Unboxing a PlayStation 2 Console 24 Years Later!
[playful jazz music] [computer buzzes, beeps] - Greetings and welcome to another LGR unboxing of a game console, decades later. And this time around it is one that I've been wanting to get to pretty much more than any of the others that I've done so far. And that is the PlayStation 2, in its wonderful blue box here. And this is not only one of my favorite consoles, but it is "new*** in box," with a lot of asterisks out beside it. One of those that was sold to me "new in box," and as usual, you never really know, but we're gonna find out if it is or not. And also just go over the PlayStation 2 in general, bit of historical context, and of course, unboxing it, setting it up, the games, peripherals, and of course we're gonna play a lot of games and just dive into this thing and explore it as if it was 25 years ago.
Or really 24 years ago when it actually launched in the year 2000. But this has been in the social consciousness in gaming for 25 years, since it was first announced in 1999. But yeah, it didn't actually launch until March of 2000 in Japan, and then October 26th, 2000 in North America, and then the 24th of November in Europe. But yeah revealed the year prior as seen in this November, 1999 issue of PlayStation Magazine among every other publication imaginable. But you know, this one of course was one of the standouts, diving into every detail that they gleaned from the Japan reveal of the console, of course, giving their takes on what it looked like.
It's interesting, they called it an unusual looking console resembling a PC tower as much as it does a video game system. It'll go horizontal or vertical, ooh! I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. It seems like every PlayStation console ever since this has been decried as "odd looking." But of course, whatever, it was the capabilities that were extremely exciting, like having a DVD-ROM drive, digital audio with surround sound, higher capacity memory cards, and hard disk support, full PlayStation backwards compatibility, USB and FireWire ports, and "muscle" as PlayStation Magazine put it.
Of course, referring to the much hyped Emotion Engine, the processing unit developed jointly by Toshiba and Sony, giving the PS2 a custom 295 megahertz RISC processor based on the MIPS R5900, integrating the 64-bit CPU, 128-bit VPU, memory management, I/O and more into a single package. Alongside 32 megabytes of system memory and four megabytes of video memory. I mean, it was a heck of an upgrade compared to the PlayStation 1, and anything else on the market at the time. And then to top it off, the fact that it had a DVD drive included.
Just insane, and absolutely a killer blow to the Sega Dreamcast already on the market. Cuz DVDs were completely taking off in terms of movies, and having support built in for $299 in 2000? This was such a massive selling point, considering a standalone DVD player would cost about the same at the time still. Though many cost less. Either way it didn't play games, whereas the PS2 did! That is if you could even find one at all.
The launch was absolutely absurd. It's the first console release I remember seeing covered on the nightly news, showing crazy lines of people waiting all night to buy one, shortages lasting way longer than anticipated, and resellers flipping them for a quick buck. It truly was the console of the future. But eventually Sony course-corrected and it went onto become the best selling console to date with over 155 million units worldwide throughout its lifetime. So you'd think that these in the box like this would be relatively easy to find for a decent price, but not really, at least not these really early ones.
You'll find a lot of the slims and the later bundles and re-releases and things. And I don't exactly know which one it is. I mean, yeah, it's a 30001 model, but in terms of like which one of the releases of this blue box? I don't know. There's several of them, each having slightly different text and different screenshots for example games and whatnot. But that's enough of all this. Let's open this sucker up.
And yeah, it has been opened before, but the contents are supposed to be unused and still in their original packaging and whatnot. So we've got a composite cord right there for the video, a PlayStation 2 original black controller right there, the DualShock 2. We have our power cord, so it's basically a figure eight lead, but it has this little square bit on there. All right, so in here we've got an assortment of paperwork right off the bat there. So, all kinds of things.
And yeah, that does not look like it has been taken outta there. That is early 2000s tape at least. I don't know, I hope anyway. And the console, yeah, I wonder if that serial number matches the box.
It doesn't look like it to me. PT13, somethin-nother. It's definitely been repackaged, but in good shape.
And about as close as I think I'm gonna get to unboxing an original US release. The Japanese ones, you can find them new in box all day. As usual, when you buy these things on eBay, the new in box status is debatable.
[soft piano music, plastic crinkling] There is our Sony PlayStation composite video cable, which is just fine. I only ever used composite back in the day. Nowadays I moved on to component, so here is one of the official PS2 component cables, which that gives you a nice clear signal, especially on a good CRT, I think all the way up to 1080i on games that support it.
But 480i for the most part, and also 480p on progressive sets. And you also nowadays have options like this here, one of the HD Retrovision cables, and these are quite wonderful. All right, now the controller, I'm actually pretty excited to use because I think, oh man, I might've only ever used one that was new before? All my PS2 stuff came from thrift stores. Oh yeah, look at that. That is... [pleased chuckle] [sniffs] Again, smells fantastic.
