Slashdot Mirror

• Another Kojima interview
• Gaming Intelligence Agency preview of MGS2
• Lots of game footage from preview disc
• Interview with MGS2 art director
• Konami's official MGS2 site

According to Daily Radar, Metal Gear Solid 2 will also appear on the X-Box.

I tried to dig up the news blip that appeared soon after E3, but too little time to find it. It just said that Konami isn't signed exclusively to Sony and that they would be porting all of their major titles over to X-Box, including MGS2, although it was going to be called something like MGS-X.

And now that Oddword Inhabitants has jumped off the PS2 machine and is X-Box exclusive, this give me more than an excuse to get one.

3 games I'm waiting for on that system: Halo, MGS, Munch's Oddyssee.

• the literal dungeon becomes a metaphorical one; a dank, underground pit of despair from which there is no escape...

• One wishes one could enter Dragons' fantastical world solely to punch each and every one of [the actors] in the mouth.

• the literal dungeon becomes a metaphorical one; a dank, underground pit of despair from which there is no escape...

• One wishes one could enter Dragons' fantastical world solely to punch each and every one of [the actors] in the mouth.

Proceed with caution.

So, the first mass produced computer that you can have a conversation with

Actually, that would be the Dreamcast

--

See this for a bit more detail - I can't find the original link I read a day or two ago which had more information, I'm afraid.

Really, all this Salon article says is that making consoles is a money-losing business in the short term (which we all knew already) and a whole bunch of speculation about Sega and Microsoft and whatnot. I'm waiting for facts, not what ifs.

Anyway, this looks like a bold and promising move for Sega. I always felt their software was the best product they created (Sega 32X and Sega CD were total bombs). In a lot of ways, the Dreamcast hardware is their best since Genesis, but their games are still where the money is.

...to Sony.

Daily Radar are the assholes that destroyed& lt;/A> a PS2 to gain hits on their Website. I think it was one of the Sega zealots that actually did the dirty work. What a moron, he should have just sold it on eBay.

Just to let you know I'm not biased... a Dreamcast is my current console of choice.


Refrag

And who ever posted the screen shots of the two cars, could you be more biased? A) you're comparing different games. B) you never mention what the shots were taken on. If I take a screen shot (I couldn't) of a DC game through my Monitor (the VGA adapters by pass the 'puter, hence no screen shot) and put it next to a screen shot of a game running through an RF apater for my PS2, of course the DC is going to look better.

My advice, rent them both, go to a site like IGN or Daily Radar, find games they gave their highest rating to for each system, rent those, and when you've played them all, buy the one you want. It's that figgin simple.

"News for nerds"?? This is more like "Bickering for Lamers"

psxndc

Submitted this story days ago. Was denied (no biggie, but there is some better, more accurate information here).

And oh, I just found this interesting article on the dailyradar regarding the xbox and ps2

Have fun!

Actually, the Playstation development was opened to some degree - you could buy a $700 system called the Net Yarouse (the link is a slashdot story in fact about a GPL'ed development document for the Playstation!!!!).

But that is beside the point, as I'm not sure the existance of the Net Yarouse really helped moved the Playstation all that much (I never owned a PS, but will be getting a PS2).

As for the X-box points you make however, you have a number of flawed assumptions.

As far as being ahead in performance - from the numbers, sure, it sounds like the X-Box must be miles ahead of published specs for the PS2, the Dreamcast, and the Gamecube. However we all know how specs can lie, right? You take a standard PC platform with a few custom chips and all of the various bottlenecks like memory and PCI bus, against three systems stuffed to the gills with high-bandwith buses, and vastly more customized chips. I'm not saying the X-box will not be more powerful but it might not be the leap you'd think from the numbers.

Also, I have to say that all of the X-box movies I've seen (pretty much all from Daily Radar) have really left me cold. They do not seem to show much going on, and simply look rather bland. That could definatly just be a problem with the demo, but long before the PS2 came out I was seeing movies of stuff generated by the system that impressed me a lot more.

Ethernet is the one thing I'll agee on you with. Sony was silly not to include it in the box, though I think they have a pretty good chance at a high sell-though rate on the HD/Ethernet adaptor.

