g.man wrote:

Where does the time go?

Quite a lot of it went on Final Fantasy VII.

Nice post, Jon.

JonB wrote:

By the time I got the Gamecube whenever it was that that came out, the PS1 was pretty knackered. It had to be turned upside down to read the discs, but it soldiered on all the same and well deserved its retirement.

Odd thing is I never bought a PS2 or PS3, and the have only in the last few weeks got my second Sony machine in the shape of a Vita. Not getting the PS2 was clearly a mistake in hindsight.

My PlayStation was still going strong until a couple of years ago - actually, it was still going strong, I just didn't need it anymore as I could use the PS2 for all that stuff. They were rugged little beasts, imo - far more reliable than either the dreamcast (which I loved) or the 360 (which I ended up loathing).

The Vita seems to be floundering, unfortunately, which is a shame and not because of a lack of games - whatever the public perception may be.

However, as much as I adore the PlayStation one and two, things have changed. I don't know if we'll see another console like those again. Those consoles came at a time when 3rd parties still made games tailored to a console and those two consoles had shit loads of amazing third party exclusives. Today, the legacy of those consoles is a new generation of players who will, whatever console they chose, be able to reasonably expect a wide variety of great games. It's all multi-plat now, guys and gals (dlc and 1st party excluded) and so the whole console war shindig feels more and more pointless.Without Sony and Microsoft, I don't think that'd be the case.

Yeah, I think N64 killed it multplayer-wise. My bro had an n64 with goldeneye and the like so that got played.

That said, I did do multiplayer on the PSOne - multisystem Red Alert was top fun as well as 2-player Gran Turismo 2, WipEout 3 special edition and ISS Pro Evolution 2 absolutely killed it for me.

Not to mention multitap Micro Machines...

As I shun what I perceive to be humdrum attempts at pseudo-realism, the Playstation had no real attraction for me. The load times, something I was still twitching over from the 8bit micro era put me off too. I wasn't convinced that gen of hardware was really up to the job of a proper 3D racing game either and the popup of early titles on Playstation and Saturn kiosks in shops underlined that belief.

Its controller was laughable - a SNES knockoff with extra shoulder buttons. Only when Sony copied Nintendo and added analogue sticks did it become passable.

It was a piece of bonkers genius that tipped me over. Parappa the Rapper. 

I got a late release model - still the loveable grey slab but its firmware has a visualiser built into the CD player. It is still going strong. My Playstation games collection is on the quirkier end of its library and I am very fond of it even though it comes 3rd in my ratings for that gen. 

Even though I have a couple of PS2s I wouldn't be without one. I have 2 of them with a linkup cable and some doubles of R4 and Wipeout 2097 and a pair of those weird twisty controllers that I have yet to try in linkup mode.

I have imported a few games too - it is a decent platform on which to play 2D shmups from Japan - which many mistakenly believe to be unique to the Saturn. Gradius Gaiden is a Playstation exclusive released only in Japan and is still believed by many to be the best in that series.

It changed gaming - no doubt about that - for the better in many ways but it also set us on the path of the annual unimaginative update.

The dpad is shit.

Brooks wrote:

Checked out all the most appealing stuff since though, especially as emulation became sound.

Any standouts?

I think it says a lot about the quality of games on the machine that we are still playing a lot of franchises that launched on.

Driver was amazing and a game I haven't seen mentioned whilst having a morning skim through this.

I always thought of it as GTA in 3D with amazing driving and the well documented 70s car chase feel, replays were actually a thing back then.

Most of the other classics have been mentioned but MGS and RE2 would round off my top 3.

Ooo and Ridge Racer, specifically Type 4.

@Brooks mentioned Mr Domino. PS1 had other appealing puzzle style oddities such as Landmaker, Rox, Starsweep, Devil Dice, Kurushi,, Cleopatra Fortune, Turn About and One Piece Mansion.

After Parappa came Beatmania and Vib Ribbon.

It had Castlevania Symphony of the Night but I preferred the later and back to old-school Castlevania Chronicles.

Metal Slug X has some nice extras that I believe are exclusive to the Playstation version.

Retro wise it has the Namco Museum series and the Capcom Gen series that have been recycled ever since. It got an excellent version of Q*Bert too.

RTypes (with 1 & 2 on disc) was proper RType at home for the 1st time and the release of Delta meant Playstation served that series better than any other console.

It also got a port of Neogeo's Viewpoint. 

Tempest X3 is an exclusive - a Minter approved variant on T2K. (T2K mode is unlockable anyhow)

Midnight in Vegas (complete with lounge/swing music bonus CD) is close to the best casino/gambling console game out there and the quirky Virtual Kasparov served chess heads well.

It's the home of Wipeout and Wipeout 3 SE is still lovely as is Ridge Racer 4.

The Capcom versus brawlers are poor relations compared to the Saturn versions though; particularly the later Saturn releases using the 4MB expansion cartridge.

retroking1981 wrote:

Driver was amazing and a game I haven't seen mentioned whilst having a morning skim through this.