Oh, that feels so snappy. Mmm! Yeah, looks legit, at least to my eye. I've definitely had a few bootlegs over the years and this doesn't seem like one of those. And yeah, these PS2 controllers they were interesting with the DualShock 2 here, not only was it basically just an upgrade of the analog controller that they released for the PlayStation 1, just a year or two before the PS2 came out, if I remember.
But yeah, it also has these pressure sensitive inputs, especially the face buttons, and yeah, it's analog instead of digital. There is a pressure sensitivity going on. See what we got in the paperwork. Important problems! If you have them, contact them.
This ESRB ratings board guide. [laughing] I wonder how this ended up getting bundled in there. What kind of agreement happened? Because this was not in any of the other consoles from this generation that I've unboxed.
"Get a free PlayStation 2 DVD demo disc." Heck yeah, PlayStation Underground was still going. Actually don't think I've ever used a demo disc for the PlayStation 2. Quite a few for the PS1.
There's that lovely blue stand for the vertical mode of the PlayStation 2. I always thought that looked so cool. And here is the PS2 instruction manual, something I have genuinely never seen before.
Would you look at that? The model number is wrong, 39001 from 2002. So another thing in our repackage theory, feeling a bit scammed. All right, all of the different discs that you can play in your PlayStation 2. And I like how it shows that there were different colors for them, because yeah, games weren't just on DVD-ROM.
They were on CD-ROM as well. And not only does it have the compact disc logo on there, instead of DVD, but they were blue, as opposed to the black from the PlayStation 1. Of course, the majority of games were on DVD-ROM. And you have your standard silver back right there. All these cute little illustrations of things not to do with your PlayStation 2.
Don't bring it in the bathtub. Don't melt it with a radiator. Don't take it outside in the rain. Don't call it on the phone.
Don't screw it with lightning bolts. This is very sensitive equipment, okay? All right. So yeah, all the things it comes with, positioning the console. If you have that stand, which was sold separately, I heard that that caused some reading errors.
But honestly, I've never used of these vertically and I've never had one of those stands. All the troubleshooting, you gotta love it. Just about every one of 'em, it's like, clean the disc.
Perhaps you should clean the disc, maybe clean the disc. Hmm, the disc, it might be dirty and need cleaning. Yeah, that's definitely PlayStation 2 life right there. All right. And the console itself. [jazz continues, wrapping unwraps plastically] Wow.
That's, that's looking pristine, dude. Oh, that's just, it's just beautiful isn't it? That logo, that finish. Ah it's so, yeah, I don't know, it just, it still looks futuristic somehow. You got a fan right here.
Power switch, power goes in here. And our digital optical out for your audio, your AV out, different cables. And of course the expansion bay. Wonderful.
Our fresh eject and power/reset buttons. [inhales deeply] Ohh, this thing smells like aging electronics, and plastic that'll probably kill me someday. So yeah, we've got our optical drive, a tray-loading DVD drive. It's actually a four speed DVD-ROM and the little logo right there, which is like this.
Or you can rotate it for when it's in vertical mode. So again, our Magic Gate encrypted memory card slots and PlayStation 2 controller ports, which these are backwards compatible with the PlayStation 1 peripherals and things as the whole system plays PS1 games, but also all those peripherals. This lovely little blue gradient section here with two USB 1.1 ports. And also this, what was it called, i.Link by Sony? S400 is what they called it. But really it's just FireWire 400, or Sony's version of it.
And you use this for system linking different systems together for multiplayer and such. Yeah, the memory cards, they were mostly these from Sony, these eight megabyte memory cards. But of course third parties went way higher up. But... yeah, 8 whole megabytes! [laughs in storage capacity] Which was actually 64 times more than the PS1 standard.
I think it can go up to 128 megs from third parties. And there were like bank switching ones which was like 256 meg combined. But yeah, this right here works just fine for now. And then the controller. And yeah, just thinking about it, I think this is the only console of its generation to only have two controller ports. The Dreamcast had four, of course the Game Cube, the Xbox, they all had four controller ports.
This only had two, so you still had to use a multitap. Man, just doesn't that look so clean? So sharp, that industrial design, especially standing vertically, 'cause you get the logo looking like that and just, oh yeah, of course we gotta do this. I think it's beautiful. It's just beautiful. I really need to find one of those blue stands just for the aesthetics alone, even if I don't maybe want to use it that way. But because honestly I have enough problems getting these things to read discs as it is normally.
I don't know if it's the lasers, mechanisms, some combination of things, but these can quite often throw up a disc not readable error, even for perfectly clean, perfectly readable discs that work on anything else. But yeah, the blue stand would just be nice to have for aesthetics alone. And so would the DVD remote. I don't know how many people actually bought one.
Mostly just used a controller. One that I do have though is the PlayStation 2 EyeToy, which is just a webcam, USB webcam. But yeah, this is one of those early attempts at motion control-esque, kind of mixed reality sort of things. Actually similar to the Reality Fusion Game Cam that I've covered on LGR before. I don't think it's exactly the same tech, but it's the same idea. And yeah, these games like EyeToy Play and various others would have support for the EyeToy.
