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Right for anyone who is undecided and is thinking about shelling out 300 of their hard earned(or mum and dads earned) pounds on the latest, but not the last piece of hardware to be dubbed a superconsole, here is my review of the Playstation 2. I shall give the good and bad points and allow you to weigh up in your mind whether one outwieghs the other to convince you to buy it.
Well lets look at the raw facts first- the Playstation 2 is the new console developed by Sony which is deemed to be the successor to the Playstation, which sold upwards of 50 million units worldwide. The power of the Playstation hardware has been considerably increased- from a 32 Bit processor to a 128 bit processor- well in plain English that means that the console can to a lot more ever second and that means faster loading times, better graphics and so on. As well as this the Playstation 2 takes advantage of the "Emotion Engine", which is a custom built piece of(very expensive) hardware which has a direct influence of the graphics capabilities, when working along in parallel with the CPU at the heart of the Playstation 2. As well as this, there is an 4 speed DVD ROM, which doubles up as a 24 Speed CDROM, which is considerably better than the 2 Speed CDROM of the Playstation 2. The console also has two joypad ports and two memory card slots, like the Playstation, but are more advanced as the joypads are now completely anaolgue and the memory cards are 8 MB(about 16 times the size of the original PSOne's) and are very fast in loading and saving. It also has two USB, or Universal serial bus ports- which can be used to plug in keyboards and mice that can also be used in PC's as well as connect Playstation 2's together by means of a firewire lead, which is similar to those used in local area PC networks. Thats enough with the techno babble, whats the system ACTUALLY like?
Well, lets first look at the positives of the Playstation 2. At face value, the Playstation 2 has a lot of advantages going for it- the use of a DVD rom allows new PS2 owners to take advantage of a now huge DVD library which spans many many films indeed. This is the main reason why the Playstation 2 uses scart leads as standard(something I will come to later). This gives a dual functionality that I believe no other console has managed to achieve since the Atari Pong, the first home games console in the 1970's. The PS2 acts effectively as both a games console, a DVD player and a CD Player all rolled into one, and Ill challenge you to buy all those three for 300 pounds! This advantage allows for bigger games as software developers can take advantage of the DVD medium, which allows for better graphics(as they can take up as much space as they like as DVD have a capasity of 4 Gigabytes or 4 billion bytes compared to CDs which the Playstation(as well as the PS2 for most of the games out at the moment) which has a capasity of between 640 million bytes and 700 million bytes, or 640-700 Megabytes) due to the extra storage space. The sound can be improved for the same reason. Another great feature of the PS2 is the backwards compatibility of the console, or in plain English the ability to be able to play games that originally could only be played on the Playstation. This allows for much more choice of games, as you can pick from a thousand or so games that are currently out for the Playstation, as well as games specifically created for the PS2. Its seems that with the PS2 being able to play DVD and with the better hardware have beeter looking games, and better playing games with the fully analogue controller, the Dual Shock II, and being compatible with all(well most anyway) Playstation games, you would think there are no bad points to the PS2. Well, like anything in life, nothing is perfect and the PS2 is definately not perfect.
Lets look at the bad points now. First of the the RGB Scart cable that is packaged with the PS2. Well this isnt really an RGB Scart cable, as the picture quality would be a hell of a lot better, and certainly not green and flickery when you play through a video player in particular. This was to prevent an piracy problem with channeling the PS2 through a video and record of the DVD's- thus piracy. Its very annoying when the only scart socket is in a video player! Also the picture quality wasnt as good as Sony boasted, i.e. about the same quality as a £300 DVD player. Nevertheless, being dual function as the PS2 is, you cant expect the quality to be that good, but they should have packaged a better cable with it. My advice, if you want a DVD player alone, get a DVD player and not a PS2- too expensive for not good quality. The second problem is with the current games catalogue- very poor indeed(except for Zone of the Enders). The situation seems similar to the fledgeling days of the N64, when there was a faint dribble of games coming out for it. 400 games before the end of the year they predicted! I think wed be lucky to get 200, but under a quarter of those would be worth buying. Weve had some really bad games come out so far- Driving Emotion Type S is a prime example. They say the good games are coming, but when? If you are patient and are desperate to play Metal Gear Solid 2- Sons of Liberty, then get it but if not stay away, for the time being at least- its just not worth it as a games console at the moment. Think again in six months. Believe me there are good games coming out for it though. Another problem is with the actual price of the machine- £300 pounds is a lot of money to pay if you want a decent games console that is destined(well is rumoured to be anyway) to have great games for it. In the mean time, if you really want a decent games console, go for the Dreamcast(even though Im not a Sega console fan and I do own a PS2)- even though they will cease production of the ailing console in the next couple of days, 90 quid for a console that is about the same in power and graphical capabilities as the PS2, maybe a bit below. However, it has many many good games for it, the list is as long as your arm( well maybe both arms depending on how old you are), such as Phantasy Star Online and Shenmue. Its a bit better on your wallet to buy a DC at the moment and not a PS2, because of the fact that there are just not too many games for it. Another problem is that the PS2 was hyped before launch to improve loading times and make the graphics smoother and better on the original Playstation 1 games, when after testing, many experts in the industry deemed this only to be very slight indeed. If you do want to see the effect of smoothing on wall textures, take a look at Metal Gear Solid and change the settings to high disc speed and smoothing on- it really does make a lot of difference. Most games though have little or no effect.
