Ode to a PlayStation 2
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| Dark Chronicle |
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| God Hand |
The PS2 era was something of a halcyon time in my gaming history. It was the gaming era that dominated in my
formative years, and coincided with me owning my own money for the first
time. I could go out and buy games
indiscriminately, to start building up a library, free from the old ‘one for Christmas
and one for your birthday’ constraint.
Not having to buy food, clothes, petrol or second homes for MPs meant
that pretty much all my money went towards games, and not having a job or a
social life meant that all my not-at-school time was devoted to gaming.
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| Okami |
So I played a lot of PS2 games. A lot of them were rubbish, but a few of them
were great. Properly, lastingly great,
in a way the very few games of this console generation have been. I’m inclined to agree with the people who
suggest that the PS2 era represented the peak of console videogaming; where technology
and creativity could perfectly intersect. Consoles were finally powerful enough to render humans that
looked like humans, with recognisable facial expressions and distinct
clothing. We could do audio that sounded
proper, and have characters that actually spoke. But at the same time, development costs weren’t
so enormous as to restrict depth and creativity.
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| Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater |
Modern technology can certainly render object with a
fidelity that makes the PS2 look laughable, but it does so at the expense of
the deeper experience. Modern versions
of older franchises are by necessity more linear and less interactive that their
forbears; look at the original Deus Ex
compared with the recent Human Revolution,
or Final Fantasy XII next to Final Fantasy XIII. And who could afford to take a risk like God Hand or Ico on a modern platform?
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| Dragon Quest VIII |
None of this is to say that modern games are worse than
those of the previous generation; they’re just different. Games are moving away from broad, deep
experiences and towards more controlled, cinematic ones. This is fine.
And it’s worth noting that while I hold up the PS2 as the pinnacle of
the videogaming experience, there will be people ten years my senior who would
offer an equally informed opinion of why the Super Nintendo era featured the
best games we are ever likely to see.
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| Persona 4 |
But, as we run full-force towards the always-online,
digitally distributed and publisher controlled future, stamping gleefully on
the shiny round plastic of our past, it is worth stopping occasionally and dusting
off a trusty old companion. It’s worth
recalling a time with no installs, no firmware, no DLC or DRM, no online passes
or pre-order exclusives. It’s worth
recalling, if only to remind ourselves that things haven’t always been this way,
and to appreciate those games that have defined our tastes, and, by doing so,
which define the impact we have on the future of our medium.
Now with that out of the way, back to Gears Of
War 3.