And those USB ports also let you plug in a keyboard and a mouse, not only for support in specific games, but there was an official Linux kit sold for the PlayStation 2 to turn this into a straight up Linux computer system. Something I've always wanted to try, but I've never run across a copy of that and it is darned expensive. And to go along with that, Sony did actually sell PlayStation 2 keyboard and mouse options, and to continue with the "converting the PS2 into a computer" option, there was also a VGA cable for this, which was I think only for Linux or maybe just that, and progressive scan games. And as anyone who has visited thrift stores in the past 20 years can attest, there was just an absolute mountain of third party add-ons and peripherals like lightguns, dance pads, karaoke microphones, and of course endless plastic instruments. The PS2 was aging, but still in the midst of the rise of games like the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series.
As for this expansion port, I never actually filled this with anything back in the day and didn't know anybody that did. But what you could get for it was this thing right here, the PlayStation 2 network adapter. So yeah, this came around in 2002, and not only provided ethernet, but also a dial-up modem. So you've got RJ11, but also RJ45 for your ethernet connection.
But then you'll see this right here that is a molex connector and IDE. And yeah, as the "HDD" implies, you can also have this give you a hard disk internally on these models of PS2. Like one of these suckers right here this is a three and a half inch IDE hard disk, branded Sony, 40 whole gigabytes, SCPH-20401. And this one is Maxtor-manufactured. There were some also made by IBM and Seagate. But yeah, 40 gigs.
And there you go. I don't actually think that too many games actually took advantage of this natively, at least here in the US. I know there were a lot more of them in Japan that used the hard disk. And as you'd expect though, the modding scene and community at large has done all kinds of stuff with hard drives, not as much of a requirement anymore these days. For the longest time I had no idea that this was even an option, but there it is, roughly. I'm not gonna keep it plugged in right now 'cause I just wanna run it as it was when it launched.
But yeah, I love consoles with modular expansion bays. Not only that, but the online features were free, as long as you had an ISP like America Online. [laughing] Xbox Live of course was like, "oh, you're gonna pay for it." But not here man, you could just pop that networking thing in and get online with EverQuest Online Adventures and whatever else was in here. Here's your startup disc.
This would've been so exciting. In the early 2000s, this was absolutely not the kind of thing that I had any access to whatsoever. It's interesting too, that's just how the hard disks were handled on this model here in the US. In Japan, at least on the early ones. You actually had a PCMCIA PC Card slot in the back instead, and this delightful looking external hard disk, the SCPH-20400.
It looks rad. I just love the way that that thing looks, especially with that blue stand for the console itself. Of course, nowadays you've got all kinds of different homebrew things. You can get a generic SATA drive adapter pretty much anywhere that is gonna sell those kinds of things online.
And so many more mods, soft and hard, many of which actually plug into the memory card slot. And you can get things like Free McBoot going on there and do whatever the heck you want. Really do have it great nowadays with all the options for things not needing actual mod chips anymore, or what I remember doing myself was using Swap Magic 3 for a while. I bought a copy actually at a local Rhino Games store. They just sold them new, along with one of those modified cases with the flip top for the fat there.
So it lets you flip the top out instead of having to do the tray. I also gotta mention the lovely little slimline console that released four years after the first launch of the thing in 2004, late 2004, which was known as the slimline or just the "Slim," which made the OG retroactively known as the "Fat." But yeah, you've got this pop open tray here, no more motorized deal. Everything is just smaller. There's no more FireWire I don't think.
And then of course around back we've got, networking is integrated now, there's no hard disk add-on. And you have an external power supply instead of internal. It all kind of added up to a, just a delightful little thing. I love these.
Also love all of the different colors for the consoles, but also the peripherals. I especially like these translucent ones that came out, the blue and the greens and the reds and just, they're all beautiful. But yeah, my absolute favorite to this day remains... the OG Fat from 2000. It's just so good.
But what is the console without some games? Well, you know, I've got a few. [laid-back jazz plays] Hey look at that, an even stack! All right, well as you can see, I'm quite a fan of PlayStation 2 games. I think I actually have a few more lying around, but you know what, this is fine.
This is the majority of them. Really the only system that I have more for in terms of consoles, is the PlayStation 1. But obviously this takes up a bit more space due to them using your standard DVD-style cases or you know, relatively standard. So, they look like a DVD except for they usually have this memory card holder in there, along with your manual and your typical stuff like that.
But they don't always have that going on. Some of the cheaper ones, I think they got rid of it. I don't remember if the Greatest Hits still have that, at least this one does. I don't know. I see a lot of 'em just swapped out for really truly generic DVD cases. And this is the NTSC US type of spine. I know, I'm quite aware that in Europe this looked very different.
