25 Years of Playstation 2

This is a head gun podcast.

All right, uh, Sega, this is an emergency meeting.

As you know, it is late in the year 1999, and we've just had some documents leaked to us from Sony's plans for the PlayStation 2.

Oh, that's a hey, the Dreamcast is selling great.

We're gonna be fussing pretty.

We don't need to worry about the competition.

Just focus on us.

No, I heard they're, I heard, I, based on the sales, I, they're gonna maybe add a comma to the number.

Yeah, the R number is gonna have, we're gonna have to make

so many.

What the fuck are you talking about, man?

Have you not have you not read the memo that I sent out through the office today?

Did you not see what they're gonna do with this thing?

The PlayStation 2 is gonna have a game called grand theft auto where you can do anything you could do anything you want

you can do you can drive around you can steal a car you can kill people you can do anything you want how are we gonna compete with that read the memo look at the memo this is my this egg on my face i didn't read the memo i i i i actually did read the memo yes it's grand theft auto 3 it's the you know it's the they're taking the grand theft auto franchise and taking it into three dimensions and yeah it's the it's not top down it's not top down and supposedly like you can kind of go anywhere in a city and do whatever.

I don't know, I can't wrap my head around it, but that people don't want that.

Gamers don't want that kind of freedom, no, they don't want that kind of freedom, they want the straight-ahead simplicity of ready-to-rumble boxing.

That's what the marketplace demands.

No, no, no, there's gonna be a psychological thriller called Silent Hill 2, which is going to like transcend the medium and it's going to come out on the PlayStation 2.

This is their plan, this is what we're up against.

They're making a new Silent Hill, yeah, a new Silent Hill.

Can we get it?

No, we can't get it.

Please, I want it.

I called Konami and I said, hey, it's Agnes from Dreamcast.

And he hung up the phone on me before I even asked what I wanted.

Oh, well.

They're gonna, they're gonna fuck that guy.

And we don't have anything to worry about with these, uh, you know, these Sony fat cats in their fancy pants.

Oh, really?

Because they're gonna launch a modem.

Our like cornerstone of online play.

You just plug it into the back of the PlayStation 2, man.

They're gonna have a hard drive on that fucking machine, man.

Hey.

Game over me.

We got a modem.

We got a narrowband modem that plugs into your landline phone line.

You can dial up and use the internet from your Dreamcast.

No one wants anything faster than that.

And you know what?

I'm just, I kind of just want to say, I'm just a little bit, I'm sick of the negativity here because here at Sega, we have something in the Dreamcast that the PlayStation 2 does not have.

What is that?

The ability to copy and pirate games.

No, that's bad.

Wait, no, you're right.

It's so easy.

Like, I have all these games that we've released.

I just, like, I'm just

burning them on my PC.

And I've...

I've been selling them out of the back trunk of my car.

I've been selling mine, too.

You guys are destroying the very business that we're supposed to be here to protect.

They're going to combine Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters in an action game.

You're going to be able to be friends with Mickey Mouse and Donald and Goofy, and Cloud Strife is going to be there.

You know, that sounds comprehensible enough where I think we're fucked.

That's crazy.

They could have a grand terrorism game where there are reflections of the sky in the windows of the cars.

They could have a game where you can play guitar.

You can hold a guitar in your hands.

I want to fucking kill myself.

Why did I choose it?

I had an offer at Sony.

They said, do you want to work at Sega and Sony?

And I said, Sony?

They barely scraped by with a PlayStation one.

And I took the top here,

and they could have a drum set on their fucking cyst.

Yeah, hi, is this Babbage's?

What are you doing?

What are you calling?

First off, you're still in business, right?

What do you call it?

Okay, great.

Babbage's still in business.

Can I put down a pre-order for a Sony PlayStation 2?

What are you?

Why are you doing this to me?

The mini's not even a journey.

I gotta check out the competition.

I gotta make sure that.

Ask if we could trade in two Dreamcast.

We trade in a we get trade in a Dreamcast for a PlayStation 2?

He said he'd give us a copy of Ready to Rumble Boxing for a Dreamcast.

I already have it.

I just sold it a bunch of copyrights.

I couldn't even copy in that fucking thing.

Not worth anything.

I'm burning it like crazy.

All right, thanks.

Yeah, yeah, all right.

Okay, I love you.

We install a 40-gig hard drive and watch The Matrix on DVD as we look back on 25 years of the Sony PlayStation 2 this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Matt Apadaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week we are celebrating a landmark, a milestone, a monolith, a cultural event.

And that's the 25th anniversary of the PlayStation 2.

A week ago.

A quarter century of the PlayStation 2 a week ago.

But also, that was the Japanese launch,

which we missed slightly because we wanted to talk about bald video game characters.

But that was the, that was the, that was the, the Japanese launch.

The North American launch came later this year.

Oh, okay.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Okay, there was a miscommunication because I did not want to talk about bald video game characters.

I remember the text.

Like, Nick, just kind of go with me on this.

Yeah.

I remember it sort of being your big idea, Heather.

That is not true.

That is not true.

And we covered that on the show itself.

So, I mean, you could gaslight me all you want, but I could just play back the tape.

In fact, Ranch, why don't you play back that tape?

My name's Heather, and I think we should do ball characters.

I got so confused because I didn't know who was talking for a second.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

I don't like this AI voices, deep fake stuff.

Barely sounded like me.

It is,

I mean, it's wild to think back on that this is such a,

because it was such a moment when the PlayStation 2 came out in a way that the that the PlayStation 1 its launch did not have the same sort of like it was a major thing that Sony this huge consumer electronics company was entering into the video game space on its own that there was a new uh you know platform that was going to exist that was going to challenge the Nintendo hegemony and but the Sony PlayStation one despite how successful it was was not like this its launch was kind of like a slow burn it it took a while for people people to like catch up to the 32-bit generation and for that brand loyalty to develop.

When the PlayStation 2 came out, it was like, again, it was like a cultural moment.

Everyone was like, holy fucking shit, this thing is coming.

I'm so hyped for it.

I had friends talking about this thing for like a year in advance of like how excited they were for this new this new console.

I've got one of those little like this American lifestyle things that I can, I, I,

for, for our little PlayStation conversation today.

Wow.

And I want to dabble in what you've just talked about.

Yes.

Because Because it was.

It was a major cultural moment.

Like people were

like,

there weren't pre-orders.

So like people were buzzed about it like the way that you used to sit in line for Star Wars tickets or for concert tickets.

Like there was no way to get a PlayStation unless you were getting the fucking PlayStation that night.

And then look at our world now.

Now we just do all this on phone.

Yeah, we don't do it.

You don't have to get in line to get a concert ticket.

Now you just do it on your phone.

We do whatever we want.

Do you still do that for like shoes and shit.

It's not a shit.

I think shoes is different.

Shoes is different, obviously.

But I do remember, we'll talk about it when we get into it.

I remember having a PlayStation 2 pre-order.

Maybe that's a, maybe that's a, I fucking, what's the effect called?

Mandelaffed?

Mandela.

Maybe I've Mandela affected myself on that.

But I do remember that.

But that's a discussion that we'll get to down the line because we got a lot to dig into there.

Before we get there, before we go to the past, before we go 25 years into our video game history, let's stay in video game present and talk about some video games we're playing right now.

It's what are you playing?

What are you playing?

Hi, it's me, the Resident Evil merchant.

And I'm really talking to my best friends about the history of games.

Uh, uh, hey, thanks so much, Merch.

You're welcome.

I think of you as a friend as well.

Yeah, yeah, you know that PlayStation 2 was the second system on which I appeared.

That's right,'cause the first would have been the GameCube.

Yeah, it was that originally Shinji Mikami wanted Resident Evil 4 to be GameCube Cube exclusive.

It's like when you have an apartment and then you gotta move and because the landlord's like, get the fuck out of here until you get a new place.

I've never had that exact situation happen, but

I have moved apartments that

I was not happy with my living situation.

The PlayStation 2 is my second home.

That's like, that's nice to think about.

That is nice.

Nice little escape.

You ever drive by a place you used to live and think about who lives there now and how do they have it like decorated and stuff?

I don't have that problem.

Every place I've moved out of has been raised to the ground.

Oh boy.

And that's because they had to after you left, correct?

There's a weird coincidence.

But

infestation and flooding everywhere I live.

do you just happen to live in these buildings that were subsequently condemned after you moved out and hastily destroyed uh

wait what is that word

condemned hastily

condemned condemned yeah it's like we're saying this place i can is not habitable anymore this place has to be

taken off the map okay okay i thought i thought that was like

like condo i thought that was like a kind of condo yeah no condo i mean they are kind of similar words.

They do share a lot of letters, but they are the same number of syllables, but they are not the same principle.

Ultimately, they don't share enough of the same letters to be the same thing.

Yeah, condo is like a place you would live.

Condominium condemned.

Yes, you could.

Very similar.

You could have a condemned condominium.

That would be a condominium that is not.

That's tricky.

But yeah, anyway, I'm really excited to hear you guys talk about the PlayStation 2.

Right now, I want to know what you're playing.

So let me ask the question.

What are you playing?

Sometimes you just go for it.

You really went for it there.

I had a little extra mustard on it.

That was good.

Mustard on a meatbone.

We're not taking any sides and any beefs here on the Get Played podcast.

Right.

Okay.

That's a weird way of saying you love drinking.

No, no, no, I don't.

I don't.

but I just, you know what?

I just feel like

it's important for an outlet like ours to remain impartial in times like these.

Do you know how big the footprint of a cultural moment has to be for me to know what you guys are talking about?

So, Nick, DJ Mustard worked with Kendrick on.

Oh, okay, no, I'm remembering this now.

Zach Cherry texted me about a mustard and I was like, I thought he was talking about a condiment, and then he explained it to me.

So

this did happen.

Okay, I have some knowledge of this.

You, as a food podcaster, it is your solemn duty to actually know about all the food-based musicians.

Right.

Meatloaf, DJ Mustard.

I know about Meatloaf.

DJ Mustard,

I could do my homework on.

Fish, the band, Fish, Sir.

This is a pretty big one, yeah.

Are you familiar with Macaulay Culkin's band?

That was a pizza cover band of The Velvet Underground?

Oh, I feel like I've heard about this, but I haven't really dug in on it.

I think it was called The Pizza Underground.

The Pizza Underground.

That's fun.

Nick Wigger, what are you playing?

That's an word Al, obviously, is probably the big food guy.

Yes.

Yeah.

But he kind of, you know, he had a lot of other non-food specific

non-food specific parodies.

For sure.

I know he doesn't operate only in food.

I did.

But he has a lot of food-related parodies.

And I know that I just mentioned him as a parody artist.

But he also

has some incredible.

When did I die?

He has some incredible

street with it then

I'm dead.

No, we heard you heard your resonate more should I so I'm a reverse ghost

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is what I've been playing.

I wish I had a little bit more time for this game over the past week.

I put a few more hours into it.

I still do really love it.

It was just one of those things where

life kind of got in the way of my gaming time, unfortunately.

But

it's great.

It's so fun.

We mentioned Chadley.

Chadley is my guy.

The only thing I love about Chadley is just like when you find something and then he pops up on the, you've got like this, you've got so many weird little devices and so many unique, like almost bespoke animations for all these, these specific interactions.

So like he'll like you'll discover something in the environment,

you know, like a material.

I forget what those materia are, the life spring, like, you know, like something like that.

And then he'll pop up on your little, like you have, it's like a gun slash tablet that that cloud will use.

And he'll pop up on him and he'll like, and he'll say something to you in it.

It's really cool.

Gun tab.

I was going to say, that's the most excited you've been about anything related to rebirth.

And Chad Lee will just be like, hey, thank you so much for helping with my research.

Well, this is like a million bucks.

I do want to point out,

he's so thankful that you found anything.

He's so grateful.

He loves it.

Well, that's what I was like,

I'm walking around this game, and it's a very.

Obviously, Final Fantasy VII Remake is so much more confined.

And here, this is so much more of like an open world game, but a hyper-polished, really engaging, really densely populated version of an open world.

But you're walking or you're wandering around these big environments.

It does give me death stranding vibes at times because there's so much shit to look at.

There's so much shit to like the environments are gorgeous, but

there's so many resources to gather.

There's so many things to find.

There are things you're headed towards, and then you'll discover something else in the environment.

