08.04.06

My new Playstation

Posted in General at 8:57 am by jw

I finally broke down in my personal dislike for console gaming last weekend and went out to WalMart to get a PS2.  The rationale was pretty simple – my wife wanted to play console games like Sonic, which she apparently enjoyed as a kid, and consoles really aren’t that expensive.  The decision process on which console to get was a lot more involved, and was hampered by the fact that we both had different things we wanted out of the machines.  In the end, our list looked something like this:

PS2

• Excellent library of games (including the FF series for me!)
• Significantly behind the leading edge (XBox and X360)
• Cheap
• Well supported by mod chips for if and when we move back to Australia
• No HDTV (480p doesn’t count, really)

XBox

• Good game library
• Better graphics than PS2, worse than X360
• Relatively cheap, but only available second hand or refurbished
• Extremely well supported by mod chips and third party mods (it’s just a PC after all)
• Some HDTV (720p mostly)

X360

• Limited game library and limited backward compatibility
• Very strong leader in its generation
• Expensive (no way I want a core system)
• No mod chips yet, and I really do need these.
• Excellent HDTV support

Wait for a PS3

• $600??!?  You’re kidding…  I’d buy a PC for that.

 

So, weighing all that up we ended up going for a PS2 with the intention of looking closely at the X360 once the PS3 comes out and price adjustments happen.  I’m still amazed by how small the PS2 actually is – it really looks like a slightly oversized CD walkman.

As you may have guessed, I’m having fun playing the FF series now and my wife has finished the Ice Age 2 game and is looking to play a Wallace and Grommit game next.  She’s promised to look at FF and Kingdom Hearts sometime in the future but I think she’s holding off because she knows I want her to look at them and somehow hates it when I’m right about the games she’ll enjoy (her logic is really weird sometimes, of course I know what she likes after being married seven years).

In any case, the PS2 has reinforced my belief that PC gaming isn’t going away and that it offers a viable platform for the future despite console fans crowing over its death with vapid regularity.  You really can’t beat a keyboard/mouse interface for a whole class of games (RTS/MMOG) and the incremental upgrade process you can use in PCs really makes them much more powerful in the long run.

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