Anytime I see a collection from the UK or the EU, it's just odd to me, with all of the white spines. I like personally all the different colors and I don't even mind the Greatest Hits so much, since they at least kind of blend in in a weird way with the... they do have the red on there, but I don't know, it's sort of a beautiful cacophony of just... ah, look at all that! The amount of sheer variety for the PlayStation 2 is genuinely its greatest joy, to the point where I'm having a really genuinely rough time narrowing down just a handful of games to play here. There's just such a wild variety of stuff. Game types and genres and really unique things.
And a lot of them you didn't see in any other console, or if you did, you most often saw it on the PlayStation 2. So it kind of ends up being associated with it. With just a few standouts immediately coming to mind for me being the Yakuza Games, Tony Hawk's Underground, Tekken 4, Midnight Club II, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, Burnout 3, the Jak and Daxter games.
Redemption's prequel, Red Dead Revolver, the Lego Star Wars games, Simpsons Hit & Run, Lord of the Rings Return of the King, the ATV Offroad Fury and ATV versus MX, and all those kind of things. The intriguing 3D Sims games, Raiden 3, Shadow of the Colossus, Amplitude, I love that game. The early Call of Duties, heck even Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.
There's so many other odd little titles that are genuinely fascinating. And again, I feel like I'd go to just so many of them, like Stretch Panic, that's one of them. What was that one? Yeah, Mark Ecko's Getting Up. Viewtiful Joe, of course, I mean come on now. Mary Kate and Ashley's Sweet 16, Britney's Dance Beat.
So many endless "classics!" So I'm gonna try to pick like six, seven or something. Hook up the PlayStation 2, and let's dive in! [whoosh] [gentle connection sounds] Red light. [CRT bonks] Degaussing. Gotta make sure we're on the right input. There we go. [PS2 startup sound plays] ...Well that's interesting. Uhhhh.
Huh, is it trying to do progressive? Cuz this TV doesn't do that. It's almost like the graphics are more just like, straight up corrupt. [chuckling] As opposed to like, being a synchronization progressive/interlaced issue.
Because like the objects that are going on there, they don't look proper, texture-wise. Hm! I mean, this was sold to me as "unused, untested." Ooh, even that's... That's iffy, right? [drive grinds open] Nyaaack.
Huh. Wonder if it'll just load any kind of game at all? Yeah, it doesn't want to seem to load anything. It's just... making some reading noises. But just, drk-drk-drk-drk. Switching over to composite and just double check this...
Yeah. Okay! Well, I think we just have a messed up PlayStation 2. How unfortunate is that? Ah, you know, after doing enough of these console unboxings, I'm kind of surprised it took this long to get one that was dead, but this one appears to be, or at least dying, so wow, interesting.
I might have to see if I can pass this along to somebody that knows how to fix these, cuz I do not. Maybe this is a common problem. I have no idea. All right, we do have some other options, so we're gonna get one of these going. This one I seem to remember being okay, but kind of an iffy laser. Okay this is also a 30001, but is a 30001/R model.
Interesting. And then this one is the one that I've used the most over the past, I don't know, eight or nine years. And this one is a 50001/N. So it still has the expansion bay, but this is one where they started to get rid of the i.Link slash FireWire port right there, but honestly, this one's always been fine.
So I guess we're gonna use that for the rest of this video until I can fix the one that was in the box. At least we've got the lovely new old stock controller to use, so that'll be fun. [PS2 startup sound plays, now with visuals] There we go! So not quite the system I was wanting to go with, but at least it's going to work. [laughing] Going to the system configuration, a menu I've always loved the look of, the spinning weirdness in the background and those anti-aliased cubes. It's just a lovely screensaver, honestly. Plus the ambient weirdness in the background with the sound is just oddly comforting.
Anyway, I have some component options depending on the type of cable, remote stuff, languages, screen size and switch between different aspect ratios. Digital optical, audio out. Let's get the clock going. It does have a clock battery, but unlike the Xbox for example, it is a coin cell. Mmkay. Nice! And that's that.
So I'm going to the browser here. You can open up the memory card, see what we've got going, a little more than I remember actually. But yeah, all different games I've played and saved on here over the past, probably five or six years or something. I don't know, there's some of these pretty recent, Shaolin Monks and Brotherhood of Steel, a friend of mine, we were playing through those well, a couple years ago, I guess. [chronological laugh]
Time flies! Anyway, there's our memory card editor in here, which I've always really enjoyed, just for the 3D-ness of it. Everybody's got their little custom spinning icons, it's just cute. Of course, at this point we're gonna put it in our first game. All right, so first up here, I've just gotta go with one that feels iconic from the PlayStation 2, Katamari Damacy. Okay, there we go.
So it has detected a PlayStation 2 disc. Let's do it. [PS2 boot bit plays] Yes. Simple, understated little boot bit there. It's still quite satisfying.
