It must be a 20-something thing, I’m 25 and all of my friends enjoy a quick kick around of ISS Pro Evolution on the PlayStation on a Saturday night after they get in from the pub. Friends they may be, but they are also console fanatics and, the strange thing is, that despite the allure of an online gaming network and a ‘Windows’ CE operating system, not one of them forked out their hard earned readies for the 128-bit Sega Dreamcast when it was launched last year.
In truth, they were holding out for the main event: the arrival of PlayStation 2. They never underestimated the power of PS One, but they were captivated by the idea that they would be blown away by the power of PS2.
Imagine the wildfire of envy I ignited when I told them that I’d been invited by Columbia Tristar and Sony Computer Entertainment Ireland to take the PS2 for a test drive in advance of its November 24th Irish launch date.
The true 128-bit console that is PS2 smells of a PC. It’s powered by a 300MHz proprietary CPU nicknamed the ‘Emotion Engine’, because of its potential for great games development. It also features 32MByte of on-board RAM memory and a PCI card slot neatly tucked away at the rear of the box (perfect for memory upgrades and modem add-ons in the future). There are two USB ports located discreetly on the front panel which open up the PS2 to handling printers, digital cameras and scanners at some point in the future – if Sony decrees it so, or if some clever hackers decide they want to break into the box and do it anyway.
Most interestingly of all is the Ethernet port situated beside the USB ports. It opens up PS2 users to broadband Internet access and we’re not just talking ISDN or cable 512Kbit/s speeds, but speeds of MBit plus. In five years time, you could well be using your PS2 to download episodes, cheats, tips, patches and whole new games from a central Sony games Website. In the meantime, it’s likely that this black beauty, that looks and feels like two stacked hardbacks, will get a Web browser from some third party software developer.
Although the PS2 looks like a piece of lead, it’s surprisingly light. Although being groomed to become a ‘complete home entertainment system’ with DVD playback, this is already the world’s greatest games console.
I had three titles at my disposal: Namco’s street car racing game Ridge Racer V ( a launch title), motorcycle racing sim MotoGP from NTSC and the Japanese release of the beat ’em up Dead or Alive 2 from Tecmo. Make no mistake about it, this is a new gaming experience: The transformation and lighting effects are fabulous, the processor shifts the polygons and as a result, there’s a fluidity about the driving: you really are touching the track at high speeds in MotoGP and, when you hit the barrier, the analogue Dual Shock 2 controller really lets you know all about it.
Try travelling at high speed through floodlit tunnels in RR 5: it’s exhilarating and when you get to the fights in Dead or Alive 2 (no official release date for this game in Ireland or Europe), you get a glimpse of what this machine is capable of?the face rendering of the fighters is so realistic. The fights scenes are shot from different angles, so when you jump or get pushed from one level to the next, that ‘platform’ video game feeling of old is banished forever. As for the lighting effects when some of the combatants attack, think of metallic-rippled explosions and all the colour of the rainbow as you nurse your concussion. I’d fork out the money in the morning, if I could only get my hands on one for keeps.
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