And on that note, so much of what I like about this type of game is good running around, good traversal.

My memory of remake is chocobos are passive in that game, right?

Like you use them for fast travel.

Is there a moment where you're actively doing chocobo racing or something?

I can't remember.

I don't remember if they're how they're represented.

I do remember the like the chocobo cart.

The chocobo carts.

Yeah, that's what I think of.

Like that's that's all I can remember about chocobos in remake.

If there's like a, you know, like a racing mini-game or something, I'm memory holing, I apologize.

Or, or something in the, the DLC, which I didn't ever get around to playing.

Here, the chocobo is such a huge part of exploring the open world.

You get the chocobo for the stable, you can run the fuck around.

It feels great to run on a chocobo, and also it is so noticeably faster than walking.

Because sometimes in game, where I'm just like, the difference between getting on my horse and walking is not that much.

And I like how walking feels better than a horse.

So I'm just not going to use my fucking horse.

Here, I love using the chocobo.

It feels fantastic.

It's really, really fun.

And you'll get to a point too where you can unlock little outfits for them.

Oh, I've got some outfits.

I'm dressing that some bitch up.

He looks great.

Here's my question for you, Matt, as someone who finished this game.

From a combat standpoint, I'm not having any problems with the combat, but I'm like, I feel like I could be doing, like I could be optimizing this more.

Which party members should I be using?

Because I like Tifa a lot because Tifa's Rex house is a super fun, like offensive DPS option.

Cloud, obviously, is just

in your, I don't feel like I should, even if you have the option to swap out Cloud, I don't feel like Cloud should not be in the party.

It's just the game protagonist.

So it's like really that third slot I'm trying to figure out.

I messed around with Aerith.

Aerith's kind of got her own unique sort of play style that's very defensive and

more of a support role.

A little trickier to play.

I feel like Red 13 is the other one I've kind of messed in.

Maybe a little bit tankier than Team, but I don't know if you settled on a combo you liked or if you were just constantly swapping them in and out.

I was doing a fair amount of swapping, but then once I got, I got, I just, I was getting pretty far along with Cloud,

Tifa, and Yuffie.

Yeah, I don't have Yuffie yet.

You got to get Yuffie in the squad there because Yuffie, Yuffie just rocks.

Okay, so I will just bide my time until Yuffie joins the squad.

Because it's just like there, I mean, Tifa's just like punching and going crazy, and then Yuffie's like just zipping around the field going nuts.

But Barret, Barrett plays fun too.

Like,

they all feel so distinct

and so funny.

When you get Kate Sith, I feel like he's fun to have in the party for a little bit too, just to see how he just to experience how he plays a little bit.

But I

was just remembering just a second ago, too.

I saw before Rebirth came out, there was somebody who was like streaming remake and had not played the original one before or something.

And there's like a moment where you see Kate Sith like as like a cameo.

And everyone's like, wait, what the fuck is that?

Who the fuck is that?

He seems important.

Um, yeah,

I liked having Cloud and his girls,

his strong punching, hitting girls.

I'm trying to find a good shot of it, but but I really like Barrett's tattoo that he's got on his exposed arm.

You think you're gonna get it?

Yeah, maybe I'll just get it.

Why is there not a good shot of it?

Because he's always in motion.

He's just like,

you probably got to get it in like a T-pose or something.

But, gosh,

you playing it

has gotten me wanting to play it again.

It's so fun.

I can't believe how fun it is.

Here's a pretty good shot of it.

Look at that thing.

Yeah, that's pretty.

It's a flaming skull, but it's a flaming skull stylized in a way where it's like, I don't know.

It's got some real character and artistry to it.

I could rock a flaming skull.

Yeah, do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do Do it, Nick.

I know.

I kind of want to see how many we can encourage him to get.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, yeah,

I'll continue my check-ins with Rebirth because I'm going to keep playing this game.

I see no reason why I'm going to stop.

I am excited to get some more time into it because it's just super duper fun.

That's what I've been playing.

Heather, how about you?

I continue my slow progress in Kingdom Come Deliverance.

Let me tell you guys, I finally got

away from that.

I went all the way back to the lady who screamed at me when I slept in her bed.

I patched things over with her.

And then she's like, can you help me find my daughter?

She's in the town that you started in.

This is a long hike, right?

So

I start off on the hike

and it is nighttime and I run into bandits in the middle of the night.

And

I can't tell you how stressful it was to try and kill these two bandits.

They killed the guy.

Like, I see them off in the distance.

They're mugging a guy.

And I'm like, okay, maybe I can try sneaking.

And I'm like,

that's how not

my play style this game is.

That I was like, okay, I'll try sneaking up on these guys.

I sneak a little bit.

I'm like, oh, maybe I can go around.

The thing is, this game is so detailed that the moment I touched a branch of a bush, both of the people turned and looked at me and were like, what the fuck?

Fuck.

Is somebody out there?

Fuck him up.

They slit the dude's throat and I was like, oh, fuck.

Oh, God.

And then they came after me.

I paused the game because I don't know how to switch between targets.

Yeah.

I look up how to switch between targets.

Turns out there's not a really good way to do it.

It's not like built into the system.

Yeah.

You kind of have to do it manually.

So these guys are coming after me.

And I'm like, okay, I'll just, I'll just keep moving backwards.

And very slowly, anytime that like one of them gets ahead of the other one, I'll take a swing at that guy and then keep moving backwards.

Um,

this fight with these two guys and my fucking wooden sword must have taken me a half hour before I finally executed both of them.

Wow.

And then I was like, oh, oh, shit, armor.

Okay.

Put on all their armor.

And it's like, you can't wear this.

It's too heavy.

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, fuck.

So I empty out all my pockets.

There's just a pile of shit on the ground.

I get all the way back to town.

It's starting to be morning.

Yeah.

And I'm like, okay, okay, this is, this is good.

I'm going to, it's morning.

But then my dude starts being like, well, I sure am hungry.

And I'm like,

what the fuck?

What, what?

What do I do about this?

Yeah.

There's been no cooking tutorial.

There's no food that I found anywhere, except that the old lady's house, when she had a pot of soup on the stove, that pot of soup is not on that stove when I, when I sleep in her bed.

So there's no way for me to eat that pot of soup because I liked eating from the pot of soup right

so my guy as as of this record is slowly starving to death in town because i can't figure out what i'm supposed to do to feed him yeah wow like i can't just go into the woods and like find an apple like where am i supposed to get food that's not from from theft and i'm really really really trying not to have the the the fucking playthrough that i had on god what was the name that balder's game

like i'm I'm really trying not to do that.

Like, I'm only killing bad guys, but I'm starving to death, and I don't, and there's no pointers, and I refuse to look up how to play the game other than how to switch between targets.

Um, I'm glad this game exists.

It feels uh,

like something of a nightmare to play.

It's so fun.

Yeah.

And it is very funny.

I, I, I, like, I did not beat those two bandits on my first try.

They murked me immediately.

And I was like, oh, God, how do I do this?

I bet it took me like four times to kill those guys,

which every time meant coming from the old lady's house all the way back down the path to find them again.

It's,

I don't know.

It's like,

it's like a holodeck.

but it's like a holodeck where you can't where you're mute yeah so like if i was really dropped off in medieval times and the language barrier wasn't a problem, I could go ask questions of people.

I could be like, hey, I don't have any food and I don't have any idea where to get some.

Can I work for you for like a week or something and like get food from you?

But these guys, like, there's no, like, I'm walking up to people and they're like, mind your business.

And I'm like, okay.

I'm starving to death.

It sounds like the worst game to get Jumanji'd into yes it would be a nightmare yeah yeah yeah dead immediately yeah for sure that and dark souls neither of those games i want to be jumanji into

ah what would i rather be in i feel like i have a better chance of surviving in kingdom yeah for sure you do because i could just hide out in dark souls though think about this yeah okay

do you I mean I guess in you would be you would respawn in Kingdom Come too.

But like the respawning part of it is sort of part of it in Dark Souls.

Dark Soul is respawning is built into the system.

Right.

And like in Elden Ring, you're a tarnished, so you can,

like, you're, you're going to

return even if you are killed.

Yes.

Which is obviously something of a horrible purgatory, too.

But still, yeah, you don't have to worry about.

Whereas canonically in Kingdom Come, when you die, you're done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's a tricky thing.

It's interesting that it balances.

I don't want it to happen.

But I feel like, no, here's another thing I'll say.

And not to be too crassy.

I don't feel like anyone fucks in Dark Souls.

Is anyone having sex?

But I feel like in Kingdom Come Deliverance, I'm a child.

I kind of feel like

getting it on.

Patches, who we didn't mention in the bald episode last week.

Patches fucking?

I feel like he lies about it.

I feel like he says that he is.

He's like, yeah, I'm fucking everybody.

This is crazy.

And then they're like, to get you to want to go with him, and then he tries to kill you or whatever.

He seems like a liar.

Yeah.

Matt, what are you playing?

Well, I want to talk about two things.

Okay.

Well, still playing Avowed.

I'm enjoying Avowed.

I had to switch to third-person view, and that kind of feels like

cheating, kind of.

Oh.

Not cheating.

It's built into it.

You can change it.

It's just not the default view.

I'm enjoying it.

It's a more pleasurable experience for me, even though in the first-person view, you sort of get them, you get a little bit more immersed.

I just like...

I just don't really like it like that.

If I could have switched to third-person in cyberpunk, I would have played cyberpunk in third person the whole way.

So it doesn't have to do with your particular build necessarily just the preference of like you want to see the character yeah i was like i just like you know i'm i i

everyone's reacting to you in a certain way because like you have these these got like features these this fungus and stuff growing out of your head and i'm sort of like it kind of when you can't see who they're talking to it kind of feels like they're talking about you kind of and you're like this fucking i'm sitting here um so i'm still playing that enjoying it um

i'm still playing pokemon unbound on me on uh Wait, wait, wait, sorry.

Remind us, because you talked about a few different builds and about, what did you settle on?

I'm leaning into a wizard build.

Okay, got it.

You have stats for all of the builds that you can have, like, you know, fighter or knight and things like that.

So you could be dumping your stat points,

which for my liking so far, not, they're few and far between.

Yeah, I'm not getting that many.

I'm getting like one stat point every like couple hours.

I'm like, I could be using a couple more stat points here or there.

Sure.

Uh, just to, you know, I'm trying to just get more stuff going.

Um, but I'm leaning into the wizard stuff, but I also have a sword and shield because I do like the melee combat as well, right?

Um,

but I like

my wizard abilities, and I'm hoping to find another spell book with more powerful

spells.

Uh, so I'm enjoying that.

I have two party members now.

One of them is like a blue alien-looking guy, and another guy is just like a little guy with a beard, and he's my favorite.

He's really funny.

I feel like you have

a particular affection for little guys.

Yeah, he's just like a little guy.

This is an absolutely true story.

One time I was in Japan and I had my cell phone with me, but I was

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

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So here's the thing.

Look, I got sent some of this stuff, all right?

I ate one of the orange soda gummies, okay?

Now look,

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I'm not out here blazing it.

I'm not out here.

I'm not over here,

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I'm not doing any of that, all right?

I'm not always doing it, but when I do, I like to just chill out and relax.

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I do have to point out,

Heather, you gifted me the Xbox Series X,

which was very nice of you.

Because now that I'm on the other side of this, I can safely say the game looked like complete shit before.

It looks so much better.

Do you have a 4K TV?

I do have a 4K.

So you're playing a 1080p output on a 4K.

Yes.

And just even the detail in the character's beard hairs is so much nicer looking than it look it looked all scraggly and kind of like fucked up and you know it looked cheap kind of uh and now it looks great and everybody looks great uh i'm having i'm having i'm having a great time with it um

and i and i hope to continue into it the other thing i want to talk about is a little bit more about pokemon unbound because i kind of talked a little bit about how it's a rom hack and you know some like i don't know if it was like a fan or fans got together and put it together right but it's extremely extremely fun and satisfying i have to talk about the very first gym encounter go for it okay

so you go into this gym

and it's like all cloudy in there and stuff and kind of you're meeting all these trainers along the way to the gym leader and they have like sort of like

grass or like poison type um

bug you know uh pokemon And it's like, everyone's kind of talking about how it kind of stinks and it kind of like, it's a little too like smoky in there.

And then you get to the gym leader guy.

He's a freaking stoner guy.

