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What was your first experience 1; Playstation 2
Topic Started: Oct 25 2009, 12:56 PM (364 Views)
sheath
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I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
Starting big, and going random with the whole idea, what was your first experience with the Playstation 2? To make it easier, I will set the format, please notice the bold points and answer each point as a question.

My first experience
Was in a kiosk at Gamestop with a nice flat screen LCD.

My impression of the games
Was excessively negative. Because of my experience with games on other platforms I thought the football and fighting games featured on the kiosk lacked in every way. I only remember a Madden demo and a Tekken demo, and of them I remember feeling that the gameplay was 'last gen' and the graphics were excessively aliased and seemed to lack any sort of stand out feature in colors or any other detail elements.

My impression of the overall package
Relatively positive. There were already a couple of games for the PS2 that I knew were going to be exclusive. Virtua Fighter 4 and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, for these games alone I was willing to consider buying what I knew was the technically inferior platform.

The facts that changed my first impression
Were the DVD and PS1 compatibility. I had traded my PS1 and games for another console two years earlier (1998), and I had not bought a DVD player due to the excessive prices of the players. These two features alone changed my overall impression of the system.

What season and year did I buy the system?
The facts above caused me to purchase the PS2 in Fall of 2001. I had calculated the cost of repurchasing a PS1 and purchasing a DVD player, and found the cost of the PS2 games to be relatively insignificant. Since I wanted access to PS1 games and DVDs, the appeal of the PS2 increased to a "no brainer" for me.
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DarcSeven
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I'm gonna sing the DOOM Song.
Playstation 2? Life story incoming!!!

My first Experience:
I was watching Toonami with my brother when T.O.M. started talking about FIFA for the Playstation 2. Now at the time I was like, "Playstation 2? Pfft, forget that Dreamcast is gonna be were it's at." That was until he ran footage of the game. My goodness, it was so beautiful that my resolve was shaken. A few days later I got a chance to watch a guy play Onimusha Warlords at CompUSA and it looked really good too. But it wasn't until a little bit later at CompUSA that I got a chance on the kiosk. And the game I got to play changed everything...

My impression of the games:
Enter Zone of the Enders, the game that changed everything. It was like I found the game of my dreams. Fast paced giant robot action with an anime setting. I've never been forcibly dragged out of a store before, but that was the closest I came too it. After that my care for the Dreamcast dropped to absolute zero and the PS2 became the only choice at that moment.

My impression of the overall package:
I got my PS2 on Christmas morning along with the games Tekken Tag Tournament (Awesome), Virtua Fighter 4 (Awesome, even though my brother and cousins hated it. They didn't understand...), SSX (Alright, but Tricky was better when I got it down the line) and Spy Hunter (Lame). I loved every bit of it and I didn't even care about the DVD player. It ended up becoming my favorite system of all time.

What changed my first impression:
Nothing really, it's still my favorite console. But at the time I was also a Sony fanboy. Nowadays not so much at all. I think I didn't like when I found out about how many potentially great games were blocked and I really hated the PS3 for it's first year since it just started so shitty. But the PS2 itself? No difference.

When did I get the system:
I think it was Christmas 2001, so the four games I got were cheap enough for my parents to buy along with the system. There was a catch when it came to getting the system. I had to save up for it and use money I received for my birthday and Christmas in order to get it. Thankfully, I was dead serious when it came to saving up for it. I found out recently that they actually just bought all of the stuff before hand and put the money I saved up into my college fund. Totally worth it. :)
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sheath
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I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
That must have been 2002 actually, VF4 wasn't out in '01. By then there was no reason to be Dreamcast exclusive because there hadn't been a game release outside of Japan in about a year. I mostly remember the PS2 for cranking the whole "disposable game" concept into full mass market gear. Your SSX comment says you agree with me. ;)
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bluecrabfive
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My first taste of the PS2 was a friend who imported one pretty early on and the two best games from the launch/early games on the system: Tekken Tag Tournament and Ridge Racer V. Tekken Tag was definitely smooth and pretty game never had much to complain about with it. Ridge Racer V played great but did have a bad case of the jaggies.

I remember the crazy rush to get one, I didn't for another year I think, and the news stories about muggings and consoles going for $1000 a piece. I was like, there is nothing worth playing as it seemed that most of it was crap like Fantavision, the Bouncer, the Eternal Ring, etc.

With the first SSX the concept was there but the control wasn't ready compared to Tricky and the animation wasn't either. Definitely was the biggest suprise of that pack. Tricky was my favorite one, loved that over the top UBER combos and still had the DJ and all.

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Belpowerslave
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My first experience
Like most, my first experience with it was at a kiosk at a game store(EB Games). They had either that one Dynasty Warriors game or SF EX running on it.

