How I Spent My College Years

Author's Rating:

Pros: A VAST Catalog Of Games, Best Game System Yet

Cons: Slow Loading Times, Not Very Reliable Hardware

The Bottom Line: 
Why in the world don't you already have a Playstation? Huh? Answer me!

Author's Review
* - For my 100th review, I wanted to do something special, and decided to do a review on the Playstation 2. I then felt a little awkward about this, since the Playstation was my best friend long before it’s sleeker, sexier sequel. It’s kind of like saying that the girl you have been dating for 3 weeks is WITHOUT A DOUBT the best girlfriend you’ve ever had, when in the back of your mind, you know that there are other special ladies who deserve the title more. So, I’m making my 99th review about the original, the king of all consoles, the Playstation. The Playstation will get its proper respect, and then my 100th review for the PS2 will be like the dawning of a new era (okay, I’m a geek...so sue me).

Ahhh, the Playstation. Just the mention of its name sends me off on a nostalgia trip, and the thing is actually still a living, breathing gaming console. It’s best days are certainly behind it, and the release of the Playstation 2 is just about sounding its death knell. However, the Little Grey Box O’ Wonders is still kicking as we speak, and I would like to take this moment to express my appreciation for all the sleepless nights, Mountain Dew-fueled weekends, blisters on my thumbs, and mediocre college GPA this little marvel is responsible for.

My first real glimpse of this fabulous new machine was in 1996 during my freshman year in college. You see, the lounge area at the front of my dorm building had a few couches and a big TV, which was meant for people to watch and socialize with each other. However, we had a particularly geeky guy living in the dorms who had been kicked out of his dorm room by his roommates (apparently for being an annoying geek). This guy basically lived on those couches in front of the TV, and acted as if it was his TV and his domain. Given that I had my own dorm room to go to (complete with a TV), I didn’t really think twice about the guy.

That is, until he got a Playstation.

I came into the dorm one day and noticed that the geeky guy had a large crowd of people gathered around “his” couch. I pushed my way into the crowd to see what the hubbub was about. There, sitting on “his” coffee table, was a Playstation, a new gaming system I had only heard rumors about, and secretly fawned over. On the screen, the geeky guy was playing a football game (I believe it was Madden 97), and it was beautiful. The textures, the graphics, the colors...I found myself enthralled by this new system, and I suddenly hated the geeky guy with a passion. I would have to wait until that Christmas to get my own Playstation (thanks, Mom and Dad!), and start my 5-year long journey with this trusty companion.

Throughout our 5 year relationship, my Playstation and I have been many places and seen many things. Over this span, my poor little console has been beaten, battered, had things spilled on it, had its controllers hurled, and has never so much as sputtered. It has now taken on a dingy, blackish quality that shows its age. It now has to be set up on its side in order to play games properly, but it soldiers on. It has now been relegated to backup duty, with my shiny, new Playstation 2 handling the bulk of the gaming. The Playstation now resides in a spare bedroom, patiently waiting for our pleasant little sessions, which now get farther and farther apart.

Admittedly, the games were pretty weak when the Playstation was first introduced, though at the time, they seemed revolutionary. Does anyone really admit to still loving a game that was in the first wave of releases for the new console? I had the usual suspects - Madden 97, Tekken, etc. They were all played religiously at the time, because no one really knew that the Playstation was capable of so much better. It wasn’t until such landmark titles as Final Fantasy VII pushed the graphical envelope that people wondered exactly where the ceiling was with this little machine. As it turns out, Final Fantasy VII wasn’t even close to what the Playstation was capable of, and Squaresoftt themselves pushed things even further with the two subsequent sequels.

For a glorious couple of years there, the Playstation had absolutely no equal. No other system could offer the knockout combination of stunning graphics, disc technology (to allow for cool movie sequences), and a gigantic library of games. The only real competitor that was even on the radar was Nintendo 64, and it suffered compared to the Playstation because of those factors - its cartridge format didn’t have enough memory for CGI cut scenes or movie sequences, and for quite a while, its library just couldn’t compare to what Sony was offering.
And there were some games that single handedly persuaded people to buy a Playstation. For many, this was the before-mentioned Final Fantasy VII, which was a landmark game in many ways. It brought the niche market of RPG’s into the forefront of the gaming industry, it showcased high production values and jaw-dropping graphics for the time, and it got people who had sworn off the Playstation to go out and buy one. For this, Sony should be getting down and massaging Squaresoft’s feet for the next twenty years or so.

It is also worth mentioning that the Playstation as a console brought RPG’s to the forefront of the gaming world. Throughout my days on the original Nintendo and Super Nintendo, I played the standard fare of RPG’s - the Final Fantasys, the Dragon Warriors, etc. But it wasn’t until the Playstation came along that RPG’s suddenly became a legitimate gaming genre that could actually make some money. Until then, most of the cool RPG’s were never even released in the US, because they expected sales to be pretty bad. With the booming success of Playstation RPG’s, suddenly gamers experienced a golden age as game after game came from overseas to grace our consoles. Some games that were written for other platforms, such as Lunar 1 and 2, were translated for the Playstation, and took on a second life. As far as RPG’s were concerned, there had never been a more prolific gaming console than the Playstation.

It is with a heavy heart and a misty eye that I must say goodbye to the days when the Playstation ruled the earth. Sony now faces an uncertain future in which they are no longer the biggest kid on the block - will 2000-2010 be remembered as the X-Box decade? The Game Cube Age? It’s hard to say, but without a doubt, the 90’s belonged to the Playstation, and it will always have a place in my gaming heart. ::sniff::

For those of you who are actually looking for a product review here - by all means - GO OUT AND BUY THE DAMN THING! You can get a brand spanking new PS ONE system for something insane like $89. If you have never owned a Playstation, do yourself a favor and run out and get one now while there is still a healthy selection of new and used games for the console. Although it is a little late in the review, this is my glowing recommendation for the Playstation: 2 blistered thumbs up!