He's a weed guy.

Put that in a Pokemon.

It's a weed gym.

And I was like, this is funny.

That is funny.

Pretty good.

And kind of like, not that I think they should.

I mean, obviously, actual Pokemon game would never.

No.

They would never, because it's a property for kids.

Yeah.

But it's kind of like, it's interesting that whoever made this, or you know, the people that made this were like,

this is going to satisfy a want for the people that have grown up playing Pokemon because it was extremely funny to me I don't think I've ever laughed playing a Pokemon game before like you recognize the audience for a ROM hack is going to be an older crap yes exactly and so I thought that was extremely fun uh extremely satisfying um i'm doing very good in the game the game also has from what i understand

dynamic like leveling So like if you level up too much, because like you used to like, you could grind and grind and grind and like level up in an area

and get super strong, beat the gym.

And sometimes your Pokemon, if you level up too much, won't respond to you if you don't have the proper

the gym badges required.

Like you always like, you're level locked behind

behind gym badges.

But the Pokemon in the area don't respond to that typically.

But if you are grinding and leveling up,

it can become a problem in this game.

Like you can sort of get like too strong for your own good.

And then the Pokemon are in the surrounding area, and the people that have Pokemon in the surrounding area could fuck you up, like, pretty good.

So, there's like level scaling where they'll be, like, yeah, they'll be more powerful as you get more powerful, which is, I think, very cool.

You can tweak it however you like in the settings, too, but I have it on right now.

I'm trying not to stay too,

not trying to get too crazy, but I do have like EXP share turned on for everybody.

And the vanilla ice cream Pokemon wigs evolved into its second form.

very happy about that.

Yeah, the three scooper.

I don't know if there's a I know, I can't remember what it looked like.

I said, I did send a picture, but it's in the back, yeah.

Um, I don't know if there's a third form.

This one is like an I thought he had three scoops.

I think there's a third form that has the three scoops.

I think it's maybe this one might be two scoops.

Oh, it's a two-scoop, maybe three scoops.

And here's the thing: I know we've talked about which Pokemon we eat.

Yeah, safely eat that one, obviously.

Oh my god, can you imagine, though?

It's screaming.

Wherever it got too high, I started melting.

Ugh.

The other thing I want to say.

Also, this is named for me.

I'm not going to eat yours.

I'll get a different one.

Make him watch.

Yikes.

I want to see.

As of today,

Pokemon, not Pokemon, excuse me.

I got too many things going on in the brain.

As of today, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4 Remastered has been announced.

And let me just say, let's fucking go.

Let's fucking go because Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is probably my most played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

I obviously have great affinity for the first and second ones, but 3 was the one that I had on this very console that we're speaking about today.

And I'm very, very excited for it.

Tony Hawk was on

the late show with Stephen Colbert to promote an announcement of a video game.

I love it.

What a world.

What a world.

Just never would have happened before.

Yeah.

Just very crazy.

And I can't wait to play it.

It comes out in July, and I'm fucking hyped as hell.

Remind us, what is this Pokemon Unbound?

Which game is it a ROM hack of?

It's using the

Fire Red engine.

A lot of the

Game Boy Advance.

For Game Boy Advance, okay.

Yeah, so a lot of them use that engine in particular because they say it's like the best for the console, but they've imported...

stuff from other generations.

There's like Pokemon from the DS generations in this game, which is very, very cool.

This is the kind of thing, anytime someone makes something like this for just for the pure love of it.

Like, it's like, obviously, if you're making your ROM hack for Pokemon, you're not going to be able to monetize that.

That's not like a thing, like Nintendo's not going to let you start collecting money off of it.

I don't know if you name it PAL World, maybe.

But there is something of just like, this is...

You know, we live in a world of like, like, so much of hustles are supposed to be like, oh, you're doing this for some sort of financial gain.

But like, no, people just like to create things.

People, people hate jobs, but they like work.

They like having some sort of meaning to something that they create.

And I love that things like this exist.

And

that reminds me that something else that I wanted to shout out very briefly.

On YouTube, I watched a 40-minute

making of Animal Well documentary.

It's from a YouTube channel called Second Wind, where they talk to

Billy Basso about his process.

And it was extremely...

Fascinating to me because he was just like I just decided to make this game and it took him seven years.

Yes.

And he's just like i was just kind of like making it for fun i never thought like it would even like have a publisher i was gonna like self-publish and stuff a really great story he seems like a really cool like guy and then he kind of goes through all the build like he he shows like like build one like it which is like insane it's it's it's like it changed so much in the in the seven years uh that he uh was working on it and i think it's absolutely worth uh checking out just just 40 minutes and i had a blast watching it i'll 100 watch that it's that game is such a like work of genius and it is so like aesthetically pristine.

Yeah.

But it's such a disconnect for me.

I know this is, this is a me thing, but like that the guy who made that is named Billy Basso.

Yeah.

Which sounds like the name of like an Oklahoma like state representative who got indicted for insider trading.

It's funny.

They talk about how like they don't like the publishers.

Yeah.

Um talk about how they thought his name was fake.

It's a great name.

It's a it's a good name.

They're like, like, really, is this like they thought it was an homage to the Fez guy?

Oh, sure.

Whatever.

I can't remember what his name is at the moment, but it's an alliterative name as well.

And they're like, is this like a similar?

Is he just trying to pay homage?

You're like, no, his name is Billy Basso.

Phil Fish.

Phil Fish.

Yes.

Who's in the weed?

We talked about when we watched down the video game in the movie.

The movie in the movie.

But yeah, check that out.

I was just surprised.

I was just on YouTube.

I'd watched a lot of Animal Well videos when I was playing Animal Well,

and it was just recommended to me.

And I was like, oh, I got 40 minutes.

I'll hop in and see what else you got going on.

Yeah, I got nothing.

A bunch of bullshit.

Just do dumb stuff.

Rochelle, our producer, Ranch, have you made any progress updates on Hollow Knight?

No, I uninstalled it.

You uninstalled it.

I had to.

I had no choice.

Wow.

Holy shit.

Was it just taking over?

Yeah, and it's the same same boss fight over and over again.

And there's really nothing else I can do, I think,

besides that to progress further.

Well, sometimes

that's the right call to make is to know when to give up on the sunk cost fallacy and just walk away.

You gotten back to Alan Wake 2 at all?

Yeah, I've been playing it a little bit.

I think I'm pretty close to the end.

Oh, nice.

I love it.

Yeah, it's so good.

I want to see a TV show of it or something.

I just like want I want more of it.

Yeah, I would love.

I mean, I think they might be working on something like that.

I really love it.

Yeah.

Do you have the DLC?

Did you play through any of that?

No, not yet.

That, because that, I think, if you were like just looking for more, because I played through the DLC, what I played through it recently is like, oh, yeah, the DLC absolutely scratches that itch for just more of this world and more of these characters.

That's awesome.

I stick with it.

You were mentioning Little Nightmares as well.

You got into that.

Yeah.

I played both Little Nightmares.

You simply talked.

Wow.

They are pretty short games.

Okay.

They're pretty short.

And that's encouraging to me.

I think I'm going to, I'll have to hop into that because I've been interested in those for a while.

Yeah, I love them.

They're so beautiful and creepy.

And

yeah, it's great.

They are aesthetically really cool looking.

I've never dug in on the little Nightmares series, but so was that the similar sort of thing?

You were just playing that.

You were playing

while you were doing some podcasting tests?

Yeah, I needed something else to fill the void.

I love it.

Shall we talk about the Sony PlayStation 2?

Let's talk about it.

So it's the 24th of October 2000, and I'm riding around in my friend Josh's car.

It's nearing 9 p.m., and we're looking for a place to buy a game system in a world that's mostly before pre-orders.

Everywhere we stop, there's already a line.

Toys R Us, they've got lawn chairs, tents, a line around the block.

Sears was a no-go, and Circuit City was sold out before they even received machines.

But then, at the Del Almo, at the Del Amo Mall in Torrance, we find a single guy sitting next to the door at Macy's.

We approach and ask gently, are you here for the PS2?

The guy says, yeah, my friend works here.

They're going to get seven.

We plop down on the pavement and wait for the next day.

Ten people show up eventually, hedging their bets.

And then the next morning, when everyone else everywhere else is still looking for PlayStation 2s, we bring ours home, plug it in, and and fall asleep on the sofa playing Dynasty Warriors.

The blue ocean of the PlayStation 2 startup screen has rippled across the TV, that low, humming chime.

In October 2000, we were the only ones we knew who had one, but by 2001, that sound had become something like a rite of passage because this little black monolith was everywhere.

It was in dorm rooms, in apartments, in basements, stacked with half-finished cans of mountain dew.

It was in your friend's house, your cousin's house, in your your weird neighbor's house who only had one game but played it obsessively.

PlayStation 2 wasn't just like a console, the way that consoles had always been consoles.

It was the console.

It was a DVD player, a music player, an entertainment center, a lifeline for kids whose parents would only buy them one system per generation.

And that was the key to its success.

The PlayStation 2 was never just selling games, it was selling the future.

But for some people, specifically those at Sega, that future was a funeral.

Quick moment of silence for our boy, The Dreamcast.

It launched first, ahead of everyone else, September 9th, 1999.

The Dreamcast was ambitious, had online play before that was a thing that people expected.

Shen Mue, a game so detailed you could open every single drawer in every single house, something that no one had asked for and hasn't since.

But none of that mattered because people didn't want the Dreamcast.

They were waiting for something else.

The PlayStation 2 was coming.

Sony had built up this empire with the first PlayStation.

Now with the PS2, they were promising more of everything.

Bigger games, better graphics, the ability to play your old PS1 discs and DVDs.

And that is so important.

None of these systems were backwards compatible until the PlayStation 2.

This sounded like a magic trick.

And so people avoided the Dreamcast and they waited.

Sega watched their numbers stall.

The writing was on the wall and in early 2001, Sega made it official.

They were pulling the plug.

Just 18 months after the Dreamcast had launched, it was dead.

But the PlayStation 2 was just getting started.

In 2002, Grand Theft Auto Vice City comes out, and suddenly the PlayStation 2 is more than just popular.

It's inescapable.

You walk into a Bus Buy and there's a demo station with kids hovering around waiting for their turn to steal a car.

You go to your cousin's house and his older brother is doing a mission where you throw Molotov cocktails at a mansion and a soundtrack's blaring a flock of seagulls.

This is what the PlayStation 2 did better than anyone else.

It wasn't just power or graphics, it was culture.

It made video games bigger than video games.

It had Guitar Hero, which turned living rooms into concert stages.

It had Dance Dance Revolution, which made arcades feel alive again.

It had Final Fantasy X, which was the first game that made people cry

over a water ball match.

It had everything.

What What was the name of that sport?

Blitzball.

Blitzball.

That's it.

It was a system that grew up with you.

If you were 10, you played Kingdom Hearts.

If you were 15, you played Metal Gear Solid 2 and told people it's like a movie.

If you were 20, you played God of War and felt like the coolest person alive.

And if you were a little bit older, you bought one just to watch DVDs.

By the time Sony finally stopped making PlayStation 2s, it was 2013.

Think about that.

That's 13 years.

That's like if you could walk into an Apple store here in the year 2025 and buy an iPhone 4.

13 years is longer than most of us spent in school.

And during all those years, the PS2 wasn't just surviving, it was thriving.

Even when the PlayStation 3 launched in 2006, people were still buying PS2s, because by then it wasn't just a console, it was an institution.

Eventually, though, all things end.

Today, the PS2 is a relic.

You don't see them in stores anymore.

But if you go to the right places, flea markets, thrift stores, a friend's attic, you'll you'll still find them.

A little scuffed, the disc tray is sticking sometimes, but still standing.

And if you turn one on, that sound, the chime, the low hum of history booting up is still there.

And for a second, so is everything else.

Wow.

That was really well done as always, Heather.

I like when we clap.

I like all of it.

Obviously, the clap is well deserved, but it kind of doesn't feel like something you normally do when somebody finishes talking when it's four people in a room.

I was,

I think, I think it's really, this is

slight

side quest to the anecdote of getting my PS2,

which is that

I was a child, right?

I'm a young person when the PS2 comes out.

It's the year 2000, and I'm with my best friend Josh,

but I had a terrible haircut.

