Why I Still Own a PS2

Okay, I have a confession to make. I like to collect vintage electronics. Stuff like old TV’s, VCR’s and more. But my biggest obsession is old video game consoles. When people come into my house and see all the “junk” they will often have one question for me, why? It’s not a bad question really, especially considering how easy it is to emulate software and the plethora of new video games that are coming out all the time. Why collect and play old video games and consoles? Like with many things in life there are multiple reasons. One might consider the necessity of archiving and conserving the past, especially in light of the fact that many of the companies who make these games do not feasibly have the fiscal resources to do so themselves. In the early two thousand’s it was revealed that SquareEnix had accidentally erased the files related to Final Fantasy 8 and 9 as well as Kingdom Hearts and other popular games from their hard drives. This and other incidents left many people interested in the preservation of games wondering who would take the initiative to conserve this medium of storytelling and artistic expression. Museums were opened and online forums established by the community to record and archive the enormous amounts of information related to this still growing media which includes more than just games. Artwork, manuals, news articles, magazines and even code are all collected and stored somewhere. But more than these the community of collectors take in hardware, clean it up or repair it and keep it in their own personal archives to preserve for posterity and to enjoy.

That is the main reason I collect anyway, to enjoy. To pick up and play the games that I enjoyed in my youth or to try games that I missed. But why the PS2? You may ask based on the specific title of this essay. And it is a valid one, PS2’s doesn’t quite have the nostalgia factor as say something like a Super Nintendo and they are certainly not rare, being the best-selling console of all time. In addition to these there is the reality of digital distribution, remasters or even emulation. On the PS3 and PS4 you can download and play some of the best PS2 games and for games that were extra special, many of them received full HD remakes or ports. There is also the issue of playing a PS2 on a modern display as hooking the system up with the included component cables today yields some truly outdated visuals that can hamper the enjoyment of the classic system. So why own one and more than this how can you get the most of owning one?

The PS2 launched in the US in October to 2000. I picked one up soon after with my own birthday money and it was the first console that I bought with my own money. At the time we were still using CRT televisions that outputted 480 p although higher resolutions like 720 or 1080 were possible but only in interlaced format. For the uninitiated, p stands for progressive scan where every line is drawn at the same time and the number of frames is dependent on your framerate. Interlaced is represented with an I and describes a form of TV resolution where the image is drawn on the screen using alternating lines. This happens so quickly you’re your vision interprets the lines as an individual image. The corrupted visuals of PS2 games played on their original hardware on modern televisions occurs because modern televisions will try to combine the interlaced frames into a progressive scan like image. If the fields do not align properly then the image will be jagged and blurry. The PS2 is more prone to this distortion than any other console of its generation as most of its games are designed to run in interlaced resolutions. There is little incentive for TV manufacturers to include more powerful scaling options because the demand to the technology is not very high. Most movies and other media have always used progressive scan but with video games because processing chips have to not only draw the image on screen but create it on the fly interlaces was used to decrease the amount of work the console had to do. More than this the effect was designed to work with the TV’s we had and the image on a CRT TV was actually clearer because of interlacing in some cases than a progressive image depending on the resolution. So in short they looked great on our old TV’s but terrible on our new ones.

Despite this, today I own more than one PS2 and have two of them hooked up at any given time in my set up. But why do I think it is still worth it. Well with all things it comes down to the games. While some of the greats have been remastered (Kingdom Hearts) or re-released (Star Ocean 3), there are still enough games that if you do not have a PS2 you cannot experience them. This is mainly because of the lack of widespread backwards compatibility with the PS3 and none for the PS4. All the hurdles with picture quality can be overcome with the correct set up. If you have the money to spend you can use expensive HD scalers like the Framemeister or the Open Source XRGB MINI. On my HD modern TV’s, I personally use component cables which can give on certain games, though very few, up to 1080i resolution. I still have some of the issues I mentioned earlier in this essay, but they are in part mitigated by the use of higher quality connectors.

