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PlayStation 2 turns 21 yo

Best console ever?


  • Total voters
    83
👀

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My least favorite PlayStation console. But, it came at a time I was less into gaming, so that's probably part of it.

It still had some great games. Sony has never put out a bad console.
 
How the mighty have fallen.

Sad that Playstation will never be the same.
PS5 is pretty dope. But gaming isn't the same as it was. The Japanese gaming industry has become a mobile hellscape and all the once great studios there are shadows of their former selves, with the exception of NIntendo. Meanwhile, gaming has transitioned to western teams, which lack the talent and ambition of development teams of the past. Now we are stuck with endlessly mediocre AAA games.

Western studios have ruined gaming.
 
Time flies. I still have mine and played it as recently as last year (NFS Underground 2).

Tons of good memories with this system as a kid.
 
Fantastic console. Still have mine set up and I actively play it. The Free McBoot Memory Card softmod makes it great to catch up on games I missed out on that are now expensive as hell (Haunting Ground). It's also great for PSX gaming. Having access to two of the best software libraries of all time is pretty phenomenal. The PS4 is my least favorite Sony console but like someone else mentioned, Sony has never released a bad console. Easily my go to company for gaming.
 
Never owned a PS2 myself when I was a child, but my best friend did, what a great time to be alive that was.
The starting sound still brings a tear to my eye.

If one of my children will every say that these games suck or look bad, I will punch them back into their mum.
 
Rescued these from old IGN.

Pics from the launch at the Sony Metreon in San Francisco. Back then, Sony felt that outlets that covered games (like IGN and Gamespot) weren't important enough to send them consoles to actually review the games on, so everyone had to camp out and hope to get enough consoles for the office to actually provide coverage for Sony. Only places like Time Magazine were sent PS2s from Sony at launch.



The Sony Metreon line was 18 hours total, in sprinkling rain. We all got consoles at midnight, went back to my apartment to sleep for a couple hours, and then got up at dawn to try to hit every Target/Toys R Us in the area to hopefully get more systems for the office.

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How the mighty have fallen.

Sad that Playstation will never be the same.
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And a shitty bait, at that.

The Sony PlayStation 2 is the greatest console of all time for many reasons, one of them by virtue of being the best console in the best generation (Gen 6).

Funnily enough, in my eyes it did have some flaws:
  • I think it was the weakest, power-wise, of the surviving 3 consoles of Gen 6 (I say "surviving" because... we love you Dreamcast, but you died)
  • I'm not too crazy about the DualShock 2; in an era of "The Duke" and the GameCube controller, the DualShock 2 was not great.
  • 2D games (Capcom vs SNK 2, for example) looked better on the Dreamcast, the second generation in a row where 2D games looked better on a Sega console than they did on a Sony console
But beyond those flaws, the PS2 had it literally all: Top of the line exclusives from first and third parties, lots of the newest AAA games, lots of amazingly experimental AA games, the beginning of a full blown "retro" movement (just check out the sheer number of compilations of previous gen and arcade games that exist on PS2), the first home console with practically full backwards compatibility with its predecessor, doubled as a media player when DVDs were in full swing, etc.
 
best console of all time. Best playstation controller. GTA 3/Vice City/San Andreas as exclusives. Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3 as exclusives.
Not the first console i played online multiplayer on (i think that was dreamcast). But its the first console i played online multiplayer on a regular basis (COD Big Red One/Battlefield 2: Modern Combat/Socom 3/MGS 3: Subsistence)

this was peak playstation as the default console and a multiplat machine for me
 
How the mighty have fallen.

Sad that Playstation will never be the same.

Apart from the PS4 is the 2nd biggest selling console of all time and the PS5 had the strongest launch of all time...

Games wise none of the consoles will ever be the same. PS1-PS2, Megadrive - Saturn-Dreamcast, Snes- N64-Gamecube was a magical time
 
Obviously a great machine. And a ridiculously powerful one in a couple of aspects, despite it playing second fiddle to cube and xbox in that regard overall. 3rd best of that generation I would say, 3rd place in the greatest generation is still great.
 
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Rescued these from old IGN.

Pics from the launch at the Sony Metreon in San Francisco. Back then, Sony felt that outlets that covered games (like IGN and Gamespot) weren't important enough to send them consoles to actually review the games on, so everyone had to camp out and hope to get enough consoles for the office to actually provide coverage for Sony. Only places like Time Magazine were sent PS2s from Sony at launch.



