king of backwards walking – Michael Jackson, the evicted White house couple Bill and Hillary Clinton and a strange robot type thing. It looks good and plays even better. Now who said there were no good games?
The future: The greatest game of all time, hopefully, is about to embark it’s mission to sell more copies than any game before it is to be released sometime in July over here and already my girlfriend’s been complaining about my salivating at the mouth whilst gazing into some astounding screen shots. You know what it is yet? I’m talking Gran Turismo 3 of course. I’ve exhausted the first one, and the second still pops into the PS2 now and then, but next to my latest next generation games, GT2 doesn’t cut the bill and just looks dated, as sad it as it is, the graphics are making me not want to play it any more! SO I just have to get GT3. Oh, and so do you!
MGS2 is probably the most highly anticipated game of all time, after the classic that saw Solid Snake stealth and slyness lead him through the first one. Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty, all being well should be released a few weeks before Christmas. Excellent – I know what’s on my Xmas list! EA sports are backing Sony’s console very well at the moment with loads of Sports games being unleashed onto the PS2 world. Fifa 2001 is actually better than a lot of people say, in my view at least, but the new Fifa – 2002 most likely, should really show the PS2s capability. Konami titles, Eidos, Capcom, even Sega, THQ, Namco and about 100 other developers make the PS2 the horse to back.
New consoles will arrive, but they won’t bother me in the least. Sure they’ll have better graphics and fresher games, more hype and so forth, but when you’re part of a community – a growing one, with loads of top games, hundreds more to come, then I won’t be trading in. No way! The Game Cube from Nintendo and the X Box from Microsoft both look like strong contenders, but Sony have over a year head start, so there’s no worrying on their part. The only other console, which could be said to be in opposition to Sony, is the Sega Dreamcast, but it’s discontinued now, and won’t be getting many more games.
Size and looks? The PlayStation 2 is a lot heavier than the PS one, it’s also three times the size (of the new compact PS one), but then it has got a lot more goodies stuffed into it. A4 minus a margin is the area of the front panel, and it’s about 4 inches deep. Unlike nearly every other console, you can lay your PS2 flat or vertically, and pay out £10 for a stand if you so wish, it does honestly add support and make it look better. It looks alright I’d say with a swish purple fading to blue logo on the front with engraved PlayStation 2 underneath the PS2, and it’s black so it blends in nicely with your VCR, should your VCR be black of course. 2 memory card slots, 2 control pad ports and a USB connection with various other ins and out located on the machine – an expansion bay will allow the modem to fit in when it’s released, so no the PS2 isn’t online ready at the moment. A mouse, keyboard and other peripherals should arrive soon. It kind of looks like a stylish black skyscraper – not really anything like a radiator. It does collect dust. You must use duster!
I’m very, very pleased with mine. It’s a giant leap from the PlayStation and can even play your old PlayStation games, which is something – you won’t have to sell them if you get rid of the PSX. It’s ensured a long and prosperous life, with games being released all the time, the genres are rapidly being filled and some should be created soon! Get one is my advice. For your £270 you’re getting a decent DVD player, the best games machine out and a superb CD player. What more can you ask for?
This has been my review. Ta.
Ice
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just dont diss it
Very good post, but I am sick to the back teeth of people saying RRV has poor visuals, to date no other game has had cars which look soooo good. Do remeber that this game was around a year old when it first came out here, but the detail in the models is absolutely outstanding, and had some innovative touches which even the mighty GT3 has had to copy. The alloy wheels on the cars are not solid objects but have properly defined 3D spokes, not some dodgy looking texture mapped over a solid cylinder, and have you seen the brake discs light up when put under heavy braking??? I played this game on an imported PS2 in the University of Abertay, Dundee 4 days after the PS2 was released in Japan and it took me until the game came out here to pick my chin up off of the floor (and that is only because it was clenched as I slid into yet another wall!!). The GT3 demo does look much better, but for a game which is nearly 2 years newer, you would expect the visuals to be that much better.
All I can say is, I await RRVI with much enthusiasm!!