My impression of the games
I hate to say, because I know it'll just come off biased, but I just wasn't real thrilled with the graphics. The games themselves, from the demo unit, seemed to play fine...but, and I don't know if it was just the poor quality of the LCD monitor, the graphics were so fucking jagged. It was easy to see why people were constantly complaining about "the jaggies" on the system. Add to it that the DC had already been out and was blowing me away with stuff like DOA2, VF3, etc...and then compare that to how shitty SF EX looked(I don't know that this was the PS2's fault, the entire SF EX series looks like blocky ass) and it was just really underwhelming, especially when you figured in all the hype.

My impression of the overall package
Like the Xbox, it was just too expensive at the time, for me...plus, how in the fuck would you even come across one? They were impossible to find. I did like how both could play DVDs though. I think I had a DVD player at the time though.

The facts that changed my first impression
I don't know that anything really did...I mean, I've always felt that the PS2 has had the worst graphics of that generation. The jaggies just really bring it down...and every game that had an Xbox version, that version almost always looked better.

What season and year did I buy the system?
I've owned two or three...but I've always bought them to simply resell. I've played them while waiting for them to sell(either via auction or Craig's List) and it's been a really mixed experience. I like the controller, I really do...though I don't understand this talk of "analog" triggers, or buttons or whatever they were saying was supposed to be analog on the DS2. I never noticed any difference on it, and most times just used one of my DS1 controllers from my PSX.

The next thing was PSX backwards compatibility: What a pain in the ass. Some games ran, some ran with issues, some wouldn't run at all. If you've got the patients to try out the "quick load" or "smoothing" options, sometimes you'd get good results...most times it just fucked the game up. Then, you have to have a fucking original PSX memory card to save games!? Are you fucking kidding me!?

Don't even get me started on the HDD...what a joke. Works with *one* game...and even though you can backup card saves on it, you can't just use the HDD to save stuff. My favorite it how it won't even work with every PS2 model. Man, what a joke.

To me, it just seemed like Sony had no idea what they were doing with the hardware features...and just sort of threw them in there without thinking about how people would use them. I don't think I'll ever own one...I'll just wait for PS2 emulation to get to a point where it'll let me play the few PS2 games that interest me...

Bel
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sheath
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Quote:
 
I hate to say, because I know it'll just come off biased, but I just wasn't real thrilled with the graphics. The games themselves, from the demo unit, seemed to play fine...but, and I don't know if it was just the poor quality of the LCD monitor, the graphics were so fucking jagged. It was easy to see why people were constantly complaining about "the jaggies" on the system. Add to it that the DC had already been out and was blowing me away with stuff like DOA2, VF3, etc...and then compare that to how shitty SF EX looked(I don't know that this was the PS2's fault, the entire SF EX series looks like blocky ass) and it was just really underwhelming, especially when you figured in all the hype.


I can't blame you there at all, the PS2 was the king of aliasing, 32-bit generation texture mapping, and mass market games. That last qualifier should be a compliment for anybody who respects sales above all else. To me it's just a nail in the coffin.

Quote:
 
Like the Xbox, it was just too expensive at the time, for me...plus, how in the fuck would you even come across one? They were impossible to find. I did like how both could play DVDs though. I think I had a DVD player at the time though.


The only way I could justify spending $300 in 2001 was to consider whether I really wanted a PS1 and DVD player, after that it just cut in to my game costs.

Quote:
 
I don't know that anything really did...I mean, I've always felt that the PS2 has had the worst graphics of that generation. The jaggies just really bring it down...and every game that had an Xbox version, that version almost always looked better.


PS2 graphics were definitely the worst outside of portable systems and low end PC releases that generation. I am usually so disgusted by the utter lack of close details, not to mention gameplay complexity, that I just can't bring myself to look for the system's real gems.

Quote:
 
I've owned two or three...but I've always bought them to simply resell. I've played them while waiting for them to sell(either via auction or Craig's List) and it's been a really mixed experience. I like the controller, I really do...though I don't understand this talk of "analog" triggers, or buttons or whatever they were saying was supposed to be analog on the DS2. I never noticed any difference on it, and most times just used one of my DS1 controllers from my PSX.

The next thing was PSX backwards compatibility: What a pain in the ass. Some games ran, some ran with issues, some wouldn't run at all. If you've got the patients to try out the "quick load" or "smoothing" options, sometimes you'd get good results...most times it just fucked the game up. Then, you have to have a fucking original PSX memory card to save games!? Are you fucking kidding me!?

Don't even get me started on the HDD...what a joke. Works with *one* game...and even though you can backup card saves on it, you can't just use the HDD to save stuff. My favorite it how it won't even work with every PS2 model. Man, what a joke.

To me, it just seemed like Sony had no idea what they were doing with the hardware features...and just sort of threw them in there without thinking about how people would use them. I don't think I'll ever own one...I'll just wait for PS2 emulation to get to a point where it'll let me play the few PS2 games that interest me...

Bel


Seems like a real precursor to the marketing disaster that is the PS3. The only difference is that people bought PS2s like they're buying Wiis this generation, otherwise the entire product theme is identical.
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