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[KalimPlays]

Here is my launch day PS2. As I received day one.

Got SSX and Smugglers Run as my launch games.

Man, that picture of The Bouncer just unlocked some repressed memories. I remember picking it up right when it dropped, full-on early 2000s edge, like Japan cranked the style dial to 11. It was the kind of mid-tier game you wanted to love so badly… but it never quite hit the mark.

 

[Calverz]

It was good. Very exciting around launch time. However once I had my fill of gta3, gt3, mgs2 and vice city, I moved on to gamecube and then og Xbox and ended up selling mine.

Recently though I have gone back to ps2 and playing through a lot of games I missed. In particular racing titles such as Sony's WRC series and stuff like konamis Enthusia.

 

[Trilobit]

I still remember bringing home that blue box and then being absolutely blown away by Final Fantasy X that following Christmas.

I remember the winter me and my dad went out to buy one. It was so thrilling and I got Colin McRae 3 with it. I kept raving to my dad how absolutely real it looked and showed how the fencing on the stages crumpled under the car. I never suspected that it'd become my all-time favourite console which is still my gold-standard I compare all others to.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

As with the PS1 it really took me time to warm to the PS2.

As a Dreamcast enjoyer at the time I thought the hype was ridiculous. Once launch came it was very underwhelming, while SSX looked fantastic most early games looked ugly in terms of image quality.

I also wasn't much for the black design, especially at a time when silver was the default colour for consumer electronics.

However after about a year I was won over, games like Metal Gear Solid 2, Devil May Cry, Gran Turismo 3 and Pro Evolution Soccer eventually made it a must have for me.

Looking back, no other system in history has such a great and varied library of games, simply the GOAT.

They even fixed the colour so that it fitted in with my other electronics (though aesthetic would start to shift towards everything being glossy black)…

Edit: also home to my most played game of all time…

 

[SenkiDala]

The PS2 was great, but...
... I still have a grudge with Sony for its underhanded marketing tactics. Intentional stock shortfalls (they still do that crap today). Also, convincing retailers to just... stop showcasing the Dreamcast...

Basically it killed the Dreamcast so we've got problems.

The Dreamcast is my favorite console ever. Played it at a friend home since the JP release and got in on EU release (was 7 times more expensive on JP version, I couldn't afford it). Soulcalibur, Virtua Fighter 3tb, Code Veronica, Zombie Revenge, Crazy Taxi, Eternal Arcadia, Grandia 2, Sonic Adventures, Chu Chu Rocket, Space Channel 5... I love this machine.

That said I have always been in a total disagreement with people complaining about "Sony killed the Dreamcast", it's SO stupid that I can't even believe that people say this without trolling.

When Sony arrived in the consoles market they were in a position where YES, they could force retails shop to sign some deals like "pssst, for our PlayStation if you don't give us three times more shelf space than the competition, we no longer deliver our new products, our TVs, hi-fi, you will be served last, and not at the best price", OF COURSE THEY DID IT. It's a business, not a charity. If you have a product on the market, that you can use some relationships that you have established with key players in this field, that'd be ABSOLUTELY DUMB to not use those ressources.

The Dreamcast failed because yes everybody wanted a PS2, it's what I've seen around me at that time, EVERYBODY wanted a PS2. And why they wanted a PS2 ? BECAUSE THE PS1 WAS AWESOME. Awesome series of games that got gamers hooked immedtiately, just to name a few :
- Metal Gear Solid
- Final Fantasy VII/VIII/IX
- Xenogears
- Chrono Cross
- Tekken
- Soul Edge
- Ridge Racer
- Resident Evil
- Silent Hill
- Tomb Raider
- Crash Bandicoot
- Spyro
- Klonoa
- Suikoden
- Wild Arms
- Tony Hawk
- Vagrant Story
- Wipeout
- Oddworld
- Medievil
- Gran Turismo

SO YES people from every place in the world, wanted a PS2, the PS1 revolutionized gaming. So I'd like people to remember that THIS is the main reason why the PS2 succeeded, because it was the "sequel" of the most biggest revolution in gaming history, with games for all tastes, that gamers knew they'll see the sequels on the PS2. Everybody wanted MGS2, FFX, Silent Hill 2, the next Resident Evil or Tomb Raider, Gran Turismo...

Also SEGA was SHIT at marketing, they knew nothing about it and it wasn't new, they were also bad at that with the Saturn. They also didn't have infinite budget, the Dreamcast was like their "final fantasy", if it worked good, if it failed they had to exit the console manufacturers business. Nobody around me knew what was the Dreamcast and the few who knews, the hardcore gamers, they had budget for 1 console only (and it's still like this those days, even hardcore gamers play on 1 machine and a Switch), they knew they would have all the games they want on the PS2.