And so after like six or seven hours of like kind of doing line bonding, one of them said to my friend Josh, who is slightly older than me, it's so cool that your mom came here with you.

Wow.

I have never been so brutalized by a comment in my life.

I'm going to get it.

I'm going to get in a time machine.

I'm going to kick that person's ass.

There's no fucking way I could look like my best friend's mom.

No, a contemporary.

no

that's tough that's a tough one he laughed until the sun came off

also it was crazy to be at macy's and like starting to be like oh god is this guy lying to us like is it are they really gonna have ps2s at macy's yeah sure it would be funny if he was lying and he was just like i just sit here every day

but i would you know you sometimes and i i remember when i got my it was a similar sort of thing for when i got got my, when I was hunting for an N64,

I think I found the console at Target and the game at Toys R Us.

It was like they're places that were out of stock of either Mario 64 or the console itself.

But yeah, my PlayStation 2 experience, I remember pre-ordering it, I could be wrong, but I remember pre-ordering it from GameStop Online.

And it was when I when I got it, I did get it in October of 2000.

But my first one was not bricked, but busted.

There was an issue with the drive, and it would constantly hitch when it was trying to spin up.

I had super long load times, and it was like the thing where it was like games were playable, but it was super annoying.

And I eventually just had to get the bad boy replaced.

And it was so long because they were so scarce that it took forever for them to ship.

me a new one, which was a frustration.

That said, really no harm, no foul, because there was nothing to play at launch.

The PlayStation 2, as great as its lifespan was, its launch lineup was pretty puny.

I think the SSX was like the best game that was in that initial batch.

The big thing that happened with one of the many ways that

Sony cucked Sega is that they got EA or EA chose because of Sony's preeminence of the marketplace to just completely sit out the Dreamcast.

And,

you know, like we're not, I'm the the biggest sporto here, but sports games are a huge seller.

And EA has FIFA.

They had NBA Live, which at the time was the big franchise.

Obviously, 2K comes around and eats its lunch partly because of the Dreamcast.

But then Madden was the big one, certainly in the United States.

And so not having Madden

on the Dreamcast was enough to get a lot of people to not buy it, even though they had NFL 2K over there, which was a better game.

So,

you know, Madden comes out

on PlayStation 2.

That was one of the launch titles I had.

And you know what?

It wasn't very good.

Pretty bad.

Pretty bad, Madden.

Yeah, I feel like of the Maddens, that's probably not like the one.

2001, I think, was the one that was launched with the PlayStation 2.

Yeah.

The only thing I remember about the game that I got, which was, I don't, I think it was Dynasty Warriors.

I didn't even look up the title.

It's the one with a bunch of characters on the screen.

And you, like, run through it and, like, swing a sword.

And, like, it was

joyless and I had a little bit of like buyer's remorse because I was like oh man I this game is cool to look at but it's not like a favorite game of mine yes and so rarely is a launch title something so good that you're like this is the best system of all time I think one of the rare exceptions is Mario 64 like Mario 64 sells the system and is also one of the best if not the best game that ever comes out on the N64.

Yeah.

But those launch titles, I think The Bouncer was like soon after.

Yeah, The Bouncer was like sort of late launch window.

Yeah, and I got I got the bouncer also, and I was like, this game also kind of sucks.

Yeah.

Like, it was like a Tetsu Nomura game, and you're like starting to be dimly aware of who that person is because, like, oh, he did the Final Fantasy characters, and these guys kind of look like the Final Fantasy characters.

But that game game sucked too what is also was just like oh square that was the era of square was trying stuff like they had like that fighting game i don't remember what that's called and then that they had a shooter they made that was actually pretty good a pretty decent schmuck side scroller that was maybe on playstation one uh i brought up the

the ps2 launch titles here's the final definitive list of all the games that were released on or before october 26 2000.

this is an october 27th 2000 article on ign that's still up uh but yeah dynasty warriors 2 was the launch title.

That would have been the one you played.

Eternal Ring, I remember that game.

Um, that was kind of like a whatever, like

much hyped, pretty decent, like, uh, like graphically game at the time, but didn't really, you know, it's funny to call that pretty decent graphically because I look at some screenshots now.

But at the time, it was like, oh, this game looks okay, but it was kind of a like a whatever sort of RPG.

Um, Tekken Tag Tournament, I guess, was, was, was the other one.

Tekken Tag Tournament, SSX, and probably, I don't remember what that Ridge Racer was.

I didn't play it, but that was maybe one that was, I would assume, was decently regarded.

Yeah.

Gosh, I mean, I got the PlayStation 2 late because I sort of came to,

I, you know, I, I was, I was, I was, I was born at the incorrect time.

Uh, and so I, so when I, when the PlayStation 1 comes out, I, I'm a little bit young for it, you know, sure.

Uh, and there was three of us, so like, it was just like, they're not going to really spend the money on a console and are not really getting a Game Boy at that time.

Like, so I didn't, I mean, I didn't have a Game Boy until I was like 10 years old or something.

But for the, so I got the PlayStation 2 a couple of years into,

you know, its existence and its dominance.

And I remember the first thing that I ever did with it was watch Austin Powers 2.

Of course.

100%.

Because that's the thing Heather mentioned in the intro.

And this was a thing like I knew non-gamers at the time who were excited for the PlayStation 2 because they was like, well, I want a DVD player.

I want one of these new things that lets you watch movies and TV shows.

And,

you know, I might as well get the one that's also a video game system.

The only reason I owned a DVD player before the PlayStation 2 is I won one in a sweepstakes.

And like, otherwise...

There would have been no way for me to own.

Like, I couldn't just go to the store and afford to buy a standalone DVD player, especially because it would also mean replacing all of my tapes.

Right.

And so I'm just now remembering another casual like Heather anecdote that's just like, I want a DVD player in a sweepstape.

It's like, all right, sure.

Yeah.

Well, so get a little, so get a little of this.

Yeah.

This is not exactly the same thing.

I won a TV, like a tube CRT, like a 27-inch

CRT TV

at a family reunion.

I like won the raffle for the big prize and everybody was fucking furious.

Everyone was so fucking mad because I was already like, I have a TV at home, and like, uh, and I was like trying to sell it to people who wanted it at the family reunion because I was like, I want to buy a PS2.

I already have a TV, who wants to buy the TV?

And everyone's like, Skidder has a TV, it's fucking bullshit.

And they were like getting like legitimately like upset.

And I remember then we sold the TV to a lady that my grandma worked with.

And they gave me the money, and I bought a PS2.

And then, like, I was like, you know, with my brothers I was like guys we have a PS2 now.

This is huge.

We use that thing every single day until we destroyed it.

Yeah.

Like we ended up having to get a slim

if I got a PS2 in like 2002 we replaced it by 2006 with the slim because it just like would not read discs anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Those you you could you could fuck up the laser on those things.

The PlayStation one was certainly more finicky and then I knew friends who would like have their PlayStation 1 like upside down because it would read better.

But I will say that

the redesign that you referred to, the PS2 Slim, is like one of my favorite console redesigns ever.

It's like it's amazing how small that thing is.

It's like two DVD cases stacked on top of each other.

I see that.

Which I guess

someone who's younger probably doesn't even have a sense of how big a DVD case is.

It's like

a case and a half of a Blu-ray.

There you go.

It's so fucking small.

A 4K disc.

I still have it, and it's still, that thing still works.

Yeah.

Like the day I got it.

It's great.

I still have my PS2 because obviously I keep all this stuff in that hole.

I still have my launch PS2, which now also has the hard drive and the network adapter on it, because

Final Fantasy 11 launched while I lived in

Europe.

And it didn't launch in Europe.

So I had my mom ship me my PlayStation 2, and I got a voltage converter and a PAL converter so that I could play Final Fantasy 11 on the television in my apartment.

And so, like, that system has like traveled with me all over the world.

Wow.

Kind of sweet.

It is nice.

Versus the PlayStation 1, which I had.

The big thing, the big issues issues with the PlayStation 1 were,

first off,

the drive speed was so slow.

It was like a 2x CD drive, I believe, versus the PlayStation 2 comes in, and again, with backwards compatibility, as Heather mentioned, but that has a 4X DVD speed and a 24X CD speed.

So it was like just way faster at loading shit.

But the other thing is the textures,

you look at an old PlayStation 1 game running on PlayStation 1 hardware, which is kind of harder to find that footage these days because a lot of people are running in emulations and running in emulators and using filters and whatnot.

The textures were unfiltered and the texture mapping was pretty

unsophisticated on the PlayStation 1.

It was much improved on the PlayStation 2.

And then there was a toggle you could have to turn on texture smoothing on PS1 games when you're playing were playing in backwards compatibility.

So they would load faster and look way the fuck better.

And even though these were games you already owned.

But yeah, the backwards compatibility thing, Heather mentioned, and I'm sure this was like a huge thing for families too.

I remember when the Super Nintendo was going to come out,

other kids, like kids' moms and Cub Scouts being like, well, it's not going to play the old game, so I'm not going to get one.

Like the idea of something like not being backwards compatibility was an, it was a, it was a huge blockade for a lot of people, even though you're going to get new games.

But part of part of why Nintendo did that is to force people to buy entirely new libraries.

Whereas Sony's like, yeah, whatever, fucking play your old games on this.

We want the play, there to be continuity between the PlayStation hardware.

It also began what I feel like is

this concept of legacy that PlayStation has.

Like Nintendo systems, the IP is the legacy, right?

Like it'll be like, oh, Mario's been with us our whole life.

But there's

that is tethered to the hardware itself that is your memory of PlayStation, the hardware, which I think they are like recently on the PS5, they did the like the anniversary startup sounds.

Yeah.

And the startup sounds are like iconic enough that the hardware nostalgia is like pulled through time

here to 2024, 2025.

And Nintendo is not doing that.

Sega's dead.

And Xbox doesn't even have a lineage of naming convention.

Yeah.

Like,

you may not have owned an iPhone 1, but you're getting the iPhone 15 or the iPhone 16, and there's a consciousness of that legacy in the same way that the PlayStation 5 is the fifth PlayStation.

Yeah.

I like that a lot.

I think also if you compare the dual sense controller for the PlayStation 5 to the very first PlayStation 1 controller, the one that did not have analog sticks that just had a D-pad.

It's still like fundamentally a very similar thing versus look at like the first controller for an NES versus where it went from generation to generation.

And a lot of this was Nintendo was innovating things like the analog stick, like shoulder buttons that would become staples of controllers moving forward.

But like the way that would progress is that there's basically

outside of the D-pad itself basically nothing is remaining you know from generation to generation and you look at where an NES controller is versus or a Famicom controller Is where versus like what you'd use for a Switch Joy-Con.

It's like completely so far removed.

It's

yeah, I mean, that's a thing that I think they were they have been really effective about from a branding standpoint.

And obviously the progression from PlayStation 1 to PlayStation 2 when they decided to just basically go from the dual shock one to the dual shock two.

It's fundamentally the same controller in a different color.

It was

a decision, a bet on consistency.

The fact that you could play PS1 games on the PS3 was fucking crazy.

Yeah.

Like, that was just like Sony being like, no, stay with us.

Stay in our ecosystem.

We will make you get a totally different kind of memory card than anyone has ever invented if you get the Vita.

But if you stay in the PlayStation lineage, we will let you play your games forever.

And that has only recently been something they off-roaded.

Like, you can't do that anymore on the PS5.

And honestly, that sucks.

Yeah.

Wasn't there something crazy?

I should have looked it up, but I don't remember the details specifically.

But wasn't it something weird where it was like on the PS3, the chip that allowed or

the chip that allowed PlayStation 1 compatibility was the same chip that handled like its networking?

Like it was just like they just found a dual, like it, it was, that was how much hardware had progressed, where what used to be like its own, like, you know,

a set-top box, its own console could now be handled by like a single chip that did some sort of side task on two generations removed.

I think the PS3, and again, I'm not a fucking journalist anymore.

I don't know if this is true.

I'm remembering it.

I think the PS3 has the full PS2 chipset in it.

Is that what it is?

Because you couldn't emulate that shit and it's still pretty hard to emulate the emotion engine of the PlayStation 2.

uh so yeah i think i think there's a whole ps2 inside the chest-sized ps3

because then that was like patched out of the other models yeah the the i had i got the refurbished or you're not the refurbished the the redesign of the the ps3 uh which i guess is it's funny to call the ps3 Slim the slim because it's fucking huge still.

