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PlayStation 2 Software Synopsis
rubbadubdub writes: "OK, so the cat's outta the bag with the PS2 but SEGames is continuing their
coverage and for those of you that were able to actually get a Playstation2, they've done a complete
round-up of all the current games, which might be worth an Xmas list
placement or not. It seems as though the launch titles, bar a couple of
exceptions, aren't all that."
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.
It's really sad. I'm here in Japan and there was not a single Playstaion 2 game in the top ten last week. The #1 game is Powersmash for Dreamcast and even though it was #1 it only sold like 22K units. Compare that to last year when the top game of the week for whatever platform was selling 200K+ units a week.
I makes me wonder if games are dead. The cost of making a PS2 game is generally more than double to cost of a PS1 game and yet nothing is selling. Nothing has made it's money back yet. Bouncer comes out tomorrow here in Japan. I don't know yet if that's an "A" title or not but it will be interesting to see if it sells.
The sad thing is even with PS2 out the only games I actually want to play are on N64 (Zelda 2, Mario Tennis, Mario Story, Banjo Tooie). And there's more titles I'm wait for on Gamecube than PS2. In Gamecube there will be new Mario, new Zelda, new Waverace, new Metroid (yes, this is being made, I have friends on the team)
On PS2 the only announced games anybody is looking forward to are GT3 and MGS2
-g
But there are many other problems, features Sony promised that never made the final product.
Although the PS2 does toast bread, it does not do so evenly. And often crumbs become stuck in the heat sink, causing over-toasting.
Even if you are at sea, the PS2 cannot officiate a wedding ceremony.
keep repeating that until the shaking stops
find out what Ming The Merciless thinks about Election2000
I guess we'll have to wait a little while before we see games that show some serious creativity. I'm impressed, but there's better ways of using that horsepower. :-)
I think the quality of games is directly proportional to the ease of programming. PS2 games require so much wrangling of metal that by the time you finish optimizing, there's no time left to make a good game. Maybe when developers have more time and experience with the system, games will get better -- as was the case with PS1.
You've seen it being played? Are you sure?
There is a playable demo of MGS2 out there (due to be shipped with Zone of Enders, another woefully underhyped Konami game with input from Hideo Kojima), but as far as I can tell not many people have had a chance to play it. Even at Konami's recent Gamers' Day the press weren't allowed to get their hands on it - the demo was played by a Konami rep.
For more information, check out the IGN articles on the demo here and here.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
This one has been done to death elsewhere. No, the background is not pre-rendered. Yes, it is fully 3D. Just look at any of the cuboid items in the background and watch the way in which you see different sides of them as the camera moves.
The cause of this effect is the gameplay mechanisms used by Tekken since the first game in the series. It's based on an infinite ring. No trapping your opponent in the corner. No ring-outs. Just two characters fighting. Now that works fine when you don't have any real backgrounds (as in the first games) but if you want more detail in the environments you run into problems. You need to have the infinite arena, but now you need to fit it into a finite surrounding. Something which has previously only been managed by Gallifreyans.
Namco's approach to this in TTT works pretty well, I think. But it does make some people think that the backgrounds are pre-rendered when they're not (can't understand this myself - they're very obviously real-time for me...) The one improvement I'd suggest would be to cover up the join slightly better, with plants or scenery (some stages actually do this in TTT).
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Dunno, I don't Sega see them because 0wnz all the Sony fanboys who U moderate them down below my threshold.
It's all about atmosphere, and thus the 'emotion' engine parlance.
I was sooo impressed with Xenogears for PSX when there were cities you entered, and there were *crowds* of people wandering, walking, shopping, chattering, etc. It made such a difference! It's like Episode 4 and Episode 4 Special Release. A whole bunch of aliens were added to the crowd scenes...
You're accustomed to racing games, but real highways are littered with cars...