Now about the "no goofy graphic chip to learn". Yes, that is true for games that use DirectX. But will those be system seller games? I have my doubts. The real coders will, in fact be figuring out how to write DIRECTLY to the new chip nVidia is developing for the system, thus they WILL have to learn a new "goofy graphics chip" in order to produce good games. Don't believe me? Read this review with Michael Abrash from the Xbox technology group. One of the telling things he says, and I quote, is:

"The coolest thing about my job is that Xbox is a fixed platform. Performance is my favorite thing, and for the first time since the original 4.77 MHz PC, I can actually justify taking the time to understand things down to the metal and figure out how to really optimize, because the machine is never going to change."

So as you can see, there are developers that will be programming as far down as they can go, they will take some time to understand the chip. I'm not saying that's bad - I'm just saying the X-box turns out to be little different than a console with a good library.

Now as far as it being more expensive, who can say? I'd personally bet it comes out at $300 just because it pretty much has to. But, I also wouldn't be surprised to see $400. Either one might be real trouble if the Gamecube is coming out about the same time for a smaller price. In a war of FUD, don't you think Nintendo could trump even MS and the X-box?

And for worries even from developers using the system, try out the interview with Scott Miller from 3D Realms. He has some serious doubts about the X-box being so close to the PC as well.

Actually, the Playstation development was opened to some degree - you could buy a $700 system called the Net Yarouse (the link is a slashdot story in fact about a GPL'ed development document for the Playstation!!!!).

But that is beside the point, as I'm not sure the existance of the Net Yarouse really helped moved the Playstation all that much (I never owned a PS, but will be getting a PS2).

As for the X-box points you make however, you have a number of flawed assumptions.

As far as being ahead in performance - from the numbers, sure, it sounds like the X-Box must be miles ahead of published specs for the PS2, the Dreamcast, and the Gamecube. However we all know how specs can lie, right? You take a standard PC platform with a few custom chips and all of the various bottlenecks like memory and PCI bus, against three systems stuffed to the gills with high-bandwith buses, and vastly more customized chips. I'm not saying the X-box will not be more powerful but it might not be the leap you'd think from the numbers.

Also, I have to say that all of the X-box movies I've seen (pretty much all from Daily Radar) have really left me cold. They do not seem to show much going on, and simply look rather bland. That could definatly just be a problem with the demo, but long before the PS2 came out I was seeing movies of stuff generated by the system that impressed me a lot more.

Ethernet is the one thing I'll agee on you with. Sony was silly not to include it in the box, though I think they have a pretty good chance at a high sell-though rate on the HD/Ethernet adaptor.

Now about the "no goofy graphic chip to learn". Yes, that is true for games that use DirectX. But will those be system seller games? I have my doubts. The real coders will, in fact be figuring out how to write DIRECTLY to the new chip nVidia is developing for the system, thus they WILL have to learn a new "goofy graphics chip" in order to produce good games. Don't believe me? Read this review with Michael Abrash from the Xbox technology group. One of the telling things he says, and I quote, is:

"The coolest thing about my job is that Xbox is a fixed platform. Performance is my favorite thing, and for the first time since the original 4.77 MHz PC, I can actually justify taking the time to understand things down to the metal and figure out how to really optimize, because the machine is never going to change."

So as you can see, there are developers that will be programming as far down as they can go, they will take some time to understand the chip. I'm not saying that's bad - I'm just saying the X-box turns out to be little different than a console with a good library.

Now as far as it being more expensive, who can say? I'd personally bet it comes out at $300 just because it pretty much has to. But, I also wouldn't be surprised to see $400. Either one might be real trouble if the Gamecube is coming out about the same time for a smaller price. In a war of FUD, don't you think Nintendo could trump even MS and the X-box?

And for worries even from developers using the system, try out the interview with Scott Miller from 3D Realms. He has some serious doubts about the X-box being so close to the PC as well.

Actually, the Playstation development was opened to some degree - you could buy a $700 system called the Net Yarouse (the link is a slashdot story in fact about a GPL'ed development document for the Playstation!!!!).

But that is beside the point, as I'm not sure the existance of the Net Yarouse really helped moved the Playstation all that much (I never owned a PS, but will be getting a PS2).

As for the X-box points you make however, you have a number of flawed assumptions.