It's like pretty big.

Well, the PS3 PS3

is, I mean, it's like six pounds.

Yeah, you could do a kickflip with it.

I think it's a big thing.

Yeah, it's very big.

The other thing I was going to say

about the PlayStation 2 is, and PlayStation 1, I believe the other thing is that PlayStation 1 games didn't have any anti-aliasing.

So again, it was just like it just led to this sort of kind of ugliness of those games, no matter how good the art direction was.

Even a game like Vagrant Story, it was just like it was this jaggy,

looking mess and yeah the the i i i do remember specifically firing up vagrant story on playstation 2 and i was like oh wow this looks looks uh noticeably better even though uh this is a last-gen game and then obviously what they were able to do with the ps2 hardware over time like where they were able to take that both in expanding you know how vast games could feel and also just like the level of graphical fidelity they got to by by those late-gen games.

I mean, we mentioned God of War, but God of War looks so much better than anything on PlayStation 1 and noticeably better than anything that came out at launch on PlayStation 2.

They just iterated on it and figured out how to just squeeze every bit of horsepower out of that thing.

And that's why I had to, I bought a, by the time I got God of War, it had been...

in the greatest hits line and that was used to be like the discount line.

That's typically when I bought new games because they would be $20 instead of of $40 or whatever.

And I got God of War and my PlayStation 2 wouldn't read it.

And I was like devastated because I want to play this game so bad and then had to go and

save up some money and wait to play it until I can get

the slim.

I think my brother,

one of my brothers at least had to have been like, let's pool our resources together because

we need a PlayStation 2.

We can't just be sitting around.

What are we supposed to be doing here?

One of the things I remember God of War doing from a technical side, and that might account for why it just didn't run on your busted old

worn PS2, is that it streamed a lot of data off the disc as you were playing, which was,

you know, at the time, more likely the approach would have been a lot of games still do this.

Here's a hard stop, here's a lengthy loading screen, but they were trying to do it where gameplay was not interrupted all that often.

So, yeah, it was probably pretty taxing on the hardware.

It's so interesting to me that I played probably 10 times as much PlayStation 2 over its lifespan than I did Sega Dreamcast, but I still have more nostalgia for the Sega Dreamcast just because it was like a weird little box with some like quirky little games.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's like I had so much personality to it.

This is, I mean, this, to me,

I really locked in with gaming in this era with

a PS2 and a Game Boy Advance.

I was like, I have no problems.

Also, I was 11.

There was nothing wrong in my life.

I was like, this is like easily, like, I'm like,

you know, I'm like, I have like blank, I'm the blank check kid.

I'm, I'm richie rich over here.

I got both of these two things.

I don't need anything.

I have no needs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's weird also.

You, what you're saying.

I was not rich, by the way.

It was like, we, it was a miracle that I had anything, anything new.

I was not rich at all.

Glad you did.

What was your favorite thing, menu item for the McDonald's in your house?

None of it because my mom is a horrible cook.

Here's the thing.

If I had a McDonald's in my house, you'd just never see me.

The thing you said about the Dreamcast being like nostalgic in a way that the PS2 isn't, I liken to the fact that I don't have nostalgia for a, like it was so ubiquitous.

I don't have nostalgia for a VCR.

I don't have nostalgia for a DVD player.

Yeah.

There was so much stuff on the PlayStation 2 that the system itself almost feels like a camera or a computer.

Like it wasn't like,

it wasn't like, oh, it's it.

If you want to play, you know, Sonic Forces, you're going to have to get like, like, it was the everything machine.

And so the machine itself feels less nostalgic.

I just realized today when doing the research for this, for this episode, that because the Dreamcast is discontinued 18 months after it launches, there's six months where PlayStation 2 is the only sixth generation system that exists, which also I think is what like digs out the trench for the warfare that it ends up winning.

Because like, for six months, it was like, Are you really waiting for the GameCube?

Like, nobody knew if the Xbox was going to suck or not.

So, all you had was, if I'm joining this generation, I'm going to get the PlayStation 2, which also has the DVD player built in.

Like, it was nuts.

It's, it's,

Halo had to be so good to overcome everyone's skepticism of Microsoft's entry into the marketplace.

Like, it's arrows, like, what the fuck is this thing?

It's like big and ugly.

The controller's like the size of a dinner plate the fuck is this stupid this white this fucking lame ass microsoft the windows company is making a console and they come out and everyone's like oh halo is just undeniable it's just so fucking good they also were smart enough to make that a an xbox exclusive at the time it was originally planned to be also on pc but they were like no we'll just we'll make it live just on this box and and that was enough to to completely salvage the brand that it seems like they're maybe now also killing because

they're mismatching everything's an xbox now yes The craziest shit about Halo is that it was initially debuted at a fucking Mac conference.

Yes.

Yeah.

Like Steve Jobs is the one who's like, let me show you Halo.

Yeah, Bungie were Apple developers.

Their, you know, Marathon was my friend had on his on his dad's Mac, like his Mac desktop.

Crazy.

So the

Anyway, and then obviously the GameCube is going to, as weird as it was, it was going to survive just by being Nintendo.

Heather, you earlier mentioned the emotion engine, which was a thing that Sony used in their marketing and was a big part of how fucking weird this system was.

I can't remember if it was the PS2 or was the PS3, where they were like, we can't let Iraq get the

PlayStation 2 because they're going to use it to launch nuclear missiles because it was like technically a supercomputer because of how many CPUs it had.

I don't remember.

I remember there was some military, I think it was the PS3 that a military organization bought a ton of, yeah, it was the PS3, a ton of PS3s and then networked them all together in order to make a supercomputer because PS3 also launched with

massively distributed science programs built into it.

Like you could do something called folding at home,

which would allow your PS3 on its down cycles to use this massive CPU to process genes looking for cancer cures, which is fucking crazy.

The other thing about the emotion engine is that they were like kind of pushing it from the side of like, we're taking games to the next level.

And that led to, again, because this was such a phenomenon, some skepticism from the mainstream media.

I have a Newsweek piece that I remember hate reading when I was younger by Jack Kroll.

And I looked it up and it was still online.

The title is Emotion Engine?

I don't think so.

Let me read just a couple of excerpts from this.

Games can be fun and rewarding in many ways, but they can't transmit the emotional complexity that is the root of art.

Even the most advanced games lack the shimmering web of nuances that makes human life different from mechanical processes.

Interestingly, movies can transmit the sense of this nuanced complexity where games cannot.

Movie makers don't have to simulate human beings.

They are right there to be recorded and orchestrated.

The digitally created medieval Japanese Warriors and Kessen, one of the first titles made for the PlayStation 2, have none of the breathing presence, the epic gallantry of the Knights of Akira Kurosawa's 1985 film Ron.

The top-heavy titillation of Tomb Raiders Lara Croft falls flat next to the face of Sharon Stone, smiling with a challenging sensuality at some haplessly macho male and basic instinct.

Any player who's moved to Tom Essence by Digibimbo Lara is in big trouble.

Hang on.

Is this Person's thesis?

I can't jack off to this, so I hate it.

I think at some level, this guy is mad that he can't jack off to games.

But also, he's upset at like

people trying.

He's like, fidelity equals art.

He's saying that, like, I can't be moved by an Impressionist painting because it doesn't look like real world.

That's basically what he's saying.

He's saying photography is superior to,

photography is a superior medium to, you know, artistically rendering something.

I'll read just a little bit more of this

awful drivel.

But behind such techno-magic lies a banality of vision and style.

Computer games create a world of manipulative mechanics without the catharsis and revelation of real art.

The scary thing is the seductiveness of this world, especially for young people, for whom it is natural to be citizens of a culture of games.

This is a new breed, perhaps even a new evolutionary event in the species.

Sitting at their joysticks, again, just shows you how fucking out of touch this is.

Joysticks.

Sitting at their joysticks, they await the coming of Phil Harrison's envisioned savior, someone who can shatter the Pavlovian world of stimulus and response and create a genuine new art from these patterned puppets on a world of screens.

I want to know what the most recent article is that that guy has written.

Let me look for a Jack Kroll obituary.

Yeah, because I mean, this was not, the person that wrote this wasn't like 24 years old.

You know what I mean?

No, no, Jack Kroll died in the year 2000.

Oh, my God.

So he wrote this engine.

He went as fucking

old and then fucking died at the age of 74.

No!

Oh, that's awful.

It is very funny, though, to be like,

because obviously

this is wrong.

Like this guy was very wrong.

But you also,

I'm amazed that someone

who is criticizing movies at that time and witnessed the whole thing of like, witnessed the dismissal, the hand waving away of this art form by tastemakers in its, in, you know, before we started to get all the

artistry of filmmaking that would come in the latter half of the 20th century, before that, it was like a curiosity.

This is an entertainment for the masses.

And we see the same cycle happen in every new medium.

And we saw it happen in video games.

Obviously, this guy was not anticipating things like, you know, Disco Elysium,

you know, things that were really going to

push the medium in completely different ways.

But on PlayStation 2, you have Shadow of the Colossus.

Yeah, you did do Shadow of the Colossus, which came up.

That was arguably an...

actual emotional experience.

That's a better example because that's how recently after this guy's article editorial comes out, that you know, like this starts to happen.

We start to see that.

And Team Eco was another thing I had in my notes of just like when I think of the PlayStation 2, I honestly, that's at the top of my, of mind for me.

I know people think of Grand Theft Auto, I know people think of the Bettle Gears, I know people think of the Final Fantasies, but for me personally, it is Team Eco's games, Eco and Shadow of the Colossus, because those are both so like,

oh, wow, this is really telling a story in a new way, and this is presenting like this

reality that has

such a deep lore that you can absorb by inference.

Like, you can just see what's happening here and like assume so much about this world, and it feels rich and alive by virtue of how much is omitted.

And what's unique to games because of the way that that inference works is that the story is as giving as you are curious.

Right.

So, like, to an incurious person, that game is just go

beat the big guy.

Yeah.

But like

what starts to happen, I think in the PlayStation 2, but I also think that was happening on PC games at this time

is that

you start to be rewarded for your own

investment in the world of the thing.

It's not like if you read a novel,

You can't read more words than are in the novel.

You can only read what's given to you.

But with Shadow of the Colossus, you could, in theory, go from point A to point B and miss all the extra words.

And that's what's different about gaming than all of these other mediums.

Yeah,

and that's a great point.

And then, and obviously, and I think this comes from part of the dismissiveness of people towards games is like people who are like watching footage of games and thinking that means playing them, which is like, it's not the same thing.

I clearly, you know, from this editorial, it seems pretty clear that this guy has like looked at screenshots and maybe clips of games, but has not actually played them himself.

Because if you play something like Shadow of Colossus, you're like, oh, I have to do something.

I have to choose to do something awful in order to progress in this game.

I have to choose to do harm in order to see what happens.

And that's a completely, that.

interactive experience is that active experience is so much different for the passive experience of watching a character who is not you

commit some atrocity in in a movie for instance and i think that the

sort of apex of that kind of decision making for me in PlayStation terms is

The Last of Us Part 2, which is like a through line from, oh, God,

I feel

sadness when I kill these colossi.

I don't know if I want to keep doing this, but I also want to see what happens in the story is then sort of like the climax of that concept is

the final act of The Last of Us Part 2, where you're like, if you have any empathy, you're like, I don't want to do the things that I have to do in order to beat this game.

Right.

Which is fucking awesome.

I hate that article.

You know what?

I'm going to thumbs down.

I'm going to comment on it.

You're really funny.

How's hell, bitch?

Can we talk about the accessories for this system a little bit?

Yeah, sure.

And then I do also want to dedicate some time to talking about the games themselves, but we'll go to the exercise.

Because the PlayStation 2 is so ubiquitous, there is a pipeline of like, what can we connect to this system?

I've already mentioned the network adapter and the hard, the hard drive adapter, which having a hard drive on your own gaming console was pretty wild at the time.

How big was that hard drive at the time?

Do you remember?

It's like a four megabyte.

I don't know.

It wouldn't have to be that big.

It's probably somewhere in that ballpark.

If not collected.

Because wasn't the PlayStation 3 was like a 60 gig drive, right?

Yeah.

I'm not sure how big the

hard drive was for the PS2.

The only thing that I ever installed on it was Final Fantasy 11, which, I mean, like, I'm shocked that I didn't burn out my system playing that game.