[a capella Katamari theme plays, Clint hums along] "The Katamari, the Prince." "Where the first rolls the second follows," right. So if you're not familiar with the concept here, you're this little guy, the little prince. And...
Yeah, you gotta go around making these stars to be put back in the sky by rolling up in a Katamari just all of these objects from around Earth. You start off small, you roll up small things, and then eventually you get larger, and then the larger you get, the more stuff you can roll up. So. Start with like thumbtacks, pushpins, I guess. Ants, whatever. Just all kinds of stuff.
And things that are large we can't pick up yet, so we have to get big off of smaller things first. And then in the end you just keep going up and up and up in size, until eventually you're just rolling up everything, just literally everything. The whole – the whole house, the whole block, whole cities. Obviously it's a pretty straightforward thing in terms of what you're supposed to do. The engaging part for me was, I don't know, I guess just the entire presentation.
It's kind of a zen-like experience, right? You're just going around... ...and it makes me feel good. [pleased chuckle] I don't know, it's just how it is, like the way it looks and the music and just the style of it all. And just the fact that it is just such a simple concept.
You can kind of zone out and you just, at least I just stop thinking about everything else and just get wrapped up in this weird world. I'll be honest, like this was one of the main games that really made me want to get a PS2. Back when I first saw this, this came out, I remember actually it was a review on X-Play, Morgan Webb covering this, explaining how weird it was and what a unique concept and everything. I'm just like, yep, that looks like my kind of game. I don't know why, but it immediately appealed to me. I guess cuz of like the miniaturization, I like being, or experiencing worlds from like a tiny perspective.
But... I don't know, just there was something about it that clicked with my brain as soon as I saw it. For a while there, there was a new Katamari game coming out relatively frequently.
And then there was that "REROLL" some years ago. I think it was a re-release of this one, maybe. I never picked that one up. But... Yeah, I just kind of wonder... does anybody care about the Katamari Damacy games anymore? I don't know, for me it's just emblematic of the type of game you used to get.
Not like the most high budget, but really different, interesting. The PS2 era is just, this is the kind of stuff that I think of first and foremost, honestly. It had a reputation.
One of those things you'd just talk about amongst friends and you'd be like, "Have you heard of this game? Have you seen that?" That's just, there's something odd there, but it's engaging. [timer alarm blaring] Crap. I know I could have done better. [laughing] Alrighty, that is it for this one. I really, really enjoy this game.
The next up here is another one of those. If there was a Mount Rushmore of PlayStation 2 classics, this would be up there probably. It's God of War. Dang, it's been a long time since I played this. - [Kratos] The gods of Olympus have abandoned me.
- [Clint] It just goes straight into it. Heck yeah. [creatures roaring] It's a bit dark, innit? Yeah, that's better. All right. Yeah, heavy attacks and light. Well yeah, that. [chuckles in UX] Yeah, just something about the immediate spectacle of this one, I mean...
The setting, the violence, the atmosphere, just, I don't know, mythology, the look and feel. Everything about it was just like, holy crap. It felt very fresh at the time, at least to me. I don't think I had played anything quite like it, at least not exactly. I'd played I think a little bit of the first Devil May Cry, maybe the second one.
I don't remember which one it was. It was one of them, which was fine. But yeah, for whatever reason, God of War always connected with me more immediately to the point where I was just like, "okay, I gotta play every single one of these." You know, so I played this one, the second one, the PSP games, at least Chains of Olympus, definitely played that through to completion.
God of War 3, it wasn't like huge whatever. And to–how do I do this? Oh yeah, that's right. And of course the ones on PS5, just wonderful, wonderful games.
Completely different than this. And in a way I do kind of miss this simplicity, but uh, you know. [laughs] I guess I just like Kratos and his horribly tragic stories. Oh the quick time events, of course, of course. When this was still a novel-ish kind of concept.
So "cinematic." Mm, QTEs. Yeah, and the whole like way of leveling up too, and powering up, and mixing in all these different kind of fighting game-esque moves and yeah, I don't know.
Again, it really does seem par for the course at this point. There were so many games that took this formula and just ripped it off. There was like a term for these, spectacle action games or something? Action specta–whatever. I thought I killed you already. I'm the God of War.
Aw really? I'm not a dentist. [monster roaring] Yeah! - "The ships are all destroyed." "All hope is lost spartan, even for you."
[dies] [laughs] - Such comedic timing. All right. [laughs] This is really silly. Ohh. A little bit clunky, but you know what... It was trying something new, okay? Such spectacle, such theatrics! Well, I'm done. Good times, good times.
All right, so next I want to go for a fighting game. And while it was easy to pick Tekken 4 or Tag or one of the Tekkens, right? Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, this one I played so much. It's been so long and I wanted to revisit it. [dramatic music] Heck yeah.