Imagine, not a racing game, but a cross country Cannonball Run type game; not only are you racing 10 other people, but you have to deal with navigation, traffic, traffic jams, pedestrians, etc... Not possible in real life (and thus worthy of game status), and possibly quite fun!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Seriously, I know the marketing people are always trying to come up with names to make the products seem newer and more exciting, but is it really SO bad to just follow a regular numbering system? Why do all major commercial product HAVE to come up with funky versioning systems? Intel had 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Pentium III, and Windows had 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 95, 98, and ME. What's wrong with these people? Numbers were invented for counting, why don't we use them for that purpose?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
In a recent interview with the creator of MGS2 (I htink on IGN), he was asked if MGS2 would be done for the Xbox, and said they were not sure... it sounded though like he wanted to move on to other games.
---> Kendall
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Game reviewers, and the game press in general constantly gripe about how there is never anything new in computer or console games.
Yet they are the first to zero in on anything different the moment it gets to market and then relentlessly criticize it, compare it unfavorably to to clones of successful games and generally stomp it into the ground.
Then, they write columns about how all games look the same in the next issue.
They're right, by the way. The games look great, and I'm sure they all cost millions to produce. In terms of gameplay and story, however, most are awful.
Its really too bad.
Folks,
While the PlayStation2 has tremendous potential, right now you're way better off with Sega's Dreamcast.
I mean, look at all the great games you can get for Dreamcast:
NFL2K1--it may not have the snazzy graphics of Madden NFL 2001 for PS2, but the gameplay and the ability to do online gameplay is WAY ahead of what Madden 2001 can do.
NBA2K1--it's probably the best NBA game I've seen so far.
Samba de Amigo--this has got to be one of the most fun party games I've EVER played. It makes you wonder why Konami is probably kicking itself for not bringing their "Benami" games for the PlayStation market at least two years ago.
Soul Calibur--the most stunning fighting game I've ever seen. It is truly one of the great all-time classics of the fighting game genre.
Skies of Arcadia and Grandia II--role-playing games that really demonstrate the power of Dreamcast--and are really great games to play. Only the Final Fantasy VII-IX series can compare to how well these two DC games have been done.
Seaman--one of the most extraordinarily quirky games around. You have to hand it to Sega to do something this unusual.
Shenmue--no other game on ANY system approaches what amounts to an interactive movie like Shenmue does. It really is a breakthrough in many ways for any gaming console.
Dreamfast may not have the vast number of games that are available on Sony systems, but what is available are for the most part of very high quality. That is why Americans are buying Dreamcast consoles in droves, not only because of the shortage of PS2 consoles but because Sega DOES have such a top-notch game selection now available.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
This is good, and hopefull. Remember when nintendo was king? Then sega took a bite out in the 16 bit days, and then sony ruled with the playstation? Now, they are falling flat. This is good, it means there won't be a monopoly. Then again sega is the least profitable company in japan right now, but there games are of much higher quality. As for good games coming out on the ps2, sure, but even the Jaguar got Tempest 2000. Let's just hope the XBox blows up or something. Don't mind me, im tired.
when Push Comes to Shove
Only problem with your argument is that you still have a Playstation (assuming, because you still have the games), so you're not getting anything you couldn't anyway. And likewise, unless you've been buying your "growing collection of DVDs" without a player of some sort, you already have a player.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
the playstation two
i won't not be receiving one
dammit all to hell
This is THE game I`ve seen quickies on that really raised my appetite for getting one of those ps2`s (but I didn`t). Silent Hill 2 being the close second. Where are THOSE reviews?
MGS2 is vaporware. A release date hasn't even been announced yet. And the number one rule of gaming, BTW, is never, never, NEVER advocate a game that you have not actually played. Even after being repeatedly burned by over-hyped games that turned out to be disappointing, some people just never learn.
When the Playstation debuted, the games that were originally released at that time were not any good. Warhawk was one of the first games out on the market and everyone thought that it was great... until the second generation of games came on the market. The original Ridge Racer, which was an awesome game when it was released, fails miserably in comparison to Gran Turismo, which was released a couple of years later.