Overall, if you want to take the plunge and really want to buy a PS2 because you love Sony and want to have the newest piece of technology that can play games and also dont have a DVD player and want one, then Id definately recommend it. But if you want one OR the other and not both, stay away in the case of the DVD player, youd be much better getting a DVD player that is actually designed to do "What it says on the tin", whereas with the games console Id be apprehensive for the time being until you see games of definate quality. The games Id watch out for which will help you make you decision, call it my hitlist if you will are Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2, WWF Smackdown 3, Gran Turismo 3, Wipeout Fusion(remember Wipeout originally made the PSOne all those years ago) and The Bouncer. If you like some, most or all of those games and you are tempted to buy a PS2, then do so. If you, make your mind once the X-Box and Gamecube come out early in 2002 so that you can have a varied look at all the competition to make up your mind. Dont and buy the PS2 because its the hottest new thing in town and its just now available to buy readily, its not worth risking considering how much it costs. What it comes down to at the end of the day is one simple question: Do you want to buy it or not? Do you?
Well lets look at the raw facts first- the Playstation 2 is the new console developed by Sony which is deemed to be the successor to the Playstation, which sold upwards of 50 million units worldwide. The power of the Playstation hardware has been considerably increased- from a 32 Bit processor to a 128 bit processor- well in plain English that means that the console can to a lot more ever second and that means faster loading times, better graphics and so on. As well as this the Playstation 2 takes advantage of the "Emotion Engine", which is a custom built piece of(very expensive) hardware which has a direct influence of the graphics capabilities, when working along in parallel with the CPU at the heart of the Playstation 2. As well as this, there is an 4 speed DVD ROM, which doubles up as a 24 Speed CDROM, which is considerably better than the 2 Speed CDROM of the Playstation 2. The console also has two joypad ports and two memory card slots, like the Playstation, but are more advanced as the joypads are now completely anaolgue and the memory cards are 8 MB(about 16 times the size of the original PSOne's) and are very fast in loading and saving. It also has two USB, or Universal serial bus ports- which can be used to plug in keyboards and mice that can also be used in PC's as well as connect Playstation 2's together by means of a firewire lead, which is similar to those used in local area PC networks. Thats enough with the techno babble, whats the system ACTUALLY like?
Well, lets first look at the positives of the Playstation 2. At face value, the Playstation 2 has a lot of advantages going for it- the use of a DVD rom allows new PS2 owners to take advantage of a now huge DVD library which spans many many films indeed. This is the main reason why the Playstation 2 uses scart leads as standard(something I will come to later). This gives a dual functionality that I believe no other console has managed to achieve since the Atari Pong, the first home games console in the 1970's. The PS2 acts effectively as both a games console, a DVD player and a CD Player all rolled into one, and Ill challenge you to buy all those three for 300 pounds! This advantage allows for bigger games as software developers can take advantage of the DVD medium, which allows for better graphics(as they can take up as much space as they like as DVD have a capasity of 4 Gigabytes or 4 billion bytes compared to CDs which the Playstation(as well as the PS2 for most of the games out at the moment) which has a capasity of between 640 million bytes and 700 million bytes, or 640-700 Megabytes) due to the extra storage space. The sound can be improved for the same reason. Another great feature of the PS2 is the backwards compatibility of the console, or in plain English the ability to be able to play games that originally could only be played on the Playstation. This allows for much more choice of games, as you can pick from a thousand or so games that are currently out for the Playstation, as well as games specifically created for the PS2. Its seems that with the PS2 being able to play DVD and with the better hardware have beeter looking games, and better playing games with the fully analogue controller, the Dual Shock II, and being compatible with all(well most anyway) Playstation games, you would think there are no bad points to the PS2. Well, like anything in life, nothing is perfect and the PS2 is definately not perfect.
