PS2 For a Day - The Gaming Heaven

On the 21^st of January this year, four of our staff members,
(Ryan, Hojo, Eyezaq and Buck) ..had the honour of testing a Playstation 2. Wooa, bet you've got one by now though.
It was an interesting experience. Here is their story..

TURNING IT ON

After a lunch of Burger King, our eyes drifted toward the mysterious blue box in the corner of the room. Slowly we crept towards it, our eyes, bulging, our mouths frothing. As our hands rested on the box, we felt a great sense of power flowing through our bodies. Gently we lifted the lid, revealing the shiny black box. It was everything the pictures made it out to be.
It was glamorous.
Carefully, we got all the equipment out of the box and connected it to the TV.
At last, it was ready to go.
Hojo pressed the eject button.
Nothing happened.
He pressed the button labelled “Reset”.
Nothing happened.
He sat and thought for a while, then remembered the little switch on the back. Eagerly it was flicked on, and two little lights on the front burst to life. The TV screen flickered, then the words “Sony Computer Entertainment” appeared. We quickly pressed the reset button, remembering there was still no disk inside. The light that was green turned red. We smiled, and pressed eject. The little disk tray slid out, but to our horror the red light turned green again and “Sony Computer Entertainment” came back onto the screen. Hurriedly, we put the disk in and pressed reset once more.
At last the machine did what we wanted it to. We grabbed the controllers and braced ourselves.

THE GAMES

RIDGE RACER V

The first game we tested was Ridge Racer V. We decided to try the vs. mode first, as we couldn’t decide who should have the first turn. Hojo and Buck grabbed the controllers. After selecting their cars, they waited for it to load. At last, a split screen appeared and the race begun. The cars flew off, and the smooth resolution was obvious from the start. However, after much struggle we angrily discovered that you could not change the view to out of car mode. We continued around the track. As the race went on, we got more and more frustrated. By the end of the race, Everyone was looking admiringly at the copy of Gran Turismo sitting nearby. However, we decided not to play our old favourite, and instead try the other PS2 game we had.
Our overall opinion on this game: The graphics are pretty smooth, but are nowhere near the PS2’s limit. The game play isn’t exactly wonderful, but was still OK. Not really the sort of game you want to buy unless you are a big fan of Racing Games or the Ridge Racer series.

SMUGGLERS RUN

After once again trying to load the disk while the PS2 was turned off, we finally got Smugglers Run going. Once again, we chose vs. mode and the game begun. After a few minutes of playing, we decided that it was great fun, but the two player graphics could have easily been mistaken for a PSX game. The one player mode was a lot better however, and the game play was pretty good. Plus, the massive arenas were awesome.
Our overall opinion on this game: Pretty good, but still could’ve been improved, particularly with some of the graphics. It still is however, one of the most advanced games we’ve ever played and we got hours of fun out of it.

OUR OVERALL OPINION ON THE PS2

This is easily the best console on the market. Its smooth look, smooth graphics and many other features make it a damn good machine.
The release games might not be that great, but we’re sure there are better ones on the way.
And so, we put the machine back in its box, and sent it to a better place – the video store where it came from.

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