When a new console is initially debuted, it takes the software developers some time to figure out what the machine is really capable of doing, and how to take advantage of the hardware. And as is the case of the Playstation, the software developers would complain to Sony to open up more of the functions provided by the dedicated processors such as the texturing, matrix and graphics processors.
It was only after the second playstation developers conference, when they opened up more of what was going on under the covers, and provided the developers with more technical details of what the hardware was doing, allowing the programmers to access the hardware directly instead of using the Sony API's, that the quality of games began to increase.
And I expect that it will be the same with the PS2 - after the developers hack on the box for a year and start to understand the hardware better, they will demand better access to the hardware of the box - and when Sony opens this up, the quality and sophistication of the games will skyrocket.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
And the number one rule of gaming, BTW, is never, never, NEVER advocate a game that you have not actually played. Even after being repeatedly burned by over-hyped games that turned out to be disappointing, some people just never learn.
The same goes for movies or any other entertainment venue. Companies or people that put out solid strings of good products can suddently tank. Star Wars 1, anyone? Actually I didn't think it was so bad (I think people had overly high expectations and overly hyped it based on not seeing it) but I didn't think that the original trilogy was all that great, but I was young then, I do have an unwatched trilogy LD set, I'll try to watch it this Christmas, so nobody flame me OK?
Finally, a chance to get it off my chest...
Smuggler's Run has been ingnored by some (including this page) and dissed by others as useless, but it's the most compelling game I've played in a while. I finished it a couple of days ago, and my life seems emptier now.
Before you give up, this isn't a game review as much as an observation on gaming.
Smuggler's Run is an off-road car game; you bounce all over the hills and dales while avoiding myriad cops. The game has little by way of extras; there's no finishing movie, the intro movie is perfunctory at best, and the graphics would have looked only average on a Playstation One. However, the game itself is ridiculously addictive.
Remember all the Crystal/Design Design games on the spectrum? This is like that. It's designed with the gamer in mind, not the dolt who's more impressed with pretty graphics. When you restart the game, you start immediately. None of that crappy 360-circling views; you press (X) and you start. Similarly, there's nothing to delay the advance to the next level.
When I play a game, it's a game. I'm not being lara croft, I'm guiding a bunch of pixels around the screen. No matter how realistic the graphics get, that'll always be the case, and I'll always be aware that that's the case. I don't care about pretty graphics, fancy sound effects or end-of-level movies. I just want a good game.
To encapsulate: Review Smuggler's Run, You bastards. It's great.
Is the huge selection of games with years of backwards compatibility. Abandonware, crappy freeware games, emulator games, game mods like counterstrike etc. are things you will never see in the console world.
--
enterfornone - logging in for a change
If you're going to post a halfassed "story", at least do it right.
Many gaming sites, like IGN have full PS2 launch game overviews, and they at least aren't forgetting games like Ridge Racer V or Tekken Tag Tournament. The newsworthiness of this story is, um, sketchy at best.
How bad are those jaggies on a cheap TV? Cheap TVs do their own anti-aliasing by the nature of their fuzziness! How noticeable are they 8ft from the screen?
...for FAR better coverage of the PS2 launch games (that's right everybody, it's called PS2, NOT PSX2, nor PS/2. Just plain PS2).
It's amazing that this is what passed for SharkyGames' PS2 "coverage". A large number of games were just plain left off the list (Armored Core 2, Midnight Club Racing, Dynasty Warriors 2, Ready 2 Rumble Round 2, Smugglers' Run to name a few). The reviewer also seems to be confused as to which games were out at launch and which came out later (such as Nascar 2001). If we're going to include recently released games, why not include Gradius III/IV, Fifa 2001, Super Bust-a-Move, Theme Park Rollercoaster, etc.)
For those of you who have obtained a PS2 (hooray for camping out at WalMart the night before launch!) and are unsure as to what to get, here are my reccommendations:
-SSX: Everyone seems to agree that this is probably the best launch game out there. Buy it/rent it and you'll see why.
