Monday: drive 2 hours and get loaded. Drive 1 hr and wait for unloading. FOR 23HRS!!!
rest of week : repeat.
Now, this might seem like an easy week. I don’t disagree. However it was boring beyond my wildest dreams and complete torture.
Day 2 had me sat on ebay. Bidding frantically on PS2 consoles and copies of Metal Gear solid 1 2 3. I managed to get all of this delivered to my door in great condition for £28.99. I’m over the moon. I haven’t played number 2 since i was 16.
I’ve been using emulators and I can’t get a copy of 2 to work and 3 needs to use pressure sensitive controllers of ps2 so it is impossible to complete. I managed to get all 3 games and a proper working console (with a HDMI connection thrown in) for less than i could buy a ps3 controller for. I am SO SO happy.
Not to darken the mood. But the reason I want to play number 2 so badly is this. I was 16 when my dad died. I had nobody at home as my mum lived too far away to come down immediately and there was some other stuff going on that I won’t get into, but the day he died I rode my little motorbike back from the hospital and wondered round the house in a bit of a state (obviously) I couldn’t sleep or eat or anything useful. So I put on MGS 2 and turned my phone off and sat and played the whole thing through in one sitting. I got up for a pee twice. I played it through and when the credits rolled at the end I genuinely felt a lot better and instantly fell asleep.
I’ve never forgotten that feeling of absolute clarity and calm afterwards. The healing started as soon as I put the controller down. Might sound a bit silly as I’m writing it out and reading it back but I just thought it was a nice idea to play it again after 18 years. Especially as I’ve just finished MGS5. I’ll let you all know what I think.
That was the post of the month @Victork2! Thank you. Now to belittle your heartfelt share with yet another dreaded Netflix plug. “High Score” tells the story of video games from the beginning. Every player and coder speaks to the power of games to free oneself from one’s self. It’s a celebration. I think it might be some of the best writing I’ve seen on Netflix. Your story would have made it even better.
The PS2 was awesome. Some of my standouts were MGS2, Ace Combat, Ridge Racer 5, Gran Turismo 3… Plus I had a few PS1 games that I played on there, like the MGS VR Missions, which were super.
So many other cool games that I tried on the PS2 magazine demo discs, but never did buy.
Tomb Raider. Even today, when my wife makes herself tea with a nice cup and saucer, the clinking sound reminds me of the opening chapter where Lara’s butler follows her around with a noisy tea-set. Why is that my most potent memory of such a great game? No idea.
So, I’ve now played through Metal Gear Solid 1 2 and 3 on my Ps2
They haven’t aged well (except 3) they are clunky, hard to play and the control schemes must of been designed by a mental person (looking at you Kojima)
However… what a fricking nostalgia filled adrenaline charged nutcase of a ride that was. I loved every single moment of them except the stupid Backtracking you need to do in the first one. The fight with The End in 3 was STILL the best sniper battle I’ve ever experienced and genuinely made me jump a few times. Absolutely EPIC gaming to play them all back to back after so long.
I’ve had the Ps2 set up in our bedroom and have had a number of tellings off by the wife for waking her up! Although she said the story was daft and childish I caught her listening and watching it a few times. I had a blast either way.
I’ve also been playing Gran Turismo 4 and have had great fun with the slower, less visceral form of racing it entails. Its great to just pick up and blast away on. The newer racing games while undoubtedly better in probably every single way demand way too much