Lets look at the bad points now. First of the the RGB Scart cable that is packaged with the PS2. Well this isnt really an RGB Scart cable, as the picture quality would be a hell of a lot better, and certainly not green and flickery when you play through a video player in particular. This was to prevent an piracy problem with channeling the PS2 through a video and record of the DVD's- thus piracy. Its very annoying when the only scart socket is in a video player! Also the picture quality wasnt as good as Sony boasted, i.e. about the same quality as a £300 DVD player. Nevertheless, being dual function as the PS2 is, you cant expect the quality to be that good, but they should have packaged a better cable with it. My advice, if you want a DVD player alone, get a DVD player and not a PS2- too expensive for not good quality. The second problem is with the current games catalogue- very poor indeed(except for Zone of the Enders). The situation seems similar to the fledgeling days of the N64, when there was a faint dribble of games coming out for it. 400 games before the end of the year they predicted! I think wed be lucky to get 200, but under a quarter of those would be worth buying. Weve had some really bad games come out so far- Driving Emotion Type S is a prime example. They say the good games are coming, but when? If you are patient and are desperate to play Metal Gear Solid 2- Sons of Liberty, then get it but if not stay away, for the time being at least- its just not worth it as a games console at the moment. Think again in six months. Believe me there are good games coming out for it though. Another problem is with the actual price of the machine- £300 pounds is a lot of money to pay if you want a decent games console that is destined(well is rumoured to be anyway) to have great games for it. In the mean time, if you really want a decent games console, go for the Dreamcast(even though Im not a Sega console fan and I do own a PS2)- even though they will cease production of the ailing console in the next couple of days, 90 quid for a console that is about the same in power and graphical capabilities as the PS2, maybe a bit below. However, it has many many good games for it, the list is as long as your arm( well maybe both arms depending on how old you are), such as Phantasy Star Online and Shenmue. Its a bit better on your wallet to buy a DC at the moment and not a PS2, because of the fact that there are just not too many games for it. Another problem is that the PS2 was hyped before launch to improve loading times and make the graphics smoother and better on the original Playstation 1 games, when after testing, many experts in the industry deemed this only to be very slight indeed. If you do want to see the effect of smoothing on wall textures, take a look at Metal Gear Solid and change the settings to high disc speed and smoothing on- it really does make a lot of difference. Most games though have little or no effect.
Overall, if you want to take the plunge and really want to buy a PS2 because you love Sony and want to have the newest piece of technology that can play games and also dont have a DVD player and want one, then Id definately recommend it. But if you want one OR the other and not both, stay away in the case of the DVD player, youd be much better getting a DVD player that is actually designed to do "What it says on the tin", whereas with the games console Id be apprehensive for the time being until you see games of definate quality. The games Id watch out for which will help you make you decision, call it my hitlist if you will are Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2, WWF Smackdown 3, Gran Turismo 3, Wipeout Fusion(remember Wipeout originally made the PSOne all those years ago) and The Bouncer. If you like some, most or all of those games and you are tempted to buy a PS2, then do so. If you, make your mind once the X-Box and Gamecube come out early in 2002 so that you can have a varied look at all the competition to make up your mind. Dont and buy the PS2 because its the hottest new thing in town and its just now available to buy readily, its not worth risking considering how much it costs. What it comes down to at the end of the day is one simple question: Do you want to buy it or not? Do you?
I agree with almost everything in that post.
I think that if everyone were to take a non bias view of the PS2 it would be hard to fault BUT look at SSX, I know it doesn't exploit the full capabilities of the PS2 but for a launch game I'd say it's pretty good.
StarWars is another, it's not the best but it's pretty damn impressive dropping in behind those scarab fighters during a dog fight, blasting the cr@p out of them and then flying through the mess that's left. Anyone seen Sphere (Sharon Stone etc) where they talk about fire in space... or was that Event Horizon??? Either way, I'd say it's a fair representative.
I think that if everyone were to take a non bias view of the PS2 it would be hard to fault BUT look at SSX, I know it doesn't exploit the full capabilities of the PS2 but for a launch game I'd say it's pretty good.
StarWars is another, it's not the best but it's pretty damn impressive dropping in behind those scarab fighters during a dog fight, blasting the cr@p out of them and then flying through the mess that's left. Anyone seen Sphere (Sharon Stone etc) where they talk about fire in space... or was that Event Horizon??? Either way, I'd say it's a fair representative.
