Sony - PlayStation 2 console Review

The Sony PlayStation2 is quickly becoming one of my favourite game systems and believe me, I played a lot of them over the years (but you already knew that, eh?)! The system has nearly 800 PS2 games already available and many of them are actually pretty good. The PS2 is a DVD player, a Playstation, a CD player, and most importantly a powerful 3D system that uses something called the Emotion Engine.

Just listen to my story here: I finally broke down on February of 2001 and bought a PS2. It was at a Newmarket Electronic Boutique (EB Games) where there were 12 PS2's still left, and when it was all said and done I spend easily over $700 dollars that day alone! First it was $449.99 for the system itself, $49.99 for the 8 Meg Memory Card (old PS Memory cards will only work on PSone titles so I needed one), and $49.99 for the PS2 game Gradius III & IV, plus 2 PSone titles and WWF Royal Rumble 2000 on DVD. So was it worth it?

HECK YA! I still didn't have a DVD player at my place yet and I noticed how cheap some of the DVD movies are getting now so that's one problem solved. You can't forget abot all the great games this system has like Jax 3, Final Fantasy XII, Metal Gear Solid 3, Gran Turismo IV, GTA San Andreas, and many more.

The system isn't perfect though because the PS2 DVD player is of very low quality I find. I often find myself turning the volume up to hear anything but when the volume gets too high there is also a annoying buzzing sound that goes along with certain DVD's. Another problem with the DVD quality was the picture looked kind of fuzzy or pixeled so you be prepared for a second rate video. It's still a great start for first time DVD users but the hardcore DVD fan (and there are a lot of them) will not be happy with the PS2 DVD player.

Although the rival GameCube and Xbox have stronger speed processors than the PS2, the PS2 has a stronger line up of games and the DVD and Playstation are standard so you have more options besides the PS2 games themselves. I'm still a little upset at Nintendo for not making the GameCube backward compatible with the N64 games (What's up with that?), it would have helped them sell the system like it helped sell the PS2 here! The Xbox really doesn't have all the games I'm looking for (I'm not into FPS) either and Sony really knew what they were doing with the Playstation2's library , so this system is a safe bet for any type of gamer (beginner or expert) out there. The PS2 comes highly recommend by my opinion and now at the cheaper price, you have no excuse not to get one.

PS2 overall rating: 90/100

StarSoldier1 2007
(Ryan Genno)