All right, got my profile ready to go. And yeah, let's just do a bit of Arcade just to fight with somebody. Hu-haw! That roster, right off the bat! You know, it's either Scorpion or Cyrax, I'ma go with Cyrax. - [Announcer] Round one. Fight! - Let's see, what have we got here? Yeah, this definitely got a lot more complex, huh? Honestly, I pretty much just go back and play Mortal Kombat 1, 2, and 3, and sometimes 4 just for guilty pleasure. But...
And then y'know, the new ones whenever they come out, but that's about it. I don't really go back to any of these from the 2000s pretty much ever. Okay. I mean, you know, it's fun.
But yeah, the thing that really drew me into this back in the day, was the creating a character, because I don't remember seeing that in a fighting game before this, or at least, I mean yeah, there were wrestling games, right? But not in this type of one-on-one fighter. You know, we got all kinds of things we can choose. Oh my goodness. Whatever color you want. Goodness. These are some hairstyles. [chuckling]
But you know, the flattop is exactly what I'm looking for, cuz you can guess who I'm gonna make here. Come on now. Oh yeah. [chuckling] It's just interesting because it's almost like it wants you to create Duke Nukem, because of the, the very few items that are unlocked from the get-go, are like all the Duke Nukem stuff, the tank top, the jeans, the fingerless gloves, the flattop, like that's... that's the basic character [laughing] other than boots, I do need some boots. But these will do for now I guess.
I mean they're not quite correct, but whatever, it works. Yeah, I'm looking good, under the circumstances. And now there's all these other things, the fighting style and Nukido style. Sure, honestly, the kickboxing seems kind of appropriate.
And we go with those couple. [Duke yelling] Those feel nice and powerful. Yeah. All right. This is great. [laughing]
This will be the bubblegum style. There's one called Come Get Some. How perfect is that? We have to unlock it, but, all right, perfect. Oh yeah, there we go.
- "Excellent." - "Round one. Fight!" [characters yelling] - [Clint] Oh. [laughing]
I missed! [kombat kontinues] - Whoops. There we go. Oh yeah. [laughing] Oh yeah. - "Flawless victory."
- Not bad. [fighting concludes, Duke dies] Well, it was bound to happen eventually. And yeah, there is a story mode. All right, Konquest Mode. Oh wow, this is like uh. Like Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks.
[chuckling] Splat the bugs. Except a more "behind the character" kind of camera instead of fixed or moving camera angles. I like Shaolin Monks too though, quite a bit. I was actually thinking about playing that instead of this, but I'm like nah, haven't played this in forever. - [Character] If you're not a member of the Black Dragon Clan, I'm gonna have to finish you.
- [Clint] Good. [laughing] Gotta say that's an enjoyable spammy little move there. All right, well anyway, this game is fun. I still recommend it, especially for that character creation. All right, next up, gotta have a racing game. There are endless amounts of amazing racing games for the PS2, but Gran Turismo 4, just legendarily good.
Man. Polyphony Digital, still, nobody really quite makes games like them. I don't even know if Polyphony does anymore.
I'll be honest, I was not able to get into Gran Turismo 7. Or whatever, the last couple, really this is the last one that super-engaged me, and... I don't know, like I kind of wish that they would just re-release this in full 4K for the PS5 or whatever, because... it's about the way it's structured and the unlockables and just the sheer amount of everything. Yeah, okay. So it says, 240 cars. There are something like 720 or something cars that you can unlock.
It is unbelievable. Not anywhere near the detail that you get on one of the modern ones, but I honestly do not care. This is [laughing] to me, just wonderful. I mean these still look fantastic, especially on a CRT, and the fact that there's so many just like normal, normal, normal cars. Just the variety in years, of course, so many JDM models and European things and just odd, like you can drive a Honda Odyssey, okay? I mean, come on now.
1988 Volvo 240 GLT Estate. Wonderful, just wonderful. Yes. Let's go for some of those economy tires. [laughing]
Now I believe this is one of those games that makes use of the pressure sensitive face buttons. I mean you basically don't even notice it unless you're just looking for it. So if you look at the throttle here, I'm pressing X here, just a little bit and then harder.
It's almost digital though, 'cause if you just press it at a normal amount then it's just like on-off, on-off. But you can just get it to work a little bit with the pressure sensitive buttons. Same with the braking.
I don't know, I always found it really gimmicky and I just kind of don't pay attention to it, 'cause most of the time I'm just treating 'em as digital. All right. Volvo power, those economy tires. Mm. [engine accelerating] I will overtake you, just like that.
[tires squealing] Okay, those economy tires are doing their thing, just barely. [rubbery laughter] Oh gosh. All right, let's see here. Oh dear, zero to 60 in sometime this weekend. Gotta say I've never been a fan of the exterior view in a lot of the Gran Turismo games, honestly, something about the way the camera is positioned and moves or doesn't move, especially on like Gran Turismo, well, 5, 6... even 7.