The Sony Metreon line was 18 hours total, in sprinkling rain. We all got consoles at midnight, went back to my apartment to sleep for a couple hours, and then got up at dawn to try to hit every Target/Toys R Us in the area to hopefully get more systems for the office.

36UYw9c.jpg


qhBpWvX.jpg


yfWHko0.jpg


DtGRV7I.jpg

7Yynfhq.jpg

OUE5ZN3.jpg


tOSDU2a.jpg


8KUYL82.jpg

true pandemics back then
 
Great memories with the PS2. Probably the greatest console ever.
Not sure if its my favourite but its in the top 1-5

Some games that I loved:

MGS 2 and 3
Onimusha 1-4
DMC 1 and 3
Shadow of the Colossus
Okami
God of War 1 and 2
Kingdom Hearts
FF X
Katamari
and so much more..
 
PS2 is probably the best console ever based on the game lineup. I got it tied with the 360.

I still have mine hooked up for the (still) un-ported/remastered Armored Core series, Ace Combat 4/5/Zero, GodHand, GradiusV, Shinobi, Digital Devil Sagas, VirtuaFigher4, legit Silent Hills, and Dragon Quest VIII.

Its just a shame about that nasty 480i output.
I also still use my PS2 to play my PS1 collection - where there is no issue with output resolution of the original ps.
 
Imagine getting anything of the same calibre as Mgs2, 3, Ico, Shadow of the colossus, Silent Hill 2 from modern consoles. Seems almost unreal
 
My least favorite Playstation console. Never properly embraced this generation and my interest in gaming was at an all time low during this time. Used it more for dvds, thought movies was more exciting then. But there is no denying that PS2 was a beast that obliterated everything in its path. And I got Silent Hill 2, San Andreas, FF 12 and Rogue Galaxy so I shouldn't complain.
 
I was about 7 or 8 and remember my dad said I could either get 6 or 7 PS1 games or a PS2 and my dumbass wanted the PS1 games (quantity over quality). Thankfully he took the option away and just got us PS2s. I remember me and my neighborhood buddies thrashing Tekken 5.0 and it becoming super toxic and competitive lol to this day I still remember some of the 10 hit strings
 
Forget about sales (which were deserved). You'd need several pages to list the video game highlights of the PlayStation 2:

- Somehow achieved what no other console was able to achieve before, or since: I can't think of a single video game genre that is "underrepresented" in the PS2's library. Platformers? Shooters? Racers? Sports games? RPGs (Japanese or otherwise)? Arcade games? Fighting? Adventure? Story-driven games? They were all there, in plenty amounts.
- Birth of a number of important, well-acclaimed, or otherwise popular franchises that continue to this day (just a couple of examples: Devil May Cry, Kingdom Hearts, God of War, Ratchet and Clank, etc)
- Original home to the two of the most beloved and well regarded Metal Gear Solid games
- Original home to the Grand Theft Auto III trilogy
- Original home to the Tekken game that, to this day, is still considered one of the (maybe the) best among Tekken fans: Tekken Tag Tournament
- Home of the best version of the best Silent Hill game (Silent Hill 2)
- As I previously mentioned, a wealth of retro options: Just to give a couple of examples, both Capcom and SNK have a huge part of their arcade/previous catalog released on the PS2 across a number of compilations

Seriously, what a beast of a console.
 
When i look at my physical game collection, it's predominately PS2 game cases that fill the shelves by a long shot. Have never purchased as many games for one system since.
PS2 was legit.
 
So did any rogue governments ever harness the awesome power of the ps2's emotion engine to launch missile strikes against other nations then?
 
Still remember getting my first fat silver ps2 for christmas. Plus Final Fantasy X as my first title in the series.

DMC3, GTA Vice City, San Andreas, Dragon Quest VIII, God of War 1-2, FF12, PoP trilogy, Budokai series, Metal Gear fucking Solid 2-3, Resi 4, Tekken 5 and countless more.

All those games, being in school and having all the free time in the world. Good times.
 
Easily my favorite console and the one I have the best memories with. Outside of PS1, there has never been a console with as many great games as the PS2.
 
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