Playstation 2

• Price: £169.99 (Originally £299.99)

Have you been having a wonderful Christmas time?DVDfever.co.uk have as Santa arranged it with Sony to lend aPS2 to us over the festive period so we don’t have to put up with extendedversions of popular soap operas, celebrity special editions of others and,of course, Dale Winton.

The year 2000 saw the launch of the follow-up to one of the world’s best-sellingconsoles, the now-five-year-old Playstation, but it wasn’t an easy one for Sony.It could, however, be argued that its success exceeded all expectationsbecause Sony put out a product that sold faster than the proverbial hot cake,many of which were accounted for prior to the respective day of release intheir respective territories and if you could make something where demandoutstrips supply, you may too consider that the ultimate success.

Launched in Japan on March 4th, sales of the new super-console in shops andonline achieved 980,000 units in the first three days, including pre-orders.The PS2 was due for release on October 26th in the UK, but the date was pushedback by four weeks and the allocation dropped from 200,000 units to 165,000,which meant that 35,000 people who thought they’d secured their console priorto Christmas becoming disappointed.

Word had it that more units would not be available until Easter, but as ofDecember 30th last year Toys R Us managed to obtain and sell around thirtyper store, but you can imagine people getting trampled in the rush, eventhough, in addition, you had to buy a couple of games making the totalpackage price £369.99.

As for the availability of consoles for review, scarcity was also an issue,as there were just two DVD-capable units throughout the whole country to goaround, resulting in, no doubt, many tears being shed when it was time towave goodbye.

The first thing you’ll notice about the PS2 is its sleek, black design,with a touch of blue that verges on aquamarine in both the stand – given thatit can be used both lying down and vertically upon one of its edges – andthe colour of the discs, not to mention the name embossed on the top.

On the front we are blessed with the standard connections for two memorycards and two dual-shock analogue controllers. However, while you can usenormal controllers with this unit – but note you’ll need analogue ones forgames like Fantavision – it is not possible to use the memory cardsfrom your old PSX onto which to save games. You can use the memory managerto delete old saved files, but the unit would not allow me to save anythingon them, so a memory card is required for this.

It’s worthy of note that the analogue controllers, one of which is includedin the package, are the new ‘Dual Shock 2’ type, in which in addition tothe joystick controls, all of the other buttons are now analogue too.Press one a little and your character will move or act in a small way,but press harder and this will have more impact.

One difference between the PS2 and the PSX is that the new console has aslide-out tray compared to the pop-up original, making this a move in theright direction.

Something altogether new is the inclusion of two USB ports and a firewire port,allowing connections to be made at a future date including digital cameras andbroadband internet access for superior online gaming – something that willtrounce the Dreamcast when announced.

Round the back are the standard power outlet and AV multi-out connections.With the PSX, these were usually supplied with an RF lead while our Europeancounterparts were provided with SCART leads, which make for a much-improvedpicture. This time round, the lead ends in a composite phono video, plusphono audio leads. A SCART convertor is also supplied, but I have myreservations about this on a certain aspect which will come later. When itcomes to playing games though, I mainly used an s-video lead in the PSX’slater years and have continued to use this with the PS2 as it gives acomparable quality to SCART.

Also to be found are an optical digital output and an expansion bay. Thelatter looks like is can take a hard drive which will prove useful, butas for the former I’m surprised there’s no coaxial output – most DVD playersinclude one of each – and it’s a shame because I have that connectionavailable which I normally use with my Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM drive, but do nothave the optical equivalent, which is around £9.99 from a companylike Maplin, although many shops now sell them and it can use a standarddigital optical lead to take the sound from the PS2 to your amplifier.

Having the lead makes it handy to have a standalone DVD player, since the PS2 canoutput a DTS signal which my Dxr2 sort of cannot. I say “sort of” because itactually can, but the cruel bunch at Creative disabled this feature onthe Dxr2 and will not release the software to activate DTS so I am stuck withDolby Digital only.

What happens when you switch the PS2 on? A swirling blue design and soundto match greet you along with the Sony name, before just two optionsremain: Browser and System Configuration.

Browser takes you to an off-white screen where memory card data canbe managed and deleted and the option to select the DVD/game disc inside,the type of which is displayed, is also made available.

The System Configuration provides options to alter the currentdate and time, menu language (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian,Dutch and Portuguese), Component Video Out (RGB or composite),Optical Digital out (on/off), and Screen size (4:3, Full and 16:9).

The screen size applies to DVDs. 16:9 is the only option I’ve used giventhat the PS2 is hooked up to a widescreen TV and it will give an anamorphicwidescreen picture, which will take advantage of the TV’s increased verticalresolution. The console indicates that “4:3” is for a non-anamorphicletterboxed picture, while “Full” will crop the sides of a 16:9 widescreenpicture – and anything wider will still result in black bars being visible to adegree – for those, seemingly few, DVDs that support this feature. If you’renot completely au fait with these technical terms don’t worry about it too muchand stick with “16:9” for a widescreen TV and “4:3” for a normal one.

Going back to the clock and I love the way the display changes as you alterit. You can sit back and just watch its hypnotic appearance.

Four of the PS2’s launch titles.

Games, games, games. That’s the main reason people will buy the PS2.

There are around 40 launch titles including the four which I received forreview: Fantavision, Dead or Alive 2, Tekken Tag Tournament andRidge Racer 5. While full reviews shall follow in due course, tosummarise, the last three are sequels and the first one has its rootsbased in the Tetris camp. They all become a little tiresome afterextensive playing because there’s not much to them after the initial ‘wow’factor has worn off, but one important point of note is that they’re allvery accessible for those who aren’t normally used to arcade games.

If you have a large library of old Playstation games though, almost all ofthem can be played in the PS2 thanks to it being backwards-compatible.Unfortunately though, when I played them on this console it disappointlyplayed them with the same graphics as the old PSX. I’ve since learned thata selection is available on the PS2 to change them so that their graphicsare improved a la the PC utility Bleem, which hasn’t been officiallyblessed by Sony, usually to the standard of the 3D card inside, presuming youhave one in your PC.

The secondary reason to buy a PS2 comes down to its ability to play DVDs(Digital Versatile Discs). Even the Jim Royles of the world will know whatthese are now – superb-quality films on a CD-sized disc for those stillplaying dumb – and given that a penny short of three hundred notes will getyou a next-generation console and a DVD player it seems, on balance, thatyou can’t go wrong… or can you?