Fair enough the game did struggle a bit on the two player mode, but when you are flying aroung a course at a cool 60 fps and at almost 250km per hour, you shouldn't really have time to look at the scenery anyway!!!
The game which I was most disappointed with in the visual department was in fact, wait a minute, I haven't been dissapointed by any!! I am realistic and do not expect companies to have mastered such a technically advanced system within their first effort, but Sony themselves are pushing back the boundries with games such as extermination and GT3. They are supplying the libraries which they are producing whilst making these games, as are Konami, but this isn't an easy thing to do. Little companies will be pleased with this as then they can move away from the original PS2 middleware, which wasn't really that much better than the PS programs, and start to utilise features such as anti-aliasing much better.
Sony have taken the same route with the PS2 which they took with the PS. Lets make a console with almost no technical restrictions. Lets make a console which can make lighting look like it would if it was real. Lets allow the console to handle such advanced physics so that cars can crash and be damaged in real time, or walls can just be blown through!! Lets make a console which companies can make evolve at their own speed and to be exactly what they want it to be. Nintendo and Microsoft have went for a much different route, lets make consoles which will blow the PS2 away for about a year and then hope we have stolen a decent enough piece of the pie to keep us going. The only problem these companies have is, Sony got GT3 finished and MGS2 isn't far off, so the midddleware used by Sony and Konami, will soon be available to one and all!!!
All I can say is, I await RRVI with much enthusiasm!!
Fair enough the game did struggle a bit on the two player mode, but when you are flying aroung a course at a cool 60 fps and at almost 250km per hour, you shouldn't really have time to look at the scenery anyway!!!
The game which I was most disappointed with in the visual department was in fact, wait a minute, I haven't been dissapointed by any!! I am realistic and do not expect companies to have mastered such a technically advanced system within their first effort, but Sony themselves are pushing back the boundries with games such as extermination and GT3. They are supplying the libraries which they are producing whilst making these games, as are Konami, but this isn't an easy thing to do. Little companies will be pleased with this as then they can move away from the original PS2 middleware, which wasn't really that much better than the PS programs, and start to utilise features such as anti-aliasing much better.
Sony have taken the same route with the PS2 which they took with the PS. Lets make a console with almost no technical restrictions. Lets make a console which can make lighting look like it would if it was real. Lets allow the console to handle such advanced physics so that cars can crash and be damaged in real time, or walls can just be blown through!! Lets make a console which companies can make evolve at their own speed and to be exactly what they want it to be. Nintendo and Microsoft have went for a much different route, lets make consoles which will blow the PS2 away for about a year and then hope we have stolen a decent enough piece of the pie to keep us going. The only problem these companies have is, Sony got GT3 finished and MGS2 isn't far off, so the midddleware used by Sony and Konami, will soon be available to one and all!!!
I also won once when I was a newbie. It was a good post and a deserved winner. Good choice on your prize MrPirtniw. Cant wait to get SA2 myself as that is going to be another top DC game.
SmokedKipper wrote:
Can it be true we have a
> Newbie who not only makes good posts but it also nice to Regulars?
Sorry, I meant 'IS also' not 'IT also'.
Can it be true we have a
> Newbie who not only makes good posts but it also nice to Regulars?
Sorry, I meant 'IS also' not 'IT also'.
Dan2K1 wrote:
> Blimey, you won on your first day? Ah well, congratulations. (Now
> Dan, don't blow a fuse).
I won on my first day as well (I remember it well) - also with a topic about the PS2!
Congrats from me also go to ICEFIRE. Thanks for the thumbs up for my widescreen games post as well.
Can it be true we have a Newbie who not only makes good posts but it also nice to Regulars?
> Blimey, you won on your first day? Ah well, congratulations. (Now
> Dan, don't blow a fuse).
I won on my first day as well (I remember it well) - also with a topic about the PS2!
Congrats from me also go to ICEFIRE. Thanks for the thumbs up for my widescreen games post as well.
Can it be true we have a Newbie who not only makes good posts but it also nice to Regulars?
Congratulations on your win ICE. Good piece of info and worth the read. Lets see more like it.
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