You can adjust it a little bit in some of those but yeah, I don't know, I just — was not paying attention! Yeah, for me, like it's either bumper cam or internal camera's the way to go. Unless it's like Gran Turismo 1 and 2, I don't know. For some reason the camera was a little bit better for me on that one, with the chase cam, whatever you wanna call it. Yeah, also not with a controller.
I do not like playing these games with a controller unless it's the first couple on the PS1. But yeah, honestly the most fun that I've ever had playing one of the newer Gran Turismos is GT6, and I had a Logitech G-something steering wheel. Whereas something like the Forza Motorsport games, especially Forza Horizon...
I can play those with a controller all day long. They're great with a wheel as well. I had a Fanatec pretty nice wheel during the 360 era. It is also perfectly fine with a controller. With this it just, it begs for a wheel! Had to make use of our McBoot friend over here, and cheat just a little bit so we can get all those cars or at least see that entire car list because it is magnificent. All 722 cars there, so. [laughing]
There's so much. It is just the most glorious list of cars, really only matched by like, the fully expanded probably Forza Motorsport 4. That's probably my other favorite like car list in any, well there's also Gran Turismo 2 that had like the GT-90 and the Vector cars and just some other oddities like that. But there are so many good things in here too that, yeah, I don't know, I just love it. There's even the Jay Leno Tank Car.
Why is this in here? I don't know, but it is. [engine accelerating] [laughs at the wonkiness] This doesn't feel right at all. Oh my word.
[tires squealing] What's with those constantly screeching tires? [laughing] This thing feels out of control. I mean I guess it should but, still it's a little weird. Let's handle his corkscrew. [tires squealing] I did not handle it. [laughs in Laguna Seca]
[tires still squealing] All right. [tires continue squealing] All right, so I really wanted to have some kind of platformer actiony kind of, one of these. So, Ratchet & Clank! And I'm gonna go with Going Commando here, cuz I have not played this one actually.
Yeah, all right! Well, having never played this, I really don't know what to expect. I have played the first one. [underwear-free action commences] So far it feels exactly how I would expect. [weapons blasting] It's just nothing but a good thing. These are deeply satisfying games. [weapons blasting] [satisfied chuckling] These games are neat.
Honestly, it's one of the a series that I wish that I had picked up back when it was current, or you know, obviously there is the newer one on PS5, which is good. I enjoyed that too. But yeah, in terms of yeah, something that I wish that I had played back in the mid-2000s.
But yeah, not that I was like super into this genre or anything, but it is... it's just fun. It's satisfying. Here we go.
Yeah, when you start getting to these big more explorable areas, kind of hubs or whatever, that's when they really start, it just starts coming together. - [Game Voice] Your maximum nanotech has increased. Gotta say I'm not really digging how ugly this first place is, but you know, game play's still there. I'm assuming we get to some more appealing looking locales after this, hope so anyway, 'cause this one kind of sucks.
I mean, you know, whatever. I'll just go down into the pee water. Good enough. Right, well anyway, good game.
I would like to play it more at some point. All right, so next up is the early mid-2000s, right? FPS games on console were definitely becoming more of a norm. And while I could have chosen Black, or one of the Medal of Honor games that I really associate with the PS2, I had to go with TimeSplitters, and the second one in particular.
Right, so the split screen multiplayer is definitely the main appeal to this one, at least in my experience. I don't know, I've just never actually gone through this story, but yeah, multiplayer, being from who it is. It's got that same sort of appeal as like. - [Game Voice] The hateful will to destroy humanity. - [Clint] All right... Same sort of appeal as like a GoldenEye game.
GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64 in particular, because it's made by a lot of the same folks. They left Rare and started this company, Free Radical. I really don't want to do the story. I don't know why I'm doing this. I guess we can play against bots, just a deathmatch.
[guns firing] Well, Okay. [laughing] Not the most effective pistols. Yeah, you got like this sort of very GoldenEye kind of Perfect Dark-esque aiming. [laughing] It's odd at first, but you know, if you get used to it, it's fine. I don't have any ammo, do I have ammo? Oh I got.
There we go. [gun firing] Geez. Monkey! [gun firing] [laughing] Dang it.
[guns firing] Yeah. Came out on top anyway, even though that was terrible. Like I said, there's just a way that it starts to click and you get into this groove.
It's just a wonderful, like slightly inebriated sort of party game. And also make your own maps, which is wonderful. And we have all these little individual challenges. Let's do Behead the Undead.
[shottie firing, zombies dying] Oh, uh oh, they pushed me into the room. Well, you know. If I'm gonna go out, I guess I better go out like a punk.
And then last, but absolutely not least, it's the PlayStation 2. We've gotta have a GTA game and San Andreas is the choice. Ah s--t here we go again. I love this game! Just passed 20 years old, which is insane. [laughing]
Oh, come on now. Gotta crank that. [San Andreas theme plays] Plus the speakers on this thing sound great. [San Andreas theme continues being awesome] Truly one of the best soundtracks to any game. Like... not even any comparison.