Yeah.

Where I have, I think I've said this on the show before, I will have modern memories where I'm like, where was that?

Where was that alley?

What town was that in?

Was that in Seville?

Was I on like a corporate show?

Oh, no, that's in Final Fantasy 11.

That's not a real alley.

I have a physical space memory that occupies the same like

nostalgic vocabulary as like actual locations that I went.

But let's talk about accessories.

All right.

There were tons and tons and tons of accessories.

There was the rock band accessories where you could hook up guitars and drums and everything.

There was a beat mania DJ table where you could hook up like a pseudo

DJ

platform in order to play Beat Mania.

There was the fishing rod controllers.

There was the Taito train controller, which allowed you to play an interactive cockpit of

a Japanese train.

But some of the ones that we may have forgotten about,

and I'm not even talking about the Trance Vibrator, which was an accessory for the game Res, which vibrated in time with the visuals on screen.

I'm not talking about the Resident Evil 4 chainsaw controller, which is legendary as this sort of gargantuan

clumsy

way to play the game.

There was the eye toy, which was a webcam that allowed you to play eye toy-specific games before the Wii comes out.

There was also, though, after Sega gets destroyed,

Sega starts making Saturn controllers for the PlayStation 2.

Official Saturn controllers, which was at the time one of the best controllers ever made.

And it was like, hey, if you want to play with a Saturn controller, you can plug this Saturn controller into your PlayStation 2.

But really, the ones that I found when doing the research for

this

little conversation we're having that I had never heard of

are the Game Track Real World of Golf Gloves.

What What the fuck?

Which

was a PlayStation 2 game where you put a base on the ground and they had wires that you would like pull out of the base unit that was on the ground.

Yeah.

Connect them to gloves.

Hold a real

club in your hand and then swing the club and the wires would interact with the base unit so that it could interpret your golf swing on the screen.

That's crazy.

I wonder how many many people smash their TVs.

There's the, you know, we played C-Man on the Dreamcast a while back for our old format.

There was a limited edition C-Man controller, which came out for the PlayStation 2 that looks like some kind of Mayan artifact and has a built-in microphone

in the unit itself.

But the thing that I'm most shocked by, oh, here's the real world golf gloves.

And

crazy.

Crazy.

Crazy.

Those must not work at all.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, the review on Amazon is

2.1 stars with three reviews.

I want to see if there's any actual reviews of the thing

or if it's.

Here it is.

The only review from 2011.

You should not buy this product.

By the way, I would, I've been kind of

a little bit buried on my own browser here because I've been looking at train controllers now because I did not know this world.

Look at this fucking Switch train controller that exists.

Wow.

Look awesome.

Well, there goes Nick.

Nick's done.

But the one that I found that I

truly had never seen or heard of is a

this is back when, you know, light guns are still

semi-ubiquitous in the world of video video games.

The original NES comes with a fucking gun.

Yeah.

And it's not until we switch over to L C D and LED screens that these guns don't work anymore.

So one of the hoary

light guns that is available for the PlayStation 2 is a replica Beretta.

That's their fucking rules.

So cool.

God, I would have wanted that so bad as a kid, to have an actual fucking gun.

Yeah, and you would have been killed by a police officer.

Me?

No.

Yeah, you would have been joined their badge.

There's also taiko drums for the PlayStation 2.

There were so many

different gizmos and gadgets.

Here's one of the one of the train controllers for the PlayStation 2.

So that's awesome.

Those drums.

Yep.

That little like drum character.

Yeah.

I thought

I had not experienced that character until

it was like new.

There was like a version of it that came out for Switch or something.

And I was like, who's this?

I love this guy.

But you're telling me this.

I'm learning in real time that this drum character has been around.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's

been around since at least the PlayStation 2.

I'm not certain if he was around earlier than that.

The series is Taiko no Tatsujen.

And I don't know what the name of the mascot is, but I actually have a Taiko no Tatsujen hoodie just because I like the design.

Oh, wow.

A little bit of stolen valor.

In our

shared group text that we have here for Get Played, I've just shared the Yahoo auctions of PlayStation 2 accessories, of which there are, you know...

thousands of items.

But here are things that perhaps you have never heard of that have insane and exorbitant prices.

There's also like Gundam Seed, you know, used PlayStation 2s for more than $1,000 on this list.

It's really interesting to

sort of

browse through.

Yeah.

But yeah.

There's some peripherals.

I remember the,

just because you mentioned light guns, and they did make one for the PlayStation 2, but I never had it.

But in the PlayStation 1, you know, this is the era of time crisis and

point blank, these great Namco arcade shooters that got ported.

And the Namco Gun Con was just like such an awful, like the best light gun ever.

That's the Beretta.

That's the Beretta is a Namco GunCon.

That's the GunCon.

Maybe by Hori.

Yeah, because the Gun Con.

With the foot pedal.

The Gun Con is, yes, the foot pedal was key, which you could, on the, on the Time Crisis port, you could put your controller on the floor and step on it to simulate the pedal if you didn't have a pedal.

But then also there was a button on the gun con that I believe also did the pedal thing.

But it had a pass-through for

your video input.

So that was not just, it was like super accurate because it was actually reading the, you know, the video feed itself.

I don't know exactly how it worked technically, but that gun was awesome and also just like great to hold.

Like it was such a sturdy piece of hardware.

Yeah.

Nothing, really cool.

That Hori Beretta there.

That Hori Beretta was cool as hell.

Let's talk about some games a little bit.

I mentioned Eco and Shadow of the Colossus.

Those are two I think of.

Obviously, the Metal Gear Solid games.

I mean,

Metal Gear Solid 2, I went to the E3,

God, which year would this have been?

2001, where they were showing Metal Gear Solid 2 and they had the...

Wow.

They were showing it on

basically every hour on the hour, they were showing like a 20-minute trailer for Metal Gear Solid 2.

It might not be 20 minutes.

Maybe it's like half that length, but it feels like robust.

I also wouldn't run it past Hideo Kojima to make a 20 minute trailer.

Exactly.

That's what I say because that sounds right, but I don't know if that's actually, I'm sure you can just find the footage online.

But I just remember the crowds because people would like gather around.

And I did it like three times the day I was there.

Just go see, watch the same trailer that was not on in a pre-Youtube world projected on this huge screen.

And they'd show this trailer and it just looked absolutely fucking incredible and had this score by Henry Gregson-Williams.

And

then at the end, like a guy, a Konami rep would get on the mic and say, ladies and gentlemen, what you just saw was 100% gameplay.

There was no pre-rendered cinematics in that footage.

Wow.

And it's just like the crowd,

it was kind of amazing how much hype there was for that game.

I bought Zone of the Enders, which is a Herdeo Kijima game, a mecha game.

Because it had the Metal Gear Solid, I played that game, but the main reason I got it was because it had the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo disc, which is just the tank level.

And obviously,

that level in just the part where you play a solid snake yeah and it's but it's like the entire mission and so you're you're getting basically that the first act of that game none of the writing stuff and it's obviously such a huge misdirect when that game comes out and write in is the this the character that you're controlling for 90 of it yeah and there was it's so funny how that game is remembered so fondly as such a masterpiece now and so prescient when at the time it was like

It was like a gate, like you bought a Star Wars game, wanting to play a Luke Skywalker, and then the reaction was like, oh, I have to play as Jar Jar for the rest rest of the game.

Everyone so mad about Ryden, everyone's so mad that they've been furious, they were so pissed off.

And it's, it's, it's, again, it's just, it's, it's such a,

it was, it was such one where the hype cycle and then the reaction, I think, have just kind of been memory hold.

Um, Metal Grasson 3 Snake Eater, obviously, as well, just like such an such a triumph and such a huge, you know,

part of that console for me.

I remembering a very specific thing you used to have to do when you got a new game, maybe, or like, you know, if in my case, I was sharing memory, a memory card.

I had, or, you know, we had two memory cards that we were sharing between the three of us, and those things would get filled quick.

Yep.

And so having to sort of make the choice to, because there wasn't like, you couldn't just save the game, save in the cloud.

Yeah, there's no place to transfer it to.

You're just like, oh, I got 80 hours in this game.

Yeah.

You know, am I going to get rid of this?

So you have to sort of then make the choice to be like, okay, I want to start a new game in something else.

Which of these games have I, I guess, am I done with forever?

Yeah.

And I'm going to delete the

save of.

See you later, Klonoa 2.

The games that I remember most of the PS2 other than Final Fantasy XI are the

Katamari Damasi was a monumental experience for me.

Another one, just, again, just like games as art.

That would happen in this generation that you were so skeptical of.

And

just to dogpile on this dead man a little bit more, but it's like that stuff just happened on that very console.

Like people were pushing the envelope of what this medium could be, and we're creating very artful things like Katamari Domicy, which are so unique to

having an interactive medium.

I also want to shout out

Steambot Chronicles, which was an Atlas-released IRAM

action RPG where you

went around in a small mech

playing this role-playing game.

God Hand, of course, was one of my favorite games of all time.

And that came out on the PlayStation 2.

It

had programmable combos.

So you could create the chain of actions that you wanted to be able to perform in a combo,

which was so fucking awesome.

You know, God of War, like, God of War has become,

I don't want to even say hokey, but it's, it's become so, like,

it's such a gimme to talk about God of War because Kratos has become such like an icon of the PlayStation brand that it's strange to think about the time when God of War came out for the first time.

Yeah.

And people were like, holy shit, this game looks insane.

Yes.

And it's a, and it's a new IP.

Yeah.

This is like not like a, this is, you know, this is not a thing that exists.

This is something that, that, that came out of of nowhere.

I recently re-watched the, um,

the announcement of God of War 2018.

Uh-huh.

And it was just like

so fucking hyped for a game that I know exists because everybody in the crowd was just going so crazy.

And I was like, this fucking, I don't know.

That's like just fun.

It's fun energy

to witness.

No, I used to like to re-watch the GameCube announce trailer because it was the crowd reaction because people were so hyped for all the footage of games they showed that would never come out.

We're like, oh, that looks cool.

Anyway,

the

other games I think of, you talked about Final Fantasy 11.

For me, Final Fantasy X for a long time was my favorite Final Fantasy.

I really like Final Fantasy X.

Final Fantasy XII, obviously, just such a masterpiece.

It's so fucking good.

Silent Hill 2, we've talked about at length on this podcast.

But, you know, my remember, because you were talking about the greatest hits games,

my memory is when toys r us would do the Buy two get one free sale that they would do.

Yes, and that's when I remember getting like stocking up on PlayStation 2 games.

I could be misremembering this but I feel like I got I definitely got like two huge games and one additional game.

I think I got Silent Hill 2 Grand Theft Auto 3 and maybe Gran Turismo 3 all at a Toys R Us sale where I got three games for the price of two.

That's pretty good.

And it's just like, that's just an insane haul looking back on it.

But yeah, the Grand Theft Auto games are the ones with the biggest lasting legacy.

And obviously that franchise has become on everything and ubiquitous and the, you know, I guess arguably the biggest franchise in games, one of the biggest.

It is, but it was locked into the Sony platform for that entire generation.

Yes.

Like it was like a

it coming to the Xbox

was with Grand Theft Auto 4.

And so they had three, the PS2 trilogy.

It was just like people wanted to play these games.

They had such a

place in the culture.

Everyone was like, you know, they were,

everyone just wanted to experience that.

And for some people, this was like the game they played.

And so that was a big reason I think of this game, this platform success in the West.

We've mentioned a bunch of great games.

I also, I would like to point out, I used to get a lot of my games secondhand at like Hollywood Video.

Sure.

The copy of Metal Gear Solid 3 that I still have is the Hollywood Video Bargain Bin

copy that I had.

I love that.

Like $10.

That's like my blockbuster virtual boy.

It was just like just how we would do it.

And, you know, I would rent so many games, the games that I would just like try to finish in the rental window that I had or,

you know, or just like would never attempt again.

But a lot of my favorites, I'm sort of lucky that a lot of my favorites are still very playable.

The Jack and Daxter series of games, Ratchet and Clank still going.

Yep.

That's pretty great.

The Sly Coopers, of course.

Yeah, I have one bullet point that is Ratchet and Clank slash Jack and Daxter slash Sly Cooper because they took some big swings at mascot

games.

And I think all those were great.

Yeah.