Ah and again about those "they created the desire among players by deliberately creating shortages"... I was working in video game stores at that time and believe me, the desire was already there a year before the console was released. These rumors are completely ridiculous.

 

[Audiophile]

Packaging design is still classic.

A logo, perfect colours and a vibe. Nothing else needed, complete confidence in the branding. You know you've nailed it when people are nostalgic about a cardboard box decades later.

So much cooler than the cluttered, exec/marketing-driven slop we have now.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt , get in this thread!!

I've been playing Shadow Hearts using a PS2 Emulator

I'm loving the game and it reminds me of why PS2 is my GOAT. I love the PS1 ERA, but the PS2 ERA is on a whole other level. And playing this game reminds me of why that is. After I finish Shadow Hearts, I'm going to play Covenant next. For this year when it comes to PS2 Emulation, gonna to be playing lot of games not only JRPGs that I missed out on. Like the Sly Cooper Trilogy. I really missed the PS2 Era and I'm loving how good the emulator is in regards to how well it runs the games

 

[Fafalada]

I've always had a love/hate relationship with PS2

I can relate - but I'm gonna be 'that' guy and factually interrogate your post now lol

- I had a PAL console. Sony was the last to try and offer PAL conversions with 60Hz options. For most of the PS2's lifespan, we Euro people had to suffer from slower games.

This one - I can't recall when 60hz option started being offered (I suspect it was at the same time they enabled 480p support, which was about a year out from launch), so yea I guess it wasn't there day one. But then again 50hz games were never 'slower' on PS2 - they ran exactly the same, just at lower framerate.
In many cases that actually helped keep stable framerate better than NTSC counterpart (DF knows stable 60fps was a very elusive goal on all platforms that gen - they just weren't around to show it), and we were a decade removed from the era of 'PAL = everything in the game runs at a slower clock' - that nonsense ended in PS1 generation (where it still happened, just less often the longer the gen went on).
Now I will grant you that 25fps games are a bit more painful - 30fps latency is already not great, so. But I really dislike 50 getting a bad rep - it's far superior to the '40fps hacks' we're getting nowadays and people keep celebrating that - and worse, every console could offer 50 out of the box without incompatibilities with displays out there but they don't for all the wrong reasons. /rant

- jaggies. God, those jaggies.

- yes.

- the early games offered very little in terms of evolution. Resident Evil was same ol', same ol'. Onimusha was a reskinned Resident Evil, etc.

True - and this only got worse with every subsequent generation.

- it was also the gen when the production value gap between AA and AAA widened massively.

Eh - the term 'AAA' didn't even exist in gaming context until 2002 or thereabouts. Yes we can retroactively argue 'AAA' was this and that in the 90ies - but really, it didn't establish itself until PS2 generation. That said production values did skyrocket - teams of 100+ engineers were unheard of until Spore was made for instance, and again - this was only a sign of things yet to come.

- there was simply too much to play. I wonder how many people can say they really explored the PS2's library when it was current. For a late teen like me, choice paralysis was at the highest during that gen. In retrospective, I always felt like I had not got my time's and money's worth with the PS2 - because I missed too many good games to play those everyone else was playing, and most of those were too long.

I mean - this I'd argue already happened with PS1, I still find things from that gen I've never heard of that are really stellar (though diversity of PS1 gen IMO surpasses PS2, not to mention PS3 by quite a margin). But Isn't that a good thing? The whole point is to have something for everyone - since PS4 era, that's never been more true since library sizes exploded.
Yes there's also more shovelware on Switch E-Shop than previous 6 generations combined - but not sure that's something we can ever fix.

Still, I feel like when we lost the Dreamcast, we lost something special, weird, and unique. The OG Xbox really was sort of like it, in a certain sense

Other than hairstyles of the XBox team, I find it hard to say anything about it was weird or unique. It was all about 'bigger=better' - although I'll grant you the library had some niche stuff in there that was quirkier than the image they portrayed in their marketing.
There is an odd loss there - that of all the consoles from that era - XBox software is the least well emulated, even on MS own consoles the selection is barely there. I mean I talk a lot of crap about PCSX2 (because let's be honest - it's a not a great emulator - 25 years in compatibility is still a mess), but XBox is somehow even worse off last I checked.

 

[Lusal]

This thread is right up my alley! The PS2 is the most complete console ever made in terms of it's software library. I've spent countless hours playing so many games and not one regret was had.

Recently, I've sat down to put together a 2tb compilation HDD complete with artwork and compatibility patches. It took me around 70 hrs to get here and I'm still refining it. It's an awesome homage to my favorite console. This drive works on all fat consoles in the internal drive bay with an SATA adapter. The nostalgia slaps so hard.

 

[RAIDEN1]

I'd argue the Gamecube was easily as good as the PS2, even from a technical standpoint, the only unfortunate thing being was its design...

