Hi all, somehow it's February already, so it's time for the next console of the month! Whilst January's pick was not a big sales star, there's no doubt that this month's console hit it big with the masses.
Developed by Sony, the Playstation 2 was a follow up to their already wildly successful PlayStation console, and there was a lot of anticipation around it's launch. released in 2000 and quickly became the best selling video game console of all time. The console apparently has close to 4000 games released for it, so there shouldn't be a shortage of things to talk about this week!
As before, this is a thread for us to discuss all things PS2. Let's talk about our PS2 experiences, our opinion on the system, the classic games, the hidden gems, showcase our collection - is it's PS2 related, then feel free to share!
Nice! I was actually just setting up my PS2 slim with my PVM for the first time. This is a console that I've spent a lot of time with already, but yet I still have a massive backlog for.
My backstory with the PS2...
I was a Nintendo kid, but instead of a Gamecube I ended up with a PS2. I cannot recall if it was 2000 or 2001, but I got my first PS2 for Christmas one of those years. I got it with a single game, and if I recall correctly it was Cart Fury Championship Racing. Being that I was in high school, I didn't have any money for expensive $50 PS2 games. But I was actually very happy that the PS2 was fully backwards compatible with the PS1. I had an N64 during that last generation, so I missed out on the PS1. Though I got to know a few games on the PS1 from friends or family that owned one. By the time the PS2 came out, you could get PS1 games at a bargain price. Stores were stocked with Greatest Hits titles, and I was more than happy that I could afford them.
So aside from Cart Fury Championship Racing, my early days with the PS2 were actually my first experience owning a PS1. IIRC, the first PS1 game I bought was Driver 2 (it might have been the Driver 1 & 2 double pack) and I spent a lot of time with it. But I eventually saved up some money, and took some games down to Funco Land to trade, and got my first two PS2 games. Grand Theft Auto 3 and 007 Agent Under Fire. Someone had brought GTA3 over my house and that's how I learned of it, and I knew I needed to get that game ASAP. And I played a lot of Goldeneye on the N64, and also being a huge James Bond fan, Agent Under Fire was just a logical choice. I enjoyed both games immensely. But there was one problem...
My early days of the PS2 was during the Great PS2 Memory Card Shortage, you couldn't find PS2 memory cards anywhere. So I used to play GTA3 without being able to save my progress. For that reason, I never wanted to play too much of the story knowing that I'd have to start over again. But I still had a lot of fun just sandboxing. Eventually I got a memory card, but only after what felt like forever lol.
One of my all time favorite games for the PS2 is Medal of Honor Frontline. Something with it just clicked with me. Going back to it now is kind of hard. I tried to play it recently and was wrestling with the controls. But I still love it. FPS actually dominated my PS2 library when I was in high school. Most of the games I owned were FPS, then I had quite a few racing games, then very little else outside of those genres.
I used to get a lot of games from Blockbuster. They had used PS1 and PS2 games that I would get on the cheap. But they also had brand new Greatest Hits PS1 games. I scored a bunch of new PS1 games this way. Medal of Honor, Symphony of the Night, Metal Gear, probably some others. I can remember getting a used copy of Final Fantasy Origins, and that's one game I spent a lot of time with. This is also how I got MOH Frontline, used from Blockbuster.
Some time when I was still in high school I picked up the network adapter. I thought it was so awesome that I could play PS2 games online. That network adapter came in handy years later when I found out I could attach a HDD and boot games that way. I actually purchased a retail copy of HDA and set up a HDD that way. I was able to use this to install FMCB on a memory card for myself. At that point I switched to OPL for loading games off the HDD. These days, I try to use ONLY the HDD for loading games as to keep wear and tear off of the optical drive. This is my original PS2, and I'd like to try and keep it working for as long as possible.
Someone gave me a free PS2 phat at some point, I believe it's the same revision as my own. But it has a busted optical drive and some other issues. I've been meaning to fix it up and set it up with FMCB/OPL to use as a backup. I also got a PS2 slim somewhere along the way, mostly just to use as a backup. Although just recently I decided to hook it up to my PVM for the first time. My PS2 phat is hooked up to my HDTV via component cables. But I wanted to play the Mega Man X collection, which has the games output in 240p. That just looks much better on the PVM. So I hooked up my PS2 to the PVM using RGB cables, and it looks fantastic. I like playing my PS2 on the HDTV because I have a nice sound system. But the 480i games are a bit blurry. I've been interested to see how such games would look on the PVM. It's been ages since I've played a PS2 on a CRT.
With the exception of a few that I've mentioned above, I skipped over a lot of the games I played. I guess I'll get to talking about those over the next month. I know I mentioned PS1 games, and perhaps I should save talking about those for an inevitable PS1 month. But it's hard for me to talk about my history with the PS2 without mentioning the PS1. After all, it was the first time I owned a console that could play PS1 games. But I wont go into detail about those PS1 games, at least not in this thread.