And obviously my favorite video game of all time is Kingdom Hearts 2.

And that is...

A definitive game to me for the PlayStation 2.

I've told a story before.

I'll tell it again briefly.

My uncle,

not my uncle who I've mentioned, who is a gamer, my other uncle,

made a bet with me that if I could

abstain from video games for the duration of the Catholic holiday Lent, he would buy me whatever game that I want.

And I chose Kingdom Hearts 2, a new game, which he didn't know that games cost that much money.

But he was a man of his word.

You'll remember him from Marrying Me at My Wedding.

That was the one who did that.

Wow, that's amazing.

That's really sweet.

That man bought me Kingdom Hearts 2.

That's so cool.

Which is just fun lore for the room.

Obviously,

the Guitar Hero game is huge for me.

The Prince of Persia series,

I loved those games.

And Simpsons Hidden Run was a huge one in my house.

Oh, sure.

I loved, because I loved Grand Theft Auto and I loved The Simpsons.

So this was.

That was, that was, this could have been the only game.

It was really good.

Hey, that's a Grand Theft Auto-like that's not going to make your mom upset.

No, and let me tell you something.

She did not like Grand Theft Auto.

But I also, there's, I have such nostalgia for the X-Men Legends games and the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games

from that generation.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is Switch exclusive, which is very strange to me.

But I think those games are great.

And then, of course, I played a million licensed video games because I was at an age where I was still like, this is probably good.

I certainly played the Fantastic Four video game that you worked on.

Wow.

I did not play.

That's probably the only one.

Which other ones did you do?

You did both of them.

I worked on a couple of Fantastic Four games.

Yeah, Fantastic Four and Fantasy Four Rise of the Silver Server, both Tim Story, the movie games.

Tim Story Movie, the movie games.

I for sure played the first one.

Yeah.

And was like excited to do it because I also, you know, when that movie came out, I was like a kid.

So I was like, this is good.

Yeah.

Every movie I had ever seen at that point was

good.

I don't remember disliking anything about the game, but I, oh, the PlayStation 2 game to me, I think, is

the movie adaptation

of Spider-Man 2.

Oh, yeah, sure.

That is, that game is insane.

The fact that it...

It's basically just like the new ones, but it's on PlayStation 2, which is crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah, and again, it goes back to just like how they were pushing the hardware.

Yeah.

The, yeah, we, we, we talked about so many of the big ones.

I know Matt, you and I both have affection for the NBA Street games, which I associate strongly with the PlayStation 2 of the era.

Volume 2 specifically was my jam.

A couple I want to mention, we haven't talked about this franchise much on the podcast, but Devil May Cry

on PlayStation 2 was so fucking good.

And then Devil May Cry 2 is whatever, but Devil May Cry 3 also was just like an absolute banger.

Like both both those games were just such awesome action games that were so kinetic.

The combat was so engaging, and they looked fantastic, and also they were gloriously stupid.

Just like a really over-the-top narrative that was a lot of fun.

But another game, just for pure fun for me, is Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, which was a

just, you know, kind of a dungeon crawler, like gauntlet-esque,

you know,

just walk around and hack and slash isometric game that you could play the entire campaign co-op.

I did with my roommate at the time, and it just had an absolute blast.

Super duper fun game.

They ended up making that.

They made a sequel that wasn't very good, but then also I think those same developers,

like the Baldur's Gate license, I think was fell went to different developers, and then they made Champions of Norath, which was the same sort of game, but with the in the EverQuest world.

So that was their follow-up.

But

that was like, those are just like super duper fun.

When I was a games journalist,

it was

at the very beginning of the like Xbox 360 era.

Like I covered a few 360 games,

but we were still covering PlayStation 2 games.

Like I did the Final Fantasy 12 review for Play Magazine and had like a special PlayStation that said test on the side and would get the games early.

And

the idea, like it's hard for me to reconcile that the PlayStation 2 era was so long that I was still reviewing them as a journalist when I had my job as a journalist, which feels like maximum adulthood already.

Does that make sense?

No, it absolutely does because I was out of college when I started working in video games and I first worked on the QA side and the customer support side.

And then I became, I started working in video game design.

And so, you know, this console launches in 2000.

And I, I still had a PlayStation 2 dev kit on my desk when I was working in the industry in like 2006.

You know, it, it's that, that, that, that system, generations were shorter then, but that system stuck around.

And it was also a sort of thing of like,

it was still just the biggest platform.

So it like, like, yeah, of course, yes, yes, the

the Fantastic Four sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer, was like, well, there's going to be a PlayStation 3 and an Xbox version, Xbox One version, but we got to have this come out on a PlayStation 2 as well.

And that was the version I worked on.

There's no way we can ignore this huge sector of the market.

Yeah, I mean, gosh,

same thing happens with games nowadays.

Like, you know, for the first couple of years of PlayStation 5, everything was coming out in PlayStation 4 as well.

But still, it's like, it was...

I think there are five PS5 exclusives.

Right.

It's just a completely different ecosystem now.

You know what, maybe is the better takeaway is like that changed how things were.

Like, that changed it to be like, well, we're gonna have these, these, these, these generations are going to overlap for a substantial period of time because we're not going to ignore the previous one, that previous install base.

Yeah, yeah, because like there was like, I mean, they did that similar thing, uh, you know, with the previous generation, even.

Like, Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 came out on PlayStation 3, on PlayStation 1, excuse me.

Right.

Um, and I, I mean, I played it on, uh, on PlayStation 2, um, but like they would do that with some games that weren't as maybe resource-intensive.

You could make a.

I mean, Tony Hawk plays on everything.

Yeah, there's like a Tony Hawk Game Boy game.

Was it a Game Boy Advance?

Yeah, they're pretty fun.

They're pretty fun.

Yeah,

they work surprisingly well.

And what was the one they put a fucking F, was it an FPS they put on Game Boy Advance?

I'm trying to remember.

There's been some insanely ambitious ports that kind of work.

Yeah, there's a FPS on Game Boy Advance.

I don't remember what it's called, though.

You can certainly probably play the original Doom on a Game Boy Advance.

For sure.

You probably could do it.

For sure.

Because you can play Doom on Super Nintendo.

Yeah.

Sucks.

Yeah, you shouldn't do it.

Rochelle, you were saying that you had a PlayStation 2.

Is that how you're playing Mary Kate and Ashley licensed to drive?

Yeah, that's how I play Mary Kate and Ashley Sweet 16 licensed to drive.

Wow.

The only games I remember having, it was like a hand-me-down from my cousins.

Yeah.

Was Mary Kate and Ashley some Harry Potter game.

Okay.

That was, I got to like the forest part and I was too scared to play.

And this co-op game called Cookies and Cream.

Oh, I remember Adventures of Cookies and Cream.

Yeah, I love that.

That was a game my brother liked to play with his girlfriend at the time because it was a great co-op game.

Yeah.

It was really fun.

I didn't have anyone to play with, so I would try to play both.

I'm trying to remember how that, like, like it was,

you would use like one analog stick.

You would share a controller and use both.

No, no, it would be two separate

controllers.

Okay.

I loved love that game so much i've never heard of cookies and cream but i'm very i'm very pleased with the branding because as soon as you're like it's a co-op game i'm like that's a fucking great name for a co-op game

uh playstation 2 there were three harry potters released yes um so i don't know which one chamber of secrets goblet of fire and whatever the other one was oh wait maybe there's a forest area kind of sounds like it might be the second one or at least in the beginning maybe uh but then they go into the forest they go to the forest in the third one, right?

Where they meet.

I mean, gosh, I unfortunately know everything about this world.

I have to correct myself.

Yeah.

Six Harry Potters released on the PlayStation 2.

Wow.

Sorcerer's Stone, or Philosopher's Stone, if you're not in the U.S.

The Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner Vascoban, Goblet of Fire, Half-Blood Prince all came out on PS2, as well as Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup.

That's gotta suck.

I think it it must have been Chamber of Secrets, if I can remember the scenes that happened.

It sounds like it's either two or three, based on

the amount of knowledge I have of it.

Can't take it out.

Can't get it out of there.

I know it.

What a bummer.

I know.

God damn it.

Any other things we should talk about?

I mean, it's like I have so many memories of

this system, and obviously it's so important.

Still the best-selling console of all time.

Maybe Switch will pass that.

Maybe it won't.

160 million units.

Let's switch out right now.

Like 154.

Yeah, it's very close.

Oh, I don't know if they're going to do it.

Not with the Switch 2 coming out.

I just kind of don't see it happening.

I don't know.

I could see like it might be the sort of thing of like they discounted it up and people are like, okay, I'll buy a Switch light for $100.

But I guess like...

$6 million of something is a lot of something still.

It's a lot.

Like, so they would have to

promise to suck your dick or something.

I feel like Sony, if they got close, Sony could just be like, hey, we found like an additional 1 million PlayStation 2s and we're putting them on sale for $50 each.

Yeah.

We've put HDMI ports in the back of them.

Play your old PS2 games.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I love the PS2.

I do have memories of like my stepdad who played video games like NES and like Atari

and him just like watching me play Prince of Persia Sands of Time and being like, so this is what video games are like now.

Yeah.

And just being like very, just like sitting down and just like watching.

Right.

Like not wanting to like, he's like, I can't, I can't figure that out.

Like that seems crazy.

But he was just like interested in like how it played and like what it looked like.

He thought it was just so cool.

And yeah, I mean, the PS2 is just, for me, an absolute all-timer.

Just a banger of a console.

Bunch of great games.

A lot of the games were,

you know, available or multi-platform ones, but a lot of the ones I have nostalgia for are

PS2 specific.

It's crazy how much more playable PlayStation 2 games are today.

Not that a lot of them

still feel very janky.

Play something like Maximo is like, oh, this is kind of like a little clunky.

But they're still so, so much more better and feel so much more contemporary than PlayStation 1 games or Saturn games.

Oh, yeah.

Because it's like they had

another generation of iteration to figure out how 3D games should play.

And it's just, I don't know.

I'm always,

it's like Super Nintendo slash Mega Drive Genesis versus the

8-bit generation and the Atari generation.

It's like

it's kind of almost night and day.

I mean, I got like 80% of the way through Jack and Daxter last year.

Just like on my Steam deck.

Yeah.

And that's like, I don't know.

that, that's incredible.

The fact that it's like, that it even feels good to play a 20-year-old game like that

in the modern day.

The pace of change in those generations was so

fast compared to the sort of very incremental changes we get now.

Like

a PlayStation 5 game, sure, if you really stare at it, you can be like, oh, this is PS5.

It's not PS4.

But

it is so immediately obvious what a PS2 game is versus a PS1 game, or a PS3 game is versus a PS2 game, et cetera, et cetera.

Like now it is reflections and scattered light and textures and

an overall just like microscopic fidelity that differentiates PlayStation 4 from PlayStation 5.

But the leap, the idea that you would look at a PlayStation 2 game when you owned a PlayStation 1 and you'd be like, that is aspirational graphics.

Like, I can't believe that's going to be in my house.

And I think that it also was the full-blown like demise of arcade gaming

was the PS2.

Because

after the PS2 comes out, it's like, well,

what do you really need to go pay per play at an arcade to be able to do?

Yeah, we were like, that was just a big part of that was just hardware,

the

enormous hardware advantage that cabinets had just completely eroded.

I mean, by the early 2000s, voodoo graphics cards that you could buy for your home, you know, for your gaming rig were just being used in

arcade cabinets.

And obviously the Naomi

board, which was used in so many Sega cabinets, was basically just the guts of a Dreamcast.

So yeah, you're right.

Once you have that divide, it's like,

or once it stops being like, hey, games look so much better at the arcade, then what's your incentive to go to this other place and pay-per-play?

I'm just also just remembering right now, too, that

this generation of games is peak games that I'm not allowed to have, but my uncle had, and I will watch him play these games.

Sure.

Well, yeah, games started getting like actually violent.

Again, it's just Nintendo no longer having a veto power over content.

It was like, oh, yeah, Sony understood that we can have these games with more adult themes and adult content.

Like,

I'm remembering Manhunt.

That was a rock star game where you are a serial killer.

Bully wasn't as

that, but I remember watching my uncle play Bully and just like, I thought it was great.

And Fatal Frame is another one.

You guys remember Fatal Frame?

Oh, yeah, sure.

Fatal Frame was pretty cool.

Yep.