I also have two CRT TV set ups that I use. The first is a 32 inch Sanyo TV that I use S-Video cables to up the quality of the image. For American consumer TV’s from the era S-Video is the highest quzlity connection you can get besides component cables and the console looks amazing on the my old CRT. But if you want the best picture possible on a CRT you are going to want to hunt down a professional video monitor. PVM’s as they are called for short are the highest quality CRT’s ever produced and were sold to meical facilities and TV stations. They are also not cheap, but if you luck out like me and find one in a medical supply surplus, they are the best. I have one of these in my office set up and using the European standard Scart cables and a BVM adaptor the PS2 can output RGB which is the highest resolution the system can achieve and arguably performs better than even component cables. With these three options I can play not just PS2 but PS1 games in the highest resolutions they can output with the best cables available for those systems and the results are truly something you have to see to believe.

But are there games that warrant these hurdles you have to cross to play the system in a way that does not look horrible? These games are my personal must haves, you of course may have your own list, but obviously I could not list them all. Also, if the game was ported to a “Newer” home console you also won't see it here. Remember this essay is about whether you should own one of these machines today, and if you could just play the game on a different more modern system, then that does not build a case for owning one. This means that some of the best games on the console won't be on the list. Also, no PS1 games, since technically any PS3 can play them through emulation over HDMI, though I prefer to play them in RGB on my PVM myself.

Radiata Stories is an excellent RPG published by SquareEnix and made by Tri-Ace studios. The game has a unique battle system that is similar to the Tales games and also the Star Ocean series. With a cell shaded art style and phantasy setting the game has a deep lore and engaging story line that split into two possible ending based on a decision made at the midpoint of the story. To add to the replay-ability there are tons of recruitable characters that inhabit the central town, each with their own side story and daily routine that you can observe and interact with similarly to Majoras Mask. Often overlooked this game can be experienced no-where else and comes highly recommended.

Wild Arms Alter Code F. While I think I prefer the original without a PS2 I could not play the wonderful remake. Wild Arms is a fantastic phantasy, western scifi hodgepodge that should not work but just does. The remake fleshes out the story and adds a few extra recruitable characters. It also arguably improves a lot of the presentation and mechanics of the original. It is a bit pricy considering what most PS2 games sell for, but it is also one of the more collectible games for the system. You can experience one through three through digital ports but the only way to play this one is if you own a PS2.

This next entry is king of cheating I admit. First it is two games, Tales of Legendia and Tales of the Abyss. Second, technically Abyss can be had on the 3DS, but to me it looks better on a TV. On top of that Abyss is my favorite Tales game, sorry Symphonia fans, but I really like the characters and the story, and I also think its presentation is better than Symphonia. Legendia, while not quite as good as either of those games has a very unique throwback aesthetic presenting the battles on a 2D plane like the games from earlier in the series. The Tales series in general is quite excellent and any of the games you can pick up you should.

Last but not least is Gran Turismo 4. In my humble opinion the best Gran Turismo ever made. I love how the game looks running in 1080i through component cables on my TV’s. I love the game play and the RPG like progression of earning money by racing and buying better and better cars. I like the B spec mode where you are the crew chief, or you can earn an easy huge payday by leaving the game running all night. I fire this game up still to this day for several days at a stretch just to run down the courses. I used to record my best lap times in notebooks in case I lost my save files. I have made spreadsheets to compare the top speeds and 0-60 times to real life counterparts of the cars. I have fallen asleep playing this game more than once not because I was bored, but because I stayed up way too late playing it. All the games I mentioned would make me regret not owning a PS2. But GT4 would make me go out and buy another one just to play it again.

So yeah, I still own a PS2 and lot of games for it. But I have one more reason why I think you should own one to0. It was recently announced by Sony that support of the PS3’s online store was going to come to an end. That means that the digital PS1 and PS2 games that you own for that console will no longer be available when that happens. So, if the PS3 you have stops working for any reason you will not longer be able to re-download and play those games. Eventually the same thing is going to happen to the PS4. It will take longer but it will happen. Then there will be even more games that unless you have the original disks and the hardware to play them you will not be able to without emulation. I still own PS2 because there is nothing quite like popping in the disk and listening to the iconic boot screen cycle through as the game loads and instantly being transported back to some of my favorite worlds ever created.