As far as being ahead in performance - from the numbers, sure, it sounds like the X-Box must be miles ahead of published specs for the PS2, the Dreamcast, and the Gamecube. However we all know how specs can lie, right? You take a standard PC platform with a few custom chips and all of the various bottlenecks like memory and PCI bus, against three systems stuffed to the gills with high-bandwith buses, and vastly more customized chips. I'm not saying the X-box will not be more powerful but it might not be the leap you'd think from the numbers.

Also, I have to say that all of the X-box movies I've seen (pretty much all from Daily Radar) have really left me cold. They do not seem to show much going on, and simply look rather bland. That could definatly just be a problem with the demo, but long before the PS2 came out I was seeing movies of stuff generated by the system that impressed me a lot more.

Ethernet is the one thing I'll agee on you with. Sony was silly not to include it in the box, though I think they have a pretty good chance at a high sell-though rate on the HD/Ethernet adaptor.

Now about the "no goofy graphic chip to learn". Yes, that is true for games that use DirectX. But will those be system seller games? I have my doubts. The real coders will, in fact be figuring out how to write DIRECTLY to the new chip nVidia is developing for the system, thus they WILL have to learn a new "goofy graphics chip" in order to produce good games. Don't believe me? Read this review with Michael Abrash from the Xbox technology group. One of the telling things he says, and I quote, is:

"The coolest thing about my job is that Xbox is a fixed platform. Performance is my favorite thing, and for the first time since the original 4.77 MHz PC, I can actually justify taking the time to understand things down to the metal and figure out how to really optimize, because the machine is never going to change."

So as you can see, there are developers that will be programming as far down as they can go, they will take some time to understand the chip. I'm not saying that's bad - I'm just saying the X-box turns out to be little different than a console with a good library.

Now as far as it being more expensive, who can say? I'd personally bet it comes out at $300 just because it pretty much has to. But, I also wouldn't be surprised to see $400. Either one might be real trouble if the Gamecube is coming out about the same time for a smaller price. In a war of FUD, don't you think Nintendo could trump even MS and the X-box?

And for worries even from developers using the system, try out the interview with Scott Miller from 3D Realms. He has some serious doubts about the X-box being so close to the PC as well.

They make the same betamax to PS2 insinuations in this article: http://www.daily rad ar.com/features/game_feature_page_853_1.html

It seems that in the PC gaming world, there are many "disjointed" efforts that haphazardly come together to make a game; programmers optimizing their code (or not) for the latest in OpenGL or Direct3D, then you've got the API handlers written by NVIDIA, ATI, 3dfx, et al translating them as best as possible to the graphic chipsets' native language.

And, of course, all of this works on top of Microsoft's OS. That's 3 pretty big things that are unable to be tuned properly. They must have generic interfaces due to the plug-n-play nature of the PC business. The solution has always been to say stuff like "Pentium II 300MHz, 64MB RAM, 3D Card w/16MB required". With the Xbox, it seems like the designers will have control of 2 of the 3 items listed above, and with a standard set of hardware, optimizing 3d engine/game code has got to become a lot easier. Suddenly the requirements can easily transform from a PII 300 to a Pentium 166, the 64MB RAM turns into 16 MB RAM, and the Video Memory gets to drop considerably as well considering the target is NTSC/PAL output.

Of course, like the Dreamcast, we'll be seeing VGA output boxes so we can play the newest games on our 21" monitors. And since NTSC resolution is hard on the eyes on a 21" monitor, the Xbox will need variable resolutions, forcing faster processors, bigger 3D cards, and more RAM, bringing us full circle to where we started. :P I think the Xbox will be wildly successful if users treat it as what it is: a closed-box console used for gaming, not general applications + games.

Um, hello? Abrash works for Microsoft, OK? In fact, as he states in response to the first question, he's a "Software Development Engineer (the generic Microsoft developer title), Xbox Advanced Technology Group". I don't think the motive behind the article is a direct attack against MS, although the Slashdot editorial team seem to enjoy such attacks as much as the next geek. Rather, I think the interview (which was posted by Daily Radar a few days ago) is cool, since it really asks someone who knows his stuff when it comes to graphics hacking.

Hemos, check before you post man! You did this with the Gamecube article from the other day too...