Dont give up Damospud, try not to write long articles and soon youll win. You can even win simply by replying to someone elses post.
M16 just won for his intelligent replys to the article I wrote
Invest in the Future: Invest in a PS2
This article was basically a cut down version of your original, so Im sure you have the ability to write short comments that are too the point.
Do this and youll soon win.
M16 just won for his intelligent replys to the article I wrote
Invest in the Future: Invest in a PS2
This article was basically a cut down version of your original, so Im sure you have the ability to write short comments that are too the point.
Do this and youll soon win.
I have to say I disagree with some of that post, and not just because I think damospud is an idiot. I can`t be bothered to put up my argument because its all been discussed so much already.
Lastly, damospud, I though you complained about me trying to win gameaday. So whats all this about then? Let me guess...
Lastly, damospud, I though you complained about me trying to win gameaday. So whats all this about then? Let me guess...
Right for anyone who is undecided and is thinking about shelling out 300 of their hard earned(or mum and dads earned) pounds on the latest, but not the last piece of hardware to be dubbed a superconsole, here is my review of the Playstation 2. I shall give the good and bad points and allow you to weigh up in your mind whether one outwieghs the other to convince you to buy it.
Well lets look at the raw facts first- the Playstation 2 is the new console developed by Sony which is deemed to be the successor to the Playstation, which sold upwards of 50 million units worldwide. The power of the Playstation hardware has been considerably increased- from a 32 Bit processor to a 128 bit processor- well in plain English that means that the console can to a lot more ever second and that means faster loading times, better graphics and so on. As well as this the Playstation 2 takes advantage of the "Emotion Engine", which is a custom built piece of(very expensive) hardware which has a direct influence of the graphics capabilities, when working along in parallel with the CPU at the heart of the Playstation 2. As well as this, there is an 4 speed DVD ROM, which doubles up as a 24 Speed CDROM, which is considerably better than the 2 Speed CDROM of the Playstation 2. The console also has two joypad ports and two memory card slots, like the Playstation, but are more advanced as the joypads are now completely anaolgue and the memory cards are 8 MB(about 16 times the size of the original PSOne's) and are very fast in loading and saving. It also has two USB, or Universal serial bus ports- which can be used to plug in keyboards and mice that can also be used in PC's as well as connect Playstation 2's together by means of a firewire lead, which is similar to those used in local area PC networks. Thats enough with the techno babble, whats the system ACTUALLY like?
Well, lets first look at the positives of the Playstation 2. At face value, the Playstation 2 has a lot of advantages going for it- the use of a DVD rom allows new PS2 owners to take advantage of a now huge DVD library which spans many many films indeed. This is the main reason why the Playstation 2 uses scart leads as standard(something I will come to later). This gives a dual functionality that I believe no other console has managed to achieve since the Atari Pong, the first home games console in the 1970's. The PS2 acts effectively as both a games console, a DVD player and a CD Player all rolled into one, and Ill challenge you to buy all those three for 300 pounds! This advantage allows for bigger games as software developers can take advantage of the DVD medium, which allows for better graphics(as they can take up as much space as they like as DVD have a capasity of 4 Gigabytes or 4 billion bytes compared to CDs which the Playstation(as well as the PS2 for most of the games out at the moment) which has a capasity of between 640 million bytes and 700 million bytes, or 640-700 Megabytes) due to the extra storage space. The sound can be improved for the same reason. Another great feature of the PS2 is the backwards compatibility of the console, or in plain English the ability to be able to play games that originally could only be played on the Playstation. This allows for much more choice of games, as you can pick from a thousand or so games that are currently out for the Playstation, as well as games specifically created for the PS2. Its seems that with the PS2 being able to play DVD and with the better hardware have beeter looking games, and better playing games with the fully analogue controller, the Dual Shock II, and being compatible with all(well most anyway) Playstation games, you would think there are no bad points to the PS2. Well, like anything in life, nothing is perfect and the PS2 is definately not perfect.