But those, I mean, I was not, I would get in trouble.

I'd have to, like, when I was getting picked, my uncle lived with my grandparents.

I went home.

I walked to my grandparents' house after school and got picked up later by my mom.

If my mom saw that I was upstairs watching one of those games, I was in, I was in it.

I was in big trouble.

I had to run downstairs when I heard my mom was outside.

It's so like just, it feels so quaint now that you could get like in trouble for playing, you know, Grand Theft Auto Vice City on PlayStation 2 or earlier than that, like Splatter House on

TurboGraphic 16.

And nowadays, if a kid doesn't have their Steam account locked down, they can just play like Kaiju Princess 2 as a full-on anti-game.

It's insane.

Yeah,

what a world.

These kids got it easy.

Too easy to jack off.

It's too easy now.

All right,

let's do a segment.

All right, guys.

For this segment, I'm going to give you all $15.

Ooh, I like this kind.

And we're going to spend that money on PlayStation 2 games.

I already spent it on Wendy's.

Got a Baconator.

Do the prices these days?

You know what?

I might go somewhere else for dinner.

I don't know if I got it this week.

I don't know if I got it like that.

What just happened?

Did you just drop an ad?

I took the $15 and I threw it on a Baconator combo at Wendy's.

That's what I was the thing.

Is that $15 now?

I mean, I think it is up there.

Holy shit.

I got,

we don't, but this is for a different show.

It is.

But I did go to Taco Bell the other day and I was,

I had sticker shock.

I get so much sticker shock at fast food places.

Yeah.

At Del Taco, I spent, I mean, it's also me ordering, but like, I, I spent like, I spent $20.

That is like, how the fuck did I do that?

I did order like five things.

Let me see how much a bacon initiative combo is.

See, this is where things are.

You used to have the 99 cent menu.

Now they're like, choose two for $7.

Like, that doesn't even sound like a discount.

Yeah, no, it's like, uh, no, that's that's yeah, that's nothing.

Two for seven.

Yeah.

Don't make it seem like that's like good to me.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

Look at this list you've made, son of a bitch.

Fuck, am I gonna get Wendy's?

That's, I mean, it's because the thing is, we're by a good Wendy's.

He's locked in to his phone.

Yeah, we are by a good Wendy's.

Um, here's here's the bacon at a combo.

Wow, I got really close.

Bacon Aater combo, um, medium size,

$14.19.

Holy shit.

So I'm over 15.

I'm busting my budget if we're including tax.

Yeah, this is a bummer.

There's no tax.

There's no tax or hidden fees here in the bargain base.

Okay, great.

This is $15.

I don't see.

Yeah, sorry.

I don't think I let you set up the seg when I was talking about Wendy.

So that's okay.

I don't see God hand on this list, my friend.

Well, here's the thing, and I knew that I was going to get immediate shit for this one.

I had a hard time making this one because

I didn't know, I mean, I sort of had an idea of what games would be representative for the group to an extent, but I kind of was like, you know what, I think I'm going to try to go off of

Metacritic's like highest reviewed

PlayStation 2 games, and then

what other ones that people consider to be like the best ones.

These are all like in the upper, like

upper percentile percentile of reviewed PlayStation 2 games.

So, this is me, you have a $15 budget to make your roster.

There's a $5, $4, $3, $2, and $1 tier.

I think you did a pretty good job here.

I think you did.

A nice mix of exclusives and third-party games, but that are strongly identified with the PlayStation 2.

Do we want to just run down the roster real quick?

Go through all the options?

Starting from the $1 tier, we have Winning 11-6, which is a soccer or football game, depending on where you're listening.

Soul Calibur 2, Prince of Persia, The Sands of Time, Final Fantasy 10.

That's the $1 tier.

In the $2 tier, Okami, Burnout 3.

Was that Takedown?

Takedown.

Burnout 3, Takedown.

Devil May Cry.

And Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3.

In the $3 tier, Madden 2003.

Sly Cooper 2, Band of Thieves, Katamari Damasi.

And Ratchet and Clink, Up Your Arsenal, which is the third one.

And that's kind of funny.

They're always like doing butt.

Yeah, it's funny.

It's really funny.

In the $4 tier, Grand Theft Auto,

excuse me, Grand Turismo 3, ASPEC, Kingdom Hearts, God of War, and Jack and Daxter.

And the $5 tier, which I think is possibly the heaviest $5 tier we've had.

That's Kingdom Hearts 1?

That's Kingdom Hearts 1.

Okay, okay, okay.

In the $5 tier, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, Metal Gear Solid 3, Snake Eater, Shadow of the Colossus, and Silent Hill 2.

Some bangers there.

If you want to take all your budget and spend in the $5 tier, you could still get a lot of game for your buck.

Oh, yeah.

So who feels...

You know what?

I think I can go first just to give everybody a little time

to think about this.

As much as I love all of these games in the $5 tier, I'm going Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater first.

Great choice.

It's a great choice.

It's probably the game I've played the most in, it's certainly the game I've played the most in the $5 tier.

What is that?

Now the $4 tier, darlings are getting killed.

And

it's tough to think about what to do here.

I could pick Kingdom Hearts.

I could pick God of War.

I could pick Jack and Daxter and be happy.

But my life is completely different if I don't pick Kingdom Hearts.

I have to have Kingdom Hearts in there.

That's a no-brainer to me.

In the $3 tier, we already said it was funny.

Ratchet and Clank Off Your Arsenal.

The third one.

The other two in the series are good, but three really perfects it.

Well, and it's also like those games are: if you like one, you'll like three.

If you like two, you'll like one.

I mean, it's like, it's like they're all

not that they're not

improving with each entry, but they're all like good and they're all like approximately

similar enough.

Yeah, they're all in there, they're exactly just a little bit enough more than the previous one.

They're great.

In a $2 tier,

I'm going to go Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 because that was the PlayStation 2 game for me for a long time.

And in the $1 tier, you know what I got to do.

Prince of Persia, the Saints of Time, baby.

Wow.

Okay.

I will also abide by getting one from each category.

We have to do that?

No, you don't have to, but I'm choosing to do that.

Because, yeah, I think there is a move here, again, to go heavy with that top tier and just get some all-timers.

But I'll pick one from each category.

From the bottom up, Final Fantasy X.

You know, I think Soul Calibur 2 is

good, but also, and Prince of Persia is good, but also, like, I don't associate those games as strongly with the PlayStation 2.

And Final Fantasy X was an exclusive.

And I think a great Final Fantasy.

$2 tier, Devil May Cry.

I do have affection for Okami, but Devil May Cry, I think, is just so cool.

And again, a game I already cited.

$3 tier, Katamari Damasi.

$4 tier.

I think it's got to be God of War there for me.

Wow.

And the $5 tier, I'm going Shadow of the Colossus.

Wow.

I'm staying there.

In fact, I would say that column there all the way down, I could almost go all the way and swap out Final Fantasy X for Sands of Time.

Yeah.

And I'd be sitting pretty.

But there's a lot of bangers on this chart.

But yeah, Shadow of the Colossus, I think, just an all-time video game.

Yeah, I loved when we played it on the show.

I guess I loved it.

I guess if there's anything maybe there, I guess Final Fantasy X is really meaty and Double May Cry I could replay the shit out of.

So, you know, I don't have to worry about Shadow of the Colossus having maybe a slimmer campaign versus, you know, some of those other ones up there.

I mean, like San Andreas, he could just play forever.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

I wanted to replay it.

You can do that.

You could do it.

There are games on here that are representative of my time with PlayStation, but I feel like I had a different PlayStation 2 experience than...

than you guys did.

Yes.

It pained me not to put...

I should have put Final Fantasy XI on there because I know how much time you spent with it

I am gonna take two from the top tier Shadow of the Colossus and Silent Hill 2 Wow, cuz my boyfriend My boyfriend would be so upset if he did if I didn't choose him your boyfriend pyramid head.

Yes, my boyfriend pyramid head

If you call my phone right now, it's

Lonely Rolling Star from Katamari Damasi and has been since the game came out.

As each generation of phones has happened, I have transferred that ringtone to my phone.

Here in the year 2025, it is still my ringtone.

So, Katamari Damasi from the $3 tier.

Wow.

And then I'm like, okay, I don't know.

You can either get one from the $2 tier or two from the $1 tier.

Yeah, yeah.

I

don't know.

I guess

I'll get.

I mean, I kind of just want to give you guys my $2.

Can I suggest something for you?

Yeah.

Give Final Fantasy X another shot.

And then you got one buck left.

I don't like Final Fantasy X.

Maybe give it another shot.

Maybe this is just how you give it a little bit another shot as a Final Fantasy fan.

And then you got a buck left for Soul Calibur 2 and you like fighting games.

So you got that five.

I do like fighting games and the soul still burns.

Aren't you a burnout fan?

I am a burnout fan.

I'm a burnout fan.

I liked burnout three takedown.

Oh,

God.

Double May Craig games, a lot of killing.

A lot of fun.

I guess because of the legacy, I'll get Soul Calibur and Final Fantasy X as my final two games.

Wow.

But yeah, like

if Final Fantasy XII's on there in the $5 tier, I kill Silent Hill 2.

Shadow of the Colossus and Katamari Damasi are of my favorite games of all time.

So there's no world in which I don't get both of those.

And the rest is kind of just gravy.

Who's the Soul Galibur 2 exclusive character on Nightmare?

On

because each platform, it went multi-platform.

Soul Galibur 1 was obviously on the Dreamcast.

And then they had a guest character in each.

But what the fuck was it?

Was it in, did it start in two?

I think it might have been a Tekken guy.

Two, oh, yes, you're right.

Heihachi from Tekken was in Soul Calibur 2 on the PlayStation 2.

The GameCube version was Link.

And you might think that in, of course, in

we're going to go on the Microsoft platform, the Xbox, it's got to be

it's got to be Master Chief from Halo, but no, it was Spawn.

Xbox exclusive character spawn from the spawn comic books.

Video games rock.

Yeah, video games are great.

And the PlayStation 2 really was a good time.

Yeah, great, great system.

Good, good system.

Good times.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, again, I just, I have, for me, I have so much more, I have so much affection for the Dreamcast, so much nostalgia for the Dreamcast specifically, and always, you know, was more of a Nintendo guy, more of a PC gamer guy, but the PS2 and its library was undeniable.

And obviously its impact on

games is immense have we asked the question before yeah like if you had to get a console and you could only get one console from all previous generations but you get the full library of that console which console do you choose

it's tough because if i'm not being a little shit and saying like you know i'll unlikely you can't get

a pc

is not a console okay then like like yeah but I mean, still, like,

I'd probably be tempted to get the most contemporary thing that has the most backwards compatibility.

Yeah.

But if I'm looking back at libraries in totality, I think probably there's an argument that PlayStation 2, I think this is what you're driving at.

The PlayStation 2 had the strongest overall library, like top to bottom over the course of its existence.

It's also got like an insane number of games.

Like,

if you had the full library of the PlayStation 2,

I think you're set to play a game, a new game, certainly every week of your life for the rest of your life.

If not every

five days, maybe.

But do I have to?

No.

Do I have to play?

You have to play a new one every five days.

Some of those are going to be real bad.

Yeah.

Sorry, you got to play Futurama the game.

Hey, that's this week's Get Played.

Our producers, Michelle Chen, Ranch, Yard underscore, underscore sard.

Our music is by Ben Prenti, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

Did you stream Little Nightmares at all?

Or you've just been playing them in St.

Louis, I've just been by myself.

Are you streaming anything lately?

Still on Allen Week.

Oh, nice.

So check that out over on Twitch.

The same username, yard underscore underscore sard.

You can find all our merch, including apparel, hats, and stickers at kinshipgoods.com.

There is a link in the show description, also a link in our show description to our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gumback catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes, and our Patreon Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated.

Matt, what are we watching this week?

We're watching Gurren Lagan, baby.

We just started a new series.

It's a great time to get in there because we're going crazy for Gur and Lagan.

Get those drills and let them.

Ah, fuck, I always forget what it is.

Pierce the Heavens.

Pierce the Heavens, baby.

It's on Netflix if you want to watch along.

And GetAnimate is over at patreon.com/slash get played.

And to the PlayStation 5, we love you.

Yes.

And you got played.

PlayStation 5?

I meant two.

All right, Matt got played.

That was a hit gum podcast.