Is married like THAT bad? ;)

Looks pretty decent to me, personally I'm looking forward to Silpheed, Summoner, and DOA2: Hardcore.

paulb

Starfighter looks nice but may just end up being a prettier version of Rogue Squadron. I'm really excited about Z.O.E., which not only features anime style giant robot fighting over martian colonies but will contain a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2, which recently had some of it's thunder stolen as it will not be faithful to PS2, but will gussy itself up later for M$ with Metal Gear Solid X.

Don't get me wrong, I'll buy the damn thing, but the wait shouldn't kill anyone.

As for Killer Apps, I think GT2000 will be really nice (although not in time for release), and there are a bunch of other nice ones.

A supliment to the CNet article is found at Daily Radar.

I'm don't buy that theory though, although i'm not dismissing it either. There is some sort of an electronics parts shortage, so that could very well affect Sony's production. I'm not a manufacturing engineer-type person, but i would've thought that Sony would have secured the amount of parts they needed to meet their desired output.

In any case, I'm guessing this will peak the demand for them - pre-orders will be flying out of the door. I, being a poor college student, will hold out until the price lowers. Justin

Um, according to this page over at Daily Radar, Spaceworld 2000 was on August 23. That's more than a month ago, dammit! Surely, this can't be news to many?

Um, according to this page over at Daily Radar, Spaceworld 2000 was on August 23. That's more than a month ago, dammit! Surely, this can't be news to many?

It's really spiffy stuff try The Official Page or Daily Radar's article the movie's a 42mb download, but it's darn impressive.

... hmm, upon closer inspection, it seems that the story is still there - http://www.dailyradar.com/news/g ame_news_4601.html ... me thinks that excite.com removed the item from popping up in the search ... no conspiracy here after all ... tsk

Bad news: It won't fit in an old case.

Worse news: Here's the new case design!

I think a lot of it can be attributed to a 2D viewpoint, which of course most "classic" games have. This is similar to, but more specific than, the "limitations of technology make you more creative" argument.

A 2D viewpoint means that the designer of the game can force you to play from the optimal perspective for that type of gameplay. For example, Atari 2600 Combat works really well top-down, as does 1942, Xevious and Frogger.

Imagine playing Combat from a side view perspective, or Donkey Kong from a 2D top down perspective...

While I believe we are getting better and better at it, it's still fairly early days for the 3D perspective. We often give the player too much freedom, or make that freedom to difficult to understand and control. This usually makes the game harder, less direct, and -- I think -- less satisfying.

Currently, the most successful 3D games limit either limit the degrees of camera freedom available to the player, or use a first-person perspective (which has the advantage of being very similar to RL).

A lot of this comes down to interface. I don't think any game but Quake does a _really_ seamless job of immersing you in a 3D game world -- the kind of immersion that, say, Defender gives you effortlessly. This is, of course, highly subjective.

An _excellent_ case study is Konami's brilliant "Metal Gear Solid" on the PSX. If you analyse the gameplay, a lot of it is Pacman. Although the world is polygons, not sprites, the camera is often locked to an (almost) topdown perspective, and the map layouts are very grid/maze like.

Of course, MGS features many sections with different perspectives(including first person), but I believe my point is valid.

One last point: "classic" gaming is alive and well on the Dreamcast. Chu Chu Rocket is new-school 2D puzzling of superior quality. Puzzle Bobble (aka Bust-a-Move) 4 is a fantastic "classic" puzzle game. And Namco have just released Mr. Driller, a total old-school arcade throwback.

Enjoy!

grib.

I think a lot of it can be attributed to a 2D viewpoint, which of course most "classic" games have. This is similar to, but more specific than, the "limitations of technology make you more creative" argument.

A 2D viewpoint means that the designer of the game can force you to play from the optimal perspective for that type of gameplay. For example, Atari 2600 Combat works really well top-down, as does 1942, Xevious and Frogger.

Imagine playing Combat from a side view perspective, or Donkey Kong from a 2D top down perspective...

While I believe we are getting better and better at it, it's still fairly early days for the 3D perspective. We often give the player too much freedom, or make that freedom to difficult to understand and control. This usually makes the game harder, less direct, and -- I think -- less satisfying.

Currently, the most successful 3D games limit either limit the degrees of camera freedom available to the player, or use a first-person perspective (which has the advantage of being very similar to RL).