Was the PS2 anyone's first DVD player? My family had a DVD player already, but the PS2 was the first DVD player that was my very own. It was only after I got a PS2 that I started to buy (budget) DVDs for myself. But a few years after I got the PS2, DVD players dropped in price. I picked up a dedicated DVD player because I wanted to keep wear and tear off my PS2.
I had an absolute blast with my PS2 during it's heyday. So many great games were released for this console. I've been collecting games for it ever since, so at this point I have a huge backlog for it. This month will be a perfect excuse to try and clear some of those.
Glad to be able to join in on the PS2 discussion. I looked into getting a Sega Saturn, but the game library I was interested in was too small and the price point was too expensive and this was almost 15 years ago.
But, I absolutely love the PS2. I'm currently playing Dirge of Ceebrus: Final Fantasy VII on it right now, so I still play it to this day. I have a TON of nostalgia for the NES, but the PS2 would rival it for my favorite console. I own 73 games for it, my largest of any console that I own. I love JRPG's and the amount released for the PS2 is insane.
I was introduced to the PS2 in college. In my Sophomore year, my friend picked up the console and a copy of Final Fantasy X. He lived in another state, so we only got together rarely and we would play FFX together. In Junior year, we dormed together in the same school and he brought his PS2 with him. I quickly became addicted to the console and subsequently failed out of that school.
The next year, I went back home and to another school. It only took me a few months to get the PS2 and my own copy of Final Fantasy X. To this day, Final Fantasy X is my favorite game of all time. For many years, I played the PS2 and PS1 games on the console and it was my mainstay of gaming. I have so many fond memories and I still have a GIANT backlog of games I want to buy for the console, even though prices for games have been skyrocketing recently.
I completely missed the PS2. It came out when I was still new to the workforce and not bringing in enough money to really afford much entertainment. I was still focusing on the Dreamcast and on the PC. I have come to like some of the games that have come out now much later, but I'm also predisposed to be very critical of the PS2. The hardware architecture is mind-bogglingly and unnecessarily complicated and was only really saved by a combination of coming off the PS1's dominance and Sony's incredibly solid dev tools, documentation, and studio support teams. One thing Sony has consistently done better than anyone else is support their developers. But Sony also played a role, if not necessarily a primary one, in the demise of the Sega Dreamcast, for which I have a near-irrational fondness.
I think the PS2 was the first console where I almost exclusively rented instead of bought games. It helped that I was working at Blockbuster at the time, so I got them all for free. At first, I was more interested in tackling the backlog of N64/PS1 games that I hadn't played. But a handful of PS2 games took up a ton of my attention: Red Faction, Grand Theft Auto III (and later Vice City), Need for Speed Hot Pursuit II, NBA Street, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 2, Socom, and Madden NFL 2002 were all games I put a ton of time into in 2001/2002.
But one game I remember buying in particular was Xtreme G Racing III. I had enjoyed the first two on the N64, but man oh man, I love XGRIII. It was cool, fast, good soundtrack, great graphics, great for multiplayer or single player. I put a lot of hours into that game.
At some point I also got an Xbox for 4-player support and my friends group switched from N64 nights to Xbox nights. I missed out on a lot of late-PS2 stuff until sometime during the PS3 era, which is when I got back into it and got some games I missed out on.
One thing I've found though is that this era is not the easiest to get back into. My tastes have switched more completely to 2D games, save a few racers. I not only have a dozen or so PS2 games, most from that early era that I still have nostalgia for. So many of the hyped PS2 games I just don't enjoy anymore or never really enjoyed. (Allowing myself to admit that was really freeing!)
Also, my god, the voice acting in the PS2 era was atrocious. There were a couple ones done well (MGS2 I think was the first I thought so), but so many games got quickly passed on because I just couldn't stand listening to a bunch of staff members give terrible acting performances. Yeah, you get this in the PS1 era, too, but those were few and far in between. I think it was Fable when I thought the voice acting was finally done right.
I think the PS 2 and the SNES are probably the two greatest consoles of all time, representing the pinnacle of 3d gaming and 2d gaming, respectively. Both had incredible software libraries that largely still hold up today (many have been re-released on PS 4). I have a TON of PS 2 games
We could probably talk about the PSP a bit in this thread too, as it was largely a portable PS 2. Much like how the Gameboy Advance was kind of a portable SNES.
The PS 2 held some great gaming experiences for me. Okami, the Dynasty Warriors series (arguably at its best during the PS 2 era), Prince of Persia Sands of Time, the Sly Cooper series, the Ratchet and Clank series, Final Fantasy X, Contra: Shattered Soldier, Xenosaga, Mark of Kri, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, Katamari Damacy, Devil May Cry (the first one is still the best), God of War, GTA: Vice City, I could go on and on. Honestly, if someone wanted me to recommend one retro console I'd probably say the PS 2.
I also remember the PS 2 era, and the Dreamcast, Gamecube, and Xbox era too, as really the last time the gaming industry didn't suck. Man, so many awful industry trends and practices came in with the HD era of gaming that still persist to this day. The last great era of gaming was the one where the PS 2 thrived.