-Madden/Fifa 2001: for the sports fans out there, these games are great.
-Super Bust-a-Move:Yeah, it looks childish, but good grief is it addicting! A puzzle game that's the latest in a long series, you can't go wrong with this one. Girlfriends/fiancees/grandmothers/people who've never seen a console before can pick this one up and become addicted, quickly I might add.
-Tekken Tag Tournament: Great fighting game, lots of extra fighters to unlock, and once you unlock the Bowling Mode (you heard me right), you'll do more bowling than actual fighting. Too cool.
-Dynasty Warriors 2:Imagine a 3D clone of Final Fight with strategy elements and a morale meter, set in 2nd century China. You can have up to 40 other characters on screen at the same time, shortly before you whupp the tar out of them, that is. Oh, and plowing through the ranks of the enemy on horseback, bowling enemy soldiers over left and right is just a little too fun...
-Theme Park Rollercoaster: Umm, Sim City meets Roller Coaster Tycoon, only you can wander your creations in 3D and even ride your coasters. Prepare to lose some sleep.
Games to watch for in the coming months:
-Gran Turismo 3: All I can say is: wow! If you've seen any of the gameplay movies from this upcoming racing game, then you've begun to witness the future of driving simulations. It's eerie how lifelike the replays look.
-Zone of Enders (Z.O.E.): Should be hitting the US lat 1st quarter. Think to yourself: Neon Genesis crossed with a bit of Gundam Wing and Escaflowne. Oh, and it comes with a playable demo of Metal Gear Solid 2. Yowsa.
-Metal Gear Slid 2: Sons of Liberty: If you haven't played MGS for the PSX or the PC, do yourself a favor and do so. Then go watch a trailer for MGS2 and try not to drool on yourself.
Just my $.02.
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I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
IMHO, stick to computer hardware. Observe the jaggies in the Top-Left corner of this picture
Hmmm...it never occurred to me to poke around the web looking for jaggies in screenshots. I usually just enjoy playing the games.
Crazy Taxi justifies the price of a Dreamcast by itself. Highly original and amazingly fun. $100 to get you three blocks in 20 seconds? Done! When played in 3 minute mode, a great party game.
Jet Grind Radio is an acquired taste. Dodging traffic, spraypainting tags. The cel-shader on the characters is kinda neat.
Tony Hawk 2. Even cooler than the excellent Tony Hawk. And the Dreamcast version is nicer looking than the Playstation (1) version.
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Personally, I bought a DC over the PS2. Why? 'Cos the games are better. Listen... 1. Soul Calibur 2. Crazy Taxi 3. Quake III: Arena 4. Unreal Tournament 5. Half-Life 6. Phantasy Star Online And ya got all the modem-related greatness. All for half the price of a PS2.I won't be getting a PS2, because of the difficulty of programming thw machine. By the time the programmers have got up to speed on the PS2, the X-Box will be out and stompin' all over it. Hooray for X-Box.
Thank you for a picture perfect example of mindless and annoying advocacy.
Stay away from Shenmue. I wasted my money on it, perhaps I can help someone else save their money.
The above poster commented, "Shenmue--no other game on ANY system approaches what amounts to an interactive movie like Shenmue does." It is like an movie. You can passively watch a great many prescripted scenes. If you fail in one of the many action scenes, you get to retry it over and over again until you get it right so the movie can continue. Is it time to return home or return to work, you have no option to ignore it. Want to practice fighting when you want in the first third of the game, sorry, no. Most of the game is wandering around taling to people until you talk to the right person to advance the plot. You're free to do as much non-plot advancing stuff as you want (playing arcade games, buying toys, drinking soda), but you have no real control over the plot elements. The "Magic Weather" is cute, but not a real gameplay element. Shenmue is some of the most self-indulgent crap Sega has dumped on gamers.