A lot of this comes down to interface. I don't think any game but Quake does a _really_ seamless job of immersing you in a 3D game world -- the kind of immersion that, say, Defender gives you effortlessly. This is, of course, highly subjective.

An _excellent_ case study is Konami's brilliant "Metal Gear Solid" on the PSX. If you analyse the gameplay, a lot of it is Pacman. Although the world is polygons, not sprites, the camera is often locked to an (almost) topdown perspective, and the map layouts are very grid/maze like.

Of course, MGS features many sections with different perspectives(including first person), but I believe my point is valid.

One last point: "classic" gaming is alive and well on the Dreamcast. Chu Chu Rocket is new-school 2D puzzling of superior quality. Puzzle Bobble (aka Bust-a-Move) 4 is a fantastic "classic" puzzle game. And Namco have just released Mr. Driller, a total old-school arcade throwback.

Enjoy!

grib.

I think a lot of it can be attributed to a 2D viewpoint, which of course most "classic" games have. This is similar to, but more specific than, the "limitations of technology make you more creative" argument.

A 2D viewpoint means that the designer of the game can force you to play from the optimal perspective for that type of gameplay. For example, Atari 2600 Combat works really well top-down, as does 1942, Xevious and Frogger.

Imagine playing Combat from a side view perspective, or Donkey Kong from a 2D top down perspective...

While I believe we are getting better and better at it, it's still fairly early days for the 3D perspective. We often give the player too much freedom, or make that freedom to difficult to understand and control. This usually makes the game harder, less direct, and -- I think -- less satisfying.

Currently, the most successful 3D games limit either limit the degrees of camera freedom available to the player, or use a first-person perspective (which has the advantage of being very similar to RL).

A lot of this comes down to interface. I don't think any game but Quake does a _really_ seamless job of immersing you in a 3D game world -- the kind of immersion that, say, Defender gives you effortlessly. This is, of course, highly subjective.

An _excellent_ case study is Konami's brilliant "Metal Gear Solid" on the PSX. If you analyse the gameplay, a lot of it is Pacman. Although the world is polygons, not sprites, the camera is often locked to an (almost) topdown perspective, and the map layouts are very grid/maze like.

Of course, MGS features many sections with different perspectives(including first person), but I believe my point is valid.

One last point: "classic" gaming is alive and well on the Dreamcast. Chu Chu Rocket is new-school 2D puzzling of superior quality. Puzzle Bobble (aka Bust-a-Move) 4 is a fantastic "classic" puzzle game. And Namco have just released Mr. Driller, a total old-school arcade throwback.

Enjoy!

grib.

Being born outside of America and only having been here for a few years, the amount of violence in American entertainment from music and movies to video games and television has left me stunned.

In a country were the average youth (especially minorities) is disenfranchised, ignored by their parents and has easy access to mind altering substances it is in my opinion a deadly combination to combine that with the current cocktail mix of easy access to firearms and constant daily diet of violence in all forms that children get.

That Americans are desensitized to violence is no longer news, but it amazes me when someone claims that a diet of gratuitious violence and entertainment that consists of 1, 2 ,3 , 4 , 5 , 6 and 7 is their constitiutional right. Now I do not claim that violence would not exist without violent games nor that video games cause violence but even a blind person can tell that we (in America) are extremely disensitized to violence. Nowhere else in the world is so much violence consumed by the public nor is it as easily accessible to minors as in America.

In my opinion until there is a movement to curtail the excessive amount of firepower in the community then moves like this are a stop gap measure on the journey to ridding our communities of violence. Yes, I know violence goes beyond violent video games and is more likely due to other factors (abuse at home, poverty, feelings of persecution, resentment) but the fact is that violent video games are not blameless. But two wrongs do not make a right (allow violent video games to minors since they have access to other violence), after all, the Columbine kids didn't play long games of Pokemon before going on their killing spree.

PS; If you've ever lived in a neighborhood were you go to sleep hearing gunshots and wakeup to sirens you'll know where I'm coming from. Lakewood, Atlanta, GA.

Pardon me for playing devils advocate, but this might actually be good for the gaming community at large.

Think about it: MS-applications bought a games developer who made in-house tools to keep as much operating system specific calls out of their codebase. if you read this interview with Jason Jones, you'll see that Bungie will have complete control over which platforms they develop for. Given the studio's Mac heritage, it's highly unlikely that they will decide to drop Halo development for the Mac.