 

[Walliwallipaloo]

Other than hairstyles of the XBox team, I find it hard to say anything about it was weird or unique. It was all about 'bigger=better' - although I'll grant you the library had some niche stuff in there that was quirkier than the image they portrayed in their marketing.
There is an odd loss there - that of all the consoles from that era - XBox software is the least well emulated, even on MS own consoles the selection is barely there. I mean I talk a lot of crap about PCSX2 (because let's be honest - it's a not a great emulator - 25 years in compatibility is still a mess), but XBox is somehow even worse off last I checked.

Well, I mean, the Xbox did get Shenmue 2 pretty early on. And yeah, like you said, it got some quirky, unique games that other consoles didn't seem to get (probably because Microsoft was just desperate for games, in retrospect), including Jet Set Radio Future. I mean, Xbox as the Dreamcast 2 is a reach, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one to feel its echoes there. Just that - echoes. Hell, honestly, the Duke controller reminds me a little of the Dreamcast pad.

This is starting to sound a touch schizophrenic.

Moving on, you'd think emulating the Xbox should be easy-ish, considering it was built on DirectX. Right? (Layperson opinion. I have no idea, beyond surface-level terminology.) Xbox emulation is coming along, although it surprises me that the 360 seems farther along in terms of playability. I only have to guess that it's because the 360 (rightfully, I yield) has a larger, more devoted fanbase.

Ah-ha! That reminds me of something else the Xbox and the Dreamcast had in common: they both had snatches of Windows built into them. See? See? It's all there

Now, so I can say something tangentially PS2 related: the early PS2 models had disc-read issues (which I managed to hit twice) that only got worse when the console was oriented vertically. Thankfully, Wal-Mart in that era was really generous with its returns, so eventually I managed to get a working console. But then the third one I got - and the PS2 I used for years thereafter - had a faulty disc tray that would produce a rather terrible grinding sound whenever it was opened or closed.

So despite the fact that I now look back fondly on the console, all the time I had one I was constantly trashing it for its build quality. And for killing the Dreamcast. Obviously.

But I've also since read that a not-insignificant number of those things just plain couldn't read its blue-bellied CD-ROMs properly. Or even at all. Those early DVD drives were a bit of a disaster, honestly.

 

[GigaBowser]

soul caibers 2 annnnd 3

 

[Walliwallipaloo]

soul caibers 2 annnnd 3

Soul Calibur 2 is second only to SamSho V Special. Simply one of the best games ever made.

I was miffed that SC3 never got an Xbox release. It would have had a great home there.
Unless their memory card-bricking bug could screw up the Xbox's hard drive, in which case never mind.

Ah, Shadow Hearts. Been watching my wife play that one. The combat music is... horrible. The game, however, is not (which goes without saying).
I highly recommend its predecessor, Koudelka, from ye olde PS1. It's so strange and wonderful, and its combat music on the other hand is sublime.

 

[Inanilmaz]

PS2

 

[KalimPlays]

I remember the winter me and my dad went out to buy one. It was so thrilling and I got Colin McRae 3 with it. I kept raving to my dad how absolutely real it looked and showed how the fencing on the stages crumpled under the car. I never suspected that it'd become my all-time favourite console which is still my gold-standard I compare all others to.

It's memories like these that make gaming such an amazing hobby. I cherish this kind of stuff!

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

This thread is right up my alley! The PS2 is the most complete console ever made in terms of it's software library. I've spent countless hours playing so many games and not one regret was had.

Recently, I've sat down to put together a 2tb compilation HDD complete with artwork and compatibility patches. It took me around 70 hrs to get here and I'm still refining it. It's an awesome homage to my favorite console. This drive works on all fat consoles in the internal drive bay with an SATA adapter. The nostalgia slaps so hard.

Does that 2TB Compilation HDD have all the games? Also did you include games that are fan translated?

 

[Lusal]

Does that 2TB Compilation HDD have all the games? Also did you include games that are fan translated?

It doesn't hold all the games. It holds approximately 600+ handpicked PS2 titles and 100 PS1 games. It has several fan translations and Japanese titles. I'm currently nearing the end of Dragon Quest V English translated. I've got some JPN Outrun and all of the Sega Ages Series on there as well. Fire Pro wrestling Z is there with an English menu translation. On the PS1 side there are translations as well. It's a well rounded drive.

 

[Donald mac Ronald]

It doesn't hold all the games. It holds approximately 600+ handpicked PS2 titles and 100 PS1 games. It has several fan translations and Japanese titles. I'm currently nearing the end of Dragon Quest V English translated. I've got some JPN Outrun and all of the Sega Ages Series on there as well. Fire Pro wrestling Z is there with an English menu translation. On the PS1 side there are translations as well. It's a well rounded drive.