Other than like Vice City. But yeah. Way too much... to be getting potentially copyright struck with.
So I gotta turn it off, as much as it pains me. - [CJ] "After five years on the east coast, it was time to go home." - [Clint] Darn right it was, CJ.
Ah it's like riding a bike, this game. Just get right back into it. I love it. - [CJ] "Come on, fight!" Take that paper.
- [CJ] "You don't need it now." - It's true. - "Don't take it personal, but you're getting jacked." - With your little BMX bike. [horn honking] [nostalgic crime-induced laugh] - [CJ] "Grove Street, home." - Yes. - [CJ] At least it was before I f----d everything up.
- [Clint] Man, I don't know CJ. A little hard on yourself. - "Hey, what's up y'all?" "Look who I found hanging around." - "Carl, hey, good to see you." - [Clint] I gotta say also, after having played that quote-unquote "remaster" when it first came out, going back to the original is like such a breath of fresh air. It's like, oh yeah, it actually looks how it should! I know they fixed it, but I have not even gone back to that release ever since, it was such a...
...just a cluster, let's put it that way. - [CJ] Ah, thanks for the money. - [Clint] A little bit of money. All right, so let's go find a ♪gun!♪ [siren blaring] [horn honking] Ayyy. [horn honking] Thank you. [car accelerating, crashing] All right, so I've got a shotgun. These guys will do.
[guns firing] [CJ gets wasted] [chuckle of acceptance] I mean, look. [siren blaring] it's not gonna end well whenever you play the game like that. But you know, it's like stepping back into an old pair of shoes.
You gotta, you gotta break it in just a little bit. [bike crashing] [rider grunting] [big amused laugh] Rough day, huh? Kind of wild that there's only been two GTAs since this. In 20 years? I mean, not including like little spinoffs and whatnot, but you know, four and five and that's it. Insanity.
Anyway, I just realized I've been playing this for half an hour, and I haven't even been talking for like 10 minutes. [laughing] It's, it's wonderful. All right. [car accelerating] Bestselling game on the PlayStation 2, makes sense. Like honestly. And like, yeah. - "Ooh!"
Did I just run myself over? I think I did. [cracks up] I think I'm gonna call it there! And that is about it for this LGR PlayStation 2 revisiting retrospective thing, I guess. I mean, it truly feels like I'm doing it an injustice by not playing another dozen or so games, considering how many top-notch titles there were for this, including a ton of my personal favorites. But you know, with over 4,000 games for a system, you gotta stop somewhere. And we've been here for like an hour. But anyway, once again, it's the absurd quantity and variety of available games that make the PS2 such a phenomenal system to collect for, or at least it did a decade or so ago when I was collecting for it.
If you've seen my LGR Thrifts series, you know I gathered up the majority of the games that I have just out in the wild. You used to find them absolutely all the time, and you still do run across PS2 games every so often. But I like how you used to, and understandably, prices have gone up, and collectability and all that kind of stuff. But even still, it is a pleasure of a system to collect for.
Despite disc reading issues, it's still a very well-made, wonderful to use and look at thing. The actual console, the way it looks, its industrial design, it's incredible, truly one of Sony's best ever designs. The controller is practically perfect, very little needed tweaking, as evidenced by these same basic designs still being used decades later.
Obviously they've added some things, but the layout's more or less the same. Plus the fact that it played DVDs, that was truly a killer feature back in the day. And you know, it's still pretty handy even now, at least if you're like me, and enjoy collecting odd b-movies on DVD and something about playing 'em on PS2 just feels appropriate. ["Curse of the Wolf" theme plays] Y'know just due to its sales numbers alone, by default, it kind of defined the entire generation, the sixth generation of consoles, of course, but also just my generation. This is one millennial-ass console, the one console experience that was shared among my friends and everyone I knew at one point or another. And I can't say that about the other competing consoles back then, it was like one friend might have had an Xbox, another had a GameCube, and there was always that one weirdo with a Dreamcast, but the PS2, every single one of those same people had one of those eventually by the mid to late 2000s.
And more often than not, it was simply due to the crazy amount of games and how affordable it all became in terms of the consoles and all the stuff you could get for it, with many great games continuing to be released years into the seventh generation of consoles that began in 2005 with the 360 and PS3. Anyway, that's it for this video. I really just wanted, *needed* in a way, to enjoy this thing again, especially after all that's been happening in my own personal life recently. It has been an absolute pleasure to revisit the PlayStation 2 and get kind of a newish in box experience. So I hope that you enjoyed doing so alongside me. [chillaxed jazz music] And of course, down in the comments, feel free to leave your own PS2 memories, favorite games, any kind of related stuff like that.
It's always nice to hear, and I hope you stick around for more LGR things, whatever they end up being at this point in time. There are always more in the works. And of course, thank you for watching!
2024-11-22 01:25