Sega's "famed designer" Yu Suzuki is a joke. His previous experience making arcade racing games and fighting games in no way prepared him for creating either an adventure game.
Two years ago I saw Nintendo head designer, Shigeru Miyamoto at the Game Developer's conference. His keynote spoke to his equals, other game developers. He talked of his hopes, his dreams, and his work. He discussed playability and the line between designers and programmers. It was a great talk.
Last year Suzuki gave a keynote. Instead of a talk, he was "interviewed" by a Sega marketing person. He was fed shamelessly fluffy questions. He didn't talk about the difficulties. He didn't talk about game design. He didn't discuss making a game playable. He pimped Shenmue's pretty graphics and technical tricks. I was sleazy marketing drivel. It was the worst talk I've ever seen.
The only thing Shenmue has going for it is the graphics. It is very pretty. But it's not playable. Save your money. Get something else.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Yeah. He got the name of the Metal Gear sequel wrong. It was actually "Metal Gear: Solid Snake." Then there was also another game called "Metal Gear: Snake's Revenge."
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I'm starting to wonder whether or not there are actually two versions of Nascar. The first is the version that reviewers are sent resulting in comments like 'good looking racing sim with excellent physics' and 'the graphics are very clean, with good downfield visibility'.
The second version is the one that I have played. It is appalling! Probably no more than 2mb of textures per frame, with one small texture for track another for grass and another for fence. The sky looks airbrushed. The game switches to low-res mode if you turn on the rear-view mirror or more than one car is on screen.
The physics are laughable, playing more like a PSX game.
So, can anyone explain why a game that is so obviously bad is getting good reviews?
Why does that soo remind me of a paticular operating system?
Ummm... You're a newlywed, and you spend the entire weekend playing videogames?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Do you realize that every penny you give Sony is a penny that they have to use in their fight against Napster/2600/etc? Are you all made of so much rubber that you can't resist the pull of corporate marketing....or is it simply a case that the whole lot of you are a bunch of hypocrites?
Ya, that's what I thought.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
My husband and I were two of the lucky ones who got our reservation in for the PS2 last January, and we almost didn't get it because release date was so soon after our wedding. Let me tell you, $316.04 was a little hard to come by.. it was SO worth it, though.
I, not being a sports game fan, was very dissapointed in the small ammount of release titles as well as the fact that most of them didn't look to be worth $52.00. However, we shelled out the money for Summoner as well as Tekken Tag, and I don't regret it. I don't feel that the games review did justice to Summoner. It's a great RPG, and I for one love the fact that there are so many side quests. I like the fact that I can pick and choose which ones I want to do, and still be able to know that all these side quests will take hours to complete, but I can go to the next part of the game any time I want.
And Tekken Tag? All I have to say is that I've had more fun with that game than I have had with any other fighting game ever. The thing that I always hated most about fighting games was the fact that you couldn't play arcade mode with two players, and so in order to beat the game and unlock secret characters and whatever else you could unlock, you had to take turns with your friends, and there was a lot of just sitting there watching the other person play. Besides that, there was never enough stuff to unlock. Neither of these are true in Tekken Tag. There is so much variety in the things to can do: Screen shots, Theatre, team play, survivor mode, etc.. My personal favorite is Tekken Bowl. Tekken is an all-around AWESOME game, and I highly reccomend it to you all. My husband and I have spent many a weekend glued to the PS2 with Tekken Tag, and still have yet to unlock everything. It's not a game, it's an adventure. =)
But, besides those two games, I haven't played any of the other PS2 games as of yet, and I think that's the best part. If it was any other gaming system that came out with such a crappy selection of release titles, I wouldn't waste my money on it until a game came out that I REALLY wanted to play (hint:Nin64), but with the PS2, I can play my library of Playstation games on the system (*Without* having to dish out any cash), and watch our growing collection of DVDs. Yeah, it's a slow-start for the PS2, but it WILL get better..
Bad Spellers of the world UNTIE!!