Lets look at the bad points now. First of the the RGB Scart cable that is packaged with the PS2. Well this isnt really an RGB Scart cable, as the picture quality would be a hell of a lot better, and certainly not green and flickery when you play through a video player in particular. This was to prevent an piracy problem with channeling the PS2 through a video and record of the DVD's- thus piracy. Its very annoying when the only scart socket is in a video player! Also the picture quality wasnt as good as Sony boasted, i.e. about the same quality as a £300 DVD player. Nevertheless, being dual function as the PS2 is, you cant expect the quality to be that good, but they should have packaged a better cable with it. My advice, if you want a DVD player alone, get a DVD player and not a PS2- too expensive for not good quality. The second problem is with the current games catalogue- very poor indeed(except for Zone of the Enders). The situation seems similar to the fledgeling days of the N64, when there was a faint dribble of games coming out for it. 400 games before the end of the year they predicted! I think wed be lucky to get 200, but under a quarter of those would be worth buying. Weve had some really bad games come out so far- Driving Emotion Type S is a prime example. They say the good games are coming, but when? If you are patient and are desperate to play Metal Gear Solid 2- Sons of Liberty, then get it but if not stay away, for the time being at least- its just not worth it as a games console at the moment. Think again in six months. Believe me there are good games coming out for it though. Another problem is with the actual price of the machine- £300 pounds is a lot of money to pay if you want a decent games console that is destined(well is rumoured to be anyway) to have great games for it. In the mean time, if you really want a decent games console, go for the Dreamcast(even though Im not a Sega console fan and I do own a PS2)- even though they will cease production of the ailing console in the next couple of days, 90 quid for a console that is about the same in power and graphical capabilities as the PS2, maybe a bit below. However, it has many many good games for it, the list is as long as your arm( well maybe both arms depending on how old you are), such as Phantasy Star Online and Shenmue. Its a bit better on your wallet to buy a DC at the moment and not a PS2, because of the fact that there are just not too many games for it. Another problem is that the PS2 was hyped before launch to improve loading times and make the graphics smoother and better on the original Playstation 1 games, when after testing, many experts in the industry deemed this only to be very slight indeed. If you do want to see the effect of smoothing on wall textures, take a look at Metal Gear Solid and change the settings to high disc speed and smoothing on- it really does make a lot of difference. Most games though have little or no effect.
Overall, if you want to take the plunge and really want to buy a PS2 because you love Sony and want to have the newest piece of technology that can play games and also dont have a DVD player and want one, then Id definately recommend it. But if you want one OR the other and not both, stay away in the case of the DVD player, youd be much better getting a DVD player that is actually designed to do "What it says on the tin", whereas with the games console Id be apprehensive for the time being until you see games of definate quality. The games Id watch out for which will help you make you decision, call it my hitlist if you will are Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2, WWF Smackdown 3, Gran Turismo 3, Wipeout Fusion(remember Wipeout originally made the PSOne all those years ago) and The Bouncer. If you like some, most or all of those games and you are tempted to buy a PS2, then do so. If you, make your mind once the X-Box and Gamecube come out early in 2002 so that you can have a varied look at all the competition to make up your mind. Dont and buy the PS2 because its the hottest new thing in town and its just now available to buy readily, its not worth risking considering how much it costs. What it comes down to at the end of the day is one simple question: Do you want to buy it or not? Do you?
Well lets look at the raw facts first- the Playstation 2 is the new console developed by Sony which is deemed to be the successor to the Playstation, which sold upwards of 50 million units worldwide. The power of the Playstation hardware has been considerably increased- from a 32 Bit processor to a 128 bit processor- well in plain English that means that the console can to a lot more ever second and that means faster loading times, better graphics and so on. As well as this the Playstation 2 takes advantage of the "Emotion Engine", which is a custom built piece of(very expensive) hardware which has a direct influence of the graphics capabilities, when working along in parallel with the CPU at the heart of the Playstation 2. As well as this, there is an 4 speed DVD ROM, which doubles up as a 24 Speed CDROM, which is considerably better than the 2 Speed CDROM of the Playstation 2. The console also has two joypad ports and two memory card slots, like the Playstation, but are more advanced as the joypads are now completely anaolgue and the memory cards are 8 MB(about 16 times the size of the original PSOne's) and are very fast in loading and saving. It also has two USB, or Universal serial bus ports- which can be used to plug in keyboards and mice that can also be used in PC's as well as connect Playstation 2's together by means of a firewire lead, which is similar to those used in local area PC networks. Thats enough with the techno babble, whats the system ACTUALLY like?