I'm a somewhat reluctant fan of the PS2, to this day I still believe that it was a major factor in the demise of the Dreamcast (in addition to Sega's constant missteps). I still remember my college roommate's reaction when the console was announced, he was ecstatic, I shrugged it off and went back to my Saturn and waiting patiently for the Dreamcast to launch. The initial launch lineup of the console didn't wow me, but the PSX backwards compatibility was pretty cool. Fast forward to about 2003/4 and I still haven't purchased a PS2, I was enjoying the GameCube though and learning more about the Xbox though. My wife, well fiancé at the time actually won a PS2 from her job and I figured we might as make the best of it. She's a big Crazy Taxi fan so I picked up a copy of that and also Kingdom Hearts since she also likes Disney and everyone at my job just kept talking about. She enjoyed Crazy Taxi well enough but once we were married, I decided that I dive a bit deeper into the game library and find titles I really wanted to check out. Though it isn't my favorite console, there are so many great games to play on the system. I spent hours upon hours playing God of War, Guitar Hero, Arcana Heart, and Ace Combat 5. It's also where I was introduced to the incredibly awesome Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Gradius V, Odin Sphere, Taito Legends 2 (picked this up for Elevator Action Returns and Darius Gaiden), and R-Type Final. Plus, I picked up a few PSX classics that I missed like Final Fantasy Origins and Grand Tourismo 2. I have a pretty healthy PS2 backlog that's very much worth revisiting imho. I'm not too familiar w/the PS2's supported resolutions though but I think I'll see if I can pick up a RAD2x for it since I'm already looking at those for some other consoles as well.
Last edited by Syndicate on Wed Feb 02, 2022 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Syndicate wrote:I'm not too familiar w/the PS2's supported resolutions though but I think I'll see if I can pick up a RAD2x for it since I'm already looking at those for some other consoles as well.
Most games output 480i, but there's a good amount that can output 480p (though I think it usually has to be activated some how, like holding down a button when booting). There's a short list of games that output 240p, and an even shorter list that can do 1080i.
I'm not sure if the RAD2x is a good choice for the PS2. From what I understand, a RAD2x cable will convert RGB to YPbPr component video. That will limit you to 240p/480i output from the PS2, which means you will miss out on any games that can do a higher resolution. If a game can output 480p, than you absolutely want to take advantage of that if you're using an HDTV. So component cables are the way to go.
I would first get a good set of component cables for your PS2. If your TV doesn't do a good job handling that, then maybe look into the RETROTink 2X or 5X. Someone please correct me if there's a better option.
Also worth noting is that with softmods you can use an app called GSM to force higher resolutions. You can pretty easily install an exploit on a memory card called Free MCboot (FMCB) that will allow you to run homebrew apps among other things, and this is how you would use GSM.
Personally, for the PS2 I've just been using component cables directly into my 1080p HDTV. The 480i games don't look the best, but not at all bad enough for me to bother with something else. Even though I already have FMCB set up, I haven't even bothered to mess with GSM yet. But I'm also lucky enough that said TV can handle 240p over component, and I have no issues with input lag. YMMV.
Ziggy587 wrote: I'm not sure if the RAD2x is a good choice for the PS2. From what I understand, a RAD2x cable will convert RGB to YPbPr component video. That will limit you to 240p/480i output from the PS2, which means you will miss out on any games that can do a higher resolution. If a game can output 480p, than you absolutely want to take advantage of that if you're using an HDTV. So component cables are the way to go.
I would first get a good set of component cables for your PS2. If your TV doesn't do a good job handling that, then maybe look into the RETROTink 2X or 5X. Someone please correct me if there's a better option.
RAD2x cables basically have a built-in RetroTINK 2x. I believe both do bob deinterlacing which isn't great. The smoothing filter may help some games but personally, I'd go with normal PS2 component cables straight into the tv (if it supports 480i/240p over component) or get a RetroTINK 5x. The upcoming OSSC Pro would also be a good option. Or use a CRT if you have room for one.
It's interesting to see some of the mixed feelings people have about the PS2 in this thread. I also fall into this camp - I don't much like the hardware, I don't like how brown all of the graphics seem to look from it (and I'm not just talking from the gritty 'realistic' games, there just seems to be a slight sepia tint to everything PS2 for some reason), I don't like the look of the system or the feel of the controller.
However, there's no denying the library of the console and it's for this reason I've decided I need to start looking into it more lately. Last month I shared a picture of my Sega Saturn collection and it was a pretty well rounded set. My PS2 collection on the other hand, is positively anaemic relative to the console library:
As you can see by the price stickers, I havent spent a lot on the system over the years. Shadow of the Colossus was a gift from a friend. I think the most expensive game I bought for the system was Final Fantasy XII, which set me back £6.
There's no denying the library of the console though, so I'm definitely overdue diving deeper into the library. I'd love to know games people would recommend for the system - but especially if they haven't recieved a better physical port elsewhere. If it's on PS3, PS4, Gamecube, or most other systems, I'm probably more likely to play it there!
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