Furthermore, I'm willing to speculate that with the MS breakup pending appeals, that a linux port wouldn't be too far off either. Bungie always had a strange obsession with worldwide domination, you know :-)

Everybody loves Daikatana! Look at all these great reviews:

• Sharky sez it rawks! yeah right
• FiringSquad: "It is absolutely inferior in almost every conceivable way."
• Damage Gaming say: "I gave it a 3 out of 5, and that's generous"
• CTNews: "in the end all I got was frustration"
• GameSpot gives it a 4.6 out of 10
• DailyRadar: "Ultimate Gas Hands. Need we say more?"
• GameProWorld damns with faint praise: "It's not that bad."
• Computer Games Online gives it 1.5 stars - "amateurish epic lands with a spectacular thud"
• PC.IGN: "It's finally here. And we reviewed it. What? What else do you want us to say?"
• Honest3D - "You all know that I didn't enjoy Soldier of Fortune - well I liked it a lot more than Daikatana."
• GameCenter gives it a 3 out of 10: "Daikatana is a waste of your time and money. Go play Half-Life again instead."
• Happy Puppy: "It'll make you wish it never came out at all"
• GameZone actually seemed to kind of like it
• GameSeek really did like it! "f I had to describe this game in a word or two I would say that it is most entertaining!"
• Ingava didn't hate it all that much
• Game Revolution: "[A]lthough the game is nowhere near as good as it was promoted to be, ... it is not the worst game released this year. It is, however, stunningly outdated and mediocre."
• Maximum PC: "Four years for this?... It sucks. It sucks big-time. In fact, it sucks so bad, we have to wonder what kind of curious monstrosity the developers could have created with an eight-year product cycle.
• GameFan: "It's not as bad as you think."
• PCGamers.Net: "Final Score: 70 out of 100, and I'm disappointed. Sigh."
• GamePig: "Daikatana isn't a bad game, and was often fun to play. However, it's got several flaws that kept me from really enjoying it."

If you're at all curious about how the hell this happened, GameSpot has a great article called "Knee Deep in a Dream: The Story of Daikatana" that gives all the gorey details. They also have a complete walk-through, though the concept kinda makes me shudder...

--
Anonymous cowards are looking forward to the DVD letterboxed release of Ishtar

What's this page now, Old Man Murray or something? While you're over there, look at the SWAT 3 Strategy Guide, it's funny.

A good, "non-biased" review of Daikatana can be found at Dailyradar.

-jpowers

Actually, one disc probably will have all the rpgs. From the Daily Record article: The packs contain support for games roughly based on genre, so one pack will have all the driving games on it, for example.

The bus came by and I got on
That's when it all began
There was cowboy Neal
At the wheel
Of a bus to never-ever land

According to the Daily Radar the Bleemcast will come over 4 different CD's. That article also provides some excellent comparison pics between a regular PSX and Bleem. I'll probally sell my PSX and get Bleem since I already own a DC, and the games look so much better; even better than they would look on a PS2.

So while everyone argues about the exact usage of the term "open source," here are some pages with screen shots of Black and White.

Preview at Daily Radar (English)
Total Video Games - Screen shots and Interview (English)
Games On Line (Italian)
BW Zone at GamesWeb (German)

Enjoy!

Even if you didn't like the current crop of games, there are going to be a lot of game announcements at E3 - I think until E3 is over it's really too early to say the lineup will not look good!

Another factor is that games that may not be that appealing now may be further beefed up, though that does seem a bit of a long shot to me.

Some of the recently announced games that sound pretty interesting to me are (I'm using DailyRadar as my source):

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
This is getting amazing reviews, though sadly release is Fall 2001! If only I get get through to the FTP server to get the in-game movies they have up...

Aliens: Colonial Marines
Squad based Aliens game, not too many details right now.

The Bouncer
A great fighting game with lots of enemies at once.

Even if you didn't like the current crop of games, there are going to be a lot of game announcements at E3 - I think until E3 is over it's really too early to say the lineup will not look good!

Another factor is that games that may not be that appealing now may be further beefed up, though that does seem a bit of a long shot to me.