Well, lets first look at the positives of the Playstation 2. At face value, the Playstation 2 has a lot of advantages going for it- the use of a DVD rom allows new PS2 owners to take advantage of a now huge DVD library which spans many many films indeed. This is the main reason why the Playstation 2 uses scart leads as standard(something I will come to later). This gives a dual functionality that I believe no other console has managed to achieve since the Atari Pong, the first home games console in the 1970's. The PS2 acts effectively as both a games console, a DVD player and a CD Player all rolled into one, and Ill challenge you to buy all those three for 300 pounds! This advantage allows for bigger games as software developers can take advantage of the DVD medium, which allows for better graphics(as they can take up as much space as they like as DVD have a capasity of 4 Gigabytes or 4 billion bytes compared to CDs which the Playstation(as well as the PS2 for most of the games out at the moment) which has a capasity of between 640 million bytes and 700 million bytes, or 640-700 Megabytes) due to the extra storage space. The sound can be improved for the same reason. Another great feature of the PS2 is the backwards compatibility of the console, or in plain English the ability to be able to play games that originally could only be played on the Playstation. This allows for much more choice of games, as you can pick from a thousand or so games that are currently out for the Playstation, as well as games specifically created for the PS2. Its seems that with the PS2 being able to play DVD and with the better hardware have beeter looking games, and better playing games with the fully analogue controller, the Dual Shock II, and being compatible with all(well most anyway) Playstation games, you would think there are no bad points to the PS2. Well, like anything in life, nothing is perfect and the PS2 is definately not perfect.
Lets look at the bad points now. First of the the RGB Scart cable that is packaged with the PS2. Well this isnt really an RGB Scart cable, as the picture quality would be a hell of a lot better, and certainly not green and flickery when you play through a video player in particular. This was to prevent an piracy problem with channeling the PS2 through a video and record of the DVD's- thus piracy. Its very annoying when the only scart socket is in a video player! Also the picture quality wasnt as good as Sony boasted, i.e. about the same quality as a £300 DVD player. Nevertheless, being dual function as the PS2 is, you cant expect the quality to be that good, but they should have packaged a better cable with it. My advice, if you want a DVD player alone, get a DVD player and not a PS2- too expensive for not good quality. The second problem is with the current games catalogue- very poor indeed(except for Zone of the Enders). The situation seems similar to the fledgeling days of the N64, when there was a faint dribble of games coming out for it. 400 games before the end of the year they predicted! I think wed be lucky to get 200, but under a quarter of those would be worth buying. Weve had some really bad games come out so far- Driving Emotion Type S is a prime example. They say the good games are coming, but when? If you are patient and are desperate to play Metal Gear Solid 2- Sons of Liberty, then get it but if not stay away, for the time being at least- its just not worth it as a games console at the moment. Think again in six months. Believe me there are good games coming out for it though. Another problem is with the actual price of the machine- £300 pounds is a lot of money to pay if you want a decent games console that is destined(well is rumoured to be anyway) to have great games for it. In the mean time, if you really want a decent games console, go for the Dreamcast(even though Im not a Sega console fan and I do own a PS2)- even though they will cease production of the ailing console in the next couple of days, 90 quid for a console that is about the same in power and graphical capabilities as the PS2, maybe a bit below. However, it has many many good games for it, the list is as long as your arm( well maybe both arms depending on how old you are), such as Phantasy Star Online and Shenmue. Its a bit better on your wallet to buy a DC at the moment and not a PS2, because of the fact that there are just not too many games for it. Another problem is that the PS2 was hyped before launch to improve loading times and make the graphics smoother and better on the original Playstation 1 games, when after testing, many experts in the industry deemed this only to be very slight indeed. If you do want to see the effect of smoothing on wall textures, take a look at Metal Gear Solid and change the settings to high disc speed and smoothing on- it really does make a lot of difference. Most games though have little or no effect.
Overall, if you want to take the plunge and really want to buy a PS2 because you love Sony and want to have the newest piece of technology that can play games and also dont have a DVD player and want one, then Id definately recommend it. But if you want one OR the other and not both, stay away in the case of the DVD player, youd be much better getting a DVD player that is actually designed to do "What it says on the tin", whereas with the games console Id be apprehensive for the time being until you see games of definate quality. The games Id watch out for which will help you make you decision, call it my hitlist if you will are Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2, WWF Smackdown 3, Gran Turismo 3, Wipeout Fusion(remember Wipeout originally made the PSOne all those years ago) and The Bouncer. If you like some, most or all of those games and you are tempted to buy a PS2, then do so. If you, make your mind once the X-Box and Gamecube come out early in 2002 so that you can have a varied look at all the competition to make up your mind. Dont and buy the PS2 because its the hottest new thing in town and its just now available to buy readily, its not worth risking considering how much it costs. What it comes down to at the end of the day is one simple question: Do you want to buy it or not? Do you?