That reminds me I need to play front mission 5 with the English language patch.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

Fired up the PS2 slim with my six year old. He heard the familiar Sony chime on startup and came running thinking we're playing Fortnite.

He didn't believe there was a Playstation 2, nor that the tiny console was it.

He was even more annoyed when we played Kingdom Hearts 2 for an hour using component cables on the 75".

PS2 really was it. More wonder and novetly back then.

 

[AutumnLeaves]

Man, that picture of The Bouncer just unlocked some repressed memories. I remember picking it up right when it dropped, full-on early 2000s edge, like Japan cranked the style dial to 11. It was the kind of mid-tier game you wanted to love so badly… but it never quite hit the mark.

The Bouncer was amazing. Don't know why it got the flak it did. Loved playing through the storyline multiple times with different characters, who were so different from each other. And the multi-player was very fun with friends. Still play it to this day.

 

[SenkiDala]

Packaging design is still classic.

A logo, perfect colours and a vibe. Nothing else needed, complete confidence in the branding. You know you've nailed it when people are nostalgic about a cardboard box decades later.

So much cooler than the cluttered, exec/marketing-driven slop we have now.

I still own it, along with my day one PS2. I'm one of the few who actually have his day one PS2 working well.

 

[Fafalada]

Well, I mean, the Xbox did get Shenmue 2 pretty early on. And yeah, like you said, it got some quirky, unique games that other consoles didn't seem to get (probably because Microsoft was just desperate for games, in retrospect), including Jet Set Radio Future.

In fairness - this was true of all 3 consoles (quirky games that stayed system exclusive for most part) - mostly the PS2 of course due to sheer library size, but nonetheless - it's an aspect lost since that generation where platform exclusivity wasn't relegated entirely to moneyhats yet and it was common place with smaller developers.
But yes MS was operating differently back then when it came to soliciting platform support too.

Moving on, you'd think emulating the Xbox should be easy-ish, considering it was built on DirectX. Right? (Layperson opinion. I have no idea, beyond surface-level terminology.) Xbox emulation is coming along, although it surprises me that the 360 seems farther along in terms of playability. I only have to guess that it's because the 360 (rightfully, I yield) has a larger, more devoted fanbase.

Yea I think this was always subject to multiple factors. Popularity plays a part for sure - some systems just don't get the attention from emulator community, doesn't matter what tech.
But it is also about 'who' they attract - PS3 emulation has moved considerably faster than PS2 as well and there's no question the latter is more popular (and emulation complexity is at best - a toss-up). Seems like it just attracted developers with more time/expertise on their hands.
Flipside - PSP emulator also hasn't progressed nearly as well as one would hope, despite being among the easier ones to emulate (from playstation family at least) - though popularity likely plays a larger role there.

Ah-ha! That reminds me of something else the Xbox and the Dreamcast had in common: they both had snatches of Windows built into them. See? See? It's all there

ow, so I can say something tangentially PS2 related: the early PS2 models had disc-read issues (which I managed to hit twice) that only got worse when the console was oriented vertically. Thankfully, Wal-Mart in that era was really generous with its returns, so eventually I managed to get a working console. But then the third one I got - and the PS2 I used for years thereafter - had a faulty disc tray that would produce a rather terrible grinding sound whenever it was opened or closed.

Tbh this one I always wondered about - PS2 isn't the only console with internet fame about disc-related issues(PSP, 360 etc. all had a lot of noise around it too) - but personally I've never encountered this on any of the afflicted systems. In fact the only real issues I did witness with consoles in general were stick drift (by far the most prominent issue on affected systems) and RROD/YLOD, but both of those were fundamental issues of hw design and not some 'x%' defects that gets blown out online.
Not to say disc issues never happened - it's just that if they were as common as internet would lead us to believe (and lead to mass replacements) - those systems far exceeded software sale trends that everything else had. Ie. PS2 already had the highest software attach of any PS1 era/onwards console until the PS4 - if the failure rate was massive - that number only gets that much bigger.
But not arguing build quality could be better - the most expensive PS2s on the market (Developer tools that cost north of 10000$ for most of the lifetime) had a serious issue with the disc-drive doors getting stuck due to dust build up (it would 100% happen after awhile)...

 

[awwr999999]

I still own it, along with my day one PS2. I'm one of the few who actually have his day one PS2 working well.

A lot of the very first PS2s are still working well as the launch and pre-launch PS2s are built significantly better than later fat PS2s.
PlayStation always makes the very best models first and as time goes along they get less expensive and the quality drops somewhat.
Future PS models should keep the original launch console in production and raise the price as time passes.
Incentivize people to buy early but allow everyone to get the launch level of quality if they're willing to pay more.

American launch PS2 motherboards are built like double stacked tanks.
Most PS2s aren't built like this.