Some of the recently announced games that sound pretty interesting to me are (I'm using DailyRadar as my source):

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
This is getting amazing reviews, though sadly release is Fall 2001! If only I get get through to the FTP server to get the in-game movies they have up...

Aliens: Colonial Marines
Squad based Aliens game, not too many details right now.

The Bouncer
A great fighting game with lots of enemies at once.

Even if you didn't like the current crop of games, there are going to be a lot of game announcements at E3 - I think until E3 is over it's really too early to say the lineup will not look good!

Another factor is that games that may not be that appealing now may be further beefed up, though that does seem a bit of a long shot to me.

Some of the recently announced games that sound pretty interesting to me are (I'm using DailyRadar as my source):

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
This is getting amazing reviews, though sadly release is Fall 2001! If only I get get through to the FTP server to get the in-game movies they have up...

Aliens: Colonial Marines
Squad based Aliens game, not too many details right now.

The Bouncer
A great fighting game with lots of enemies at once.

• Their console will be obsolete in about a year
  
• The games it can play will be thrown aside along with the console
  

I'm pretty sure I remember reading at a number of game sites that the PS2 supports HDTV sets - I know I saw a picture from Japan of a game running side by side on a normal TV and HDTV (and unlike the US, they have small HDTV sets in Japan that are at least sort of affordable!). Ahh, here's a list of the ports on a PS2 that shows the AV Output

The games have to be written to take advantage of the different aspect ration though - I'm not sure which ones currently support HDTV aspect ratios.

It's DVD player software that's loaded into the PS2 memory card - they have the software on a CD in case you buy a larger memory card, or need to erase the software on the card you have to make room for save games and then want it back later.

I found a bit more detailed article at DailyRadar that explains how to get a PS2 to play a US DVD - it's a button seqence, quoted here from the article:

----------
wait until the PlayStation2 bootup sequence ends, hold the following keys as it fades to black:

L1, Circle and Select
Or,
L3 (the button function of the left analog stick)

If the code is successful, two lines of Japanese text will appear, and the movie will begin normally. If one line of text appears, the code may not work on that movie.
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So it's not perfect, but enough to get them in trouble.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is to recall startup software for the 1.25 million PlayStation2 until that it has shipped in Japan to date, in a costly attempt to fix a bug which allows the consoles to play foreign DVDs.

Due to an international agreement signed by DVD-player manufacturers and film companies, it is illegal in Japan to play back the content of DVDs sold overseas. In light of the serious bug in current PlayStation2 consoles, SCEI has had to ask owners to return the relevant software by mail from April 1, and following that through Seven-Eleven convenience stores nationwide.

A presumably downcast SCEI official said, "Production of replacement software and its mailing will cost us substantially." PlayStation2 consoles will now ship with software that does not support the playing of foreign DVDs.

Other people have posted this already, but since few seem to be noticing I thought I'd mention it again. It's only the CD's that come with the Playstation 2 that are being recalled - these hold the software which you load into the Playstation 2 memory cards, which is in turn used to play DVD's.

The software was buggy, and I believe not only would not play Japanese DVD's (though I could be wrong about that part), but it definatley let them play Region 1 (US) DVD's - quite a no-no in Japan!

You do have to wonder though how many people would return software that would let them play US DVD's. Perhaps Sony will refuse to support the systems at all until the CD's are returned.

DailyRadar (yes the site is a bit juvinile but it has pretty good PS2 coverage) has a story about this as well - they mention that Sony might have to recall all the actual PS2 hardware if the ability to copy DVD's from the component output is not resolved.

Other people have posted this already, but since few seem to be noticing I thought I'd mention it again. It's only the CD's that come with the Playstation 2 that are being recalled - these hold the software which you load into the Playstation 2 memory cards, which is in turn used to play DVD's.

The software was buggy, and I believe not only would not play Japanese DVD's (though I could be wrong about that part), but it definatley let them play Region 1 (US) DVD's - quite a no-no in Japan!

You do have to wonder though how many people would return software that would let them play US DVD's. Perhaps Sony will refuse to support the systems at all until the CD's are returned.

DailyRadar (yes the site is a bit juvinile but it has pretty good PS2 coverage) has a story about this as well - they mention that Sony might have to recall all the actual PS2 hardware if the ability to copy DVD's from the component output is not resolved.

here is a shorter, but IMHO more useful version of the story.