I mentioned Driver...briefly...I certainly could ha e expanded a little more. It was a top game and, while it may seem laughable now, it was very next gen. Open world 3D, with replays - I was blown away.

I'm not sure the Sony and Nintendo joint venture would have had anything like the same impact. Sony seemed to really understand the possibilities of the CD, filling them with content - voice work, levels, cars, tracks, cut scenes. Nintendo and Sega generally saw them as a way of dropping the cost of cartridges. Even the Dreamcast was still a bit of an arcade machine, which was great, but probably doomed them.

The strength of the advertising can't be denied either.

I mentioned driver too. Cracker.

@davyK genuinely curious - how was R-Types 'proper r-type at home' as opposed to the Amiga releases, which were amazing?

My Playstation memories are still pretty vivid, selling my massive Megadrive collection and then still not having enough money for the £300 machine. It wasn't until Christmas came that I could finally afford my console with no games and no memory card. That demo disc got a hammering; one level of Wipeout with the Chemical Brothers song (Chemical Beats), Battle Arena Toshinden, a video of Jumping Jack Flash, a controllable T-Rex tech demo and some sort of Musical video graphical trip. However shit that sounds it still ranks as one of my best Christmas memories!

Games were expensive and I managed to buy Wipeout, Loaded and Crazy Ivan within the first year but it wasn't until a Japanese school friend got me into the dodgy world of blue tack and disc swapping I managed to sample the delights of Tekken, Ridge Racer (no Daytona). Shady times but great memories. I can't add much more as text walls become unmanagable on my phone.

I only got one because my Dad had a surprise promotion at work, I'd asked the previous Christmas and he just took one look at the price and laughed. Come my birthday the following May he'd been given the job of head of department at his school so decided (uncharacteristically) that he wanted to treat me. In retrospect I realise my Dad bought me this as he knew my Mum was going into hospital soon and at the time it wasn't entirely certain that she'd make it out again (this was all hidden from me at the time so I only figured it out years later).

I got mine bundled with Jumping Flash, Ridge Racer and Tekken from Curry's. Still a fantastic deal. All three blew me away, I hadn't really bothered with my SNES since I'd seen the first few Playstation screenshots in the various games mags I bought, suddenly my once favoured Nintendo machine looked like an pathetic underpowered kids toy in comparison. It pained me to be playing Kevin Keegan's Player Manager when somewhere in Japan there was this amazing machine able to fully recreate the incredible Ridge Racer arcade machine I'd played on holiday the previous year.

The day after my Birthday my bedroom was full of friends and people pretending to be friends just so they could have a go on it. I only had one pad at that stage but despite that a steady stream of visitors passed through to have a go. I could tell my Dad was impressed by this new machine as he told me to bring it downstairs and plug it into the big telly, something unthinkable in the SNES era. Ridge Racer blaring out cheesy techno-lite on a big TV screen in the front room genuinely was just like the arcade machine. I'd always assumed 'arcade perfect' was an impossibility, even when reviews told you a game was arcade perfect, you knew deep down that it wasn't going to be the case.

I think Jumping Flash was actually my favourite of the three, despite the thrill factor of RR, it genuinely baffles me the series wasn't continued into the PS2 era as both games I bought were brilliant. The sense of vertigo from leaping from one isolated little polygonal island to the next was something I'd never experienced at the time. It took the platform game, which everyone was bored to death of after the 16-bit overload and made it fresh and exciting. Possibly my favourite Playstation game, just for that initial period when I was obsessed with it. I think I've completed it more times than any other game (it's not very difficult apart from the crappy tunnel levels).

Other PS memories - being stoned for one of the first times ever and sneaking up to my bedroom (stifling the giggles) and playing Wipeout 2097 for hours, mouth agape. The perfect synthesis of graphics, control and sound (at the time). The original Wipeout handled like a shopping trolley, despite the amazing visuals and so the sequel was the one I loved.

ISS Pro '98 tournaments, FFVII being the first time I ever understood the appeal of RPG's, Pandimonium, RR Type 4 and the remastered OG Ridge Racer disk that came with it, Time Crisis and hogging the TV (again) on Christmas morning, my Nan deciding to have a go and screaming "take that you bloody swine!" as she pumped virtual lead into the screen, Libero Grande, a football game years ahead of it's time (and really playable), Ace Combat 2, Brian Lara '98, Actua Golf with relaxing chilled out commentary, Soul Blade, Fluid - the music creation game featuring a dolphin swimming the seas that I never quite understood, Gran Turismo 1, the only racing simulation that I ever really enjoyed....

I think I'm running out of nostalgia here, as you can tell I did enjoy that machine though - even when I had to turn it upside down to make it work after it had taken four or so years of constant punishment.

davyK wrote:

as is Ridge Racer 4.

Best game music ever!