The very first video game console that I bought myself brand new was the original Sony Playstation, and I loved that console with a passion. I wasn't against owning the PS2, when it originally came out, but I couldn't afford one and I honestly didn't see any reason for owning one. I spent a lot of time over at a friend's house playing all the various games we had rented for their PS2, so I knew what it was capable of, but still I wasn't convinced that I needed one.
By that point purchasing a brand new console was out of the question, so I spent most of my time playing NES, Dreamcast and Playstation. This was also a prime time for Playstation as there were copious amounts of titles being clearanced off store shelves to make way for PS2 games. So many good titles at such low prices, I was swimming in a sea of Playstation games and really didn't care to venture outward to anything newer.
It wasn't until 2005 that I entered the sixth generation of video gaming consoles when a friend gave me his old Xbox to repair. By this time there was already an ever increasing number of Xbox games that were getting clearanced off, so I felt right at home while also staying current. The vast difference between what I was familiar with (PS, NES and Dreamcast) and the Xbox was astonishing.
Titles such as Grand Theft Auto 3, GTA Vice City and many of the GTA clones were quickly added to my collection. With a perfectly working Xbox, why would I need a PS2? Most of the titles for the PS2, that I was actively seeking to play, were already on the Xbox, where most reviews said the Xbox versions were slightly better in most ways. This really put a damper on me wanting a PS2, which was already slim to begin with.
A few years later my friend told me his PS2 wasn't working and asked me if I wanted to take a crack at fixing it. Now that I finally had a PS2, what benefits did it hold over my Xbox? The Playstation 2 did have a good amount of exclusive titles as well as a huge library of RPGs, so needless to say this made me feel better about owning a PS2 and allowing myself the option to play these games.
Throughout it's lifetime, the only reason I really wanted a PS2 was to play Liberty City and Vice City stories, which were PSP and PS2 exclusives. Later on I was introduced to the game Bully, which was, at that point, also a PS2 exclusive. Slowly but surely the titles I had clearly overlooked were coming out of the cracks and onto my radar.
After a while I've actually collected a few PS2 consoles, as I find them unreliable. The list of games I own in my PS2 collection has grown beyond what I ever thought I would own, but that's not a bad thing. Right now PS2 games are fairly cheap and fairly common, so I think I got into the PS2 just about the right time. Sadly not in time to collect many of the exclusive RPGs I'd love to collect, which are now hard to find and "worth" more than I'm willing to pay.
Showing posts with label Playstation 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Playstation 2. Show all posts
Monday, December 29, 2014
Monday, March 31, 2014
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
Nearly 2 years ago I wrote about buying games for more than one console, and how I prefer not to do it unless I have no other choice, or I'm getting a good deal on the game. One of the games that I mentioned was Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, which I originally bought for the Xbox 360, and how after my 360 died I purchased the PS2 version, as I have never owned a PS3. Well the PS2 version never got much play time because it is so wildly different from the Xbox 360 version, in terms of game play and story details, that I found it difficult to jump from one to the other.
Now I can understand graphical differences, with the leap from PS2 to Xbox 360, that is to be expected. But the game play and story varies to to an alarming degree, at least for me, too much so to be a game with the same name. Another example I gave was Bully for PS2 and the Scholarship Edition for the 360, while upgrading the graphics and adding additional content, the game was still based on the same core, and was much easier to pick up and continue playing as if it were the original version.
The overall goal is the same; to be a mercenary in war-torn Venezuela, and to complete contracts to earn as much money as possible, destroy as many things as possible and to generally have a good time while doing these things. But with the transition from Xbox 360 down to the PS2, the map has gotten significantly smaller, with less area to explore and even fewer things to destroy. Also the hardware limitations cause many things to popup right in front of you, causing you to take more collateral damage than is really even necessary.
One of the main things in the game are weapons, which seem to disappear if you swap them out for something on the ground, where as in the 360 version they stick around for a while allowing me to use an RPG and swap back to the SMG I just swapped it for 1 minute ago. Also weapons crates seemed to be stashed everywhere in the 360 version, if you find a crate in the PS2 version its a most often a solid object, offering no ammo, grenades, health packets, nothing!
Don't get me wrong, I loved the original Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, which the PS2 version of World in Flames feels like a heavily modified version of, but even the original seems to have a bigger map, more things to destroy and it just all around better feeling than the newer one. Another game with the same feel was Just Cause, which is far more massive than the PS2 version of World in Flames, but the driving and walking mechanics have a very familiar vibe. It just feels more like Just Cause than it does Mercenaries.
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Now I can understand graphical differences, with the leap from PS2 to Xbox 360, that is to be expected. But the game play and story varies to to an alarming degree, at least for me, too much so to be a game with the same name. Another example I gave was Bully for PS2 and the Scholarship Edition for the 360, while upgrading the graphics and adding additional content, the game was still based on the same core, and was much easier to pick up and continue playing as if it were the original version.
The overall goal is the same; to be a mercenary in war-torn Venezuela, and to complete contracts to earn as much money as possible, destroy as many things as possible and to generally have a good time while doing these things. But with the transition from Xbox 360 down to the PS2, the map has gotten significantly smaller, with less area to explore and even fewer things to destroy. Also the hardware limitations cause many things to popup right in front of you, causing you to take more collateral damage than is really even necessary.
One of the main things in the game are weapons, which seem to disappear if you swap them out for something on the ground, where as in the 360 version they stick around for a while allowing me to use an RPG and swap back to the SMG I just swapped it for 1 minute ago. Also weapons crates seemed to be stashed everywhere in the 360 version, if you find a crate in the PS2 version its a most often a solid object, offering no ammo, grenades, health packets, nothing!
Don't get me wrong, I loved the original Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, which the PS2 version of World in Flames feels like a heavily modified version of, but even the original seems to have a bigger map, more things to destroy and it just all around better feeling than the newer one. Another game with the same feel was Just Cause, which is far more massive than the PS2 version of World in Flames, but the driving and walking mechanics have a very familiar vibe. It just feels more like Just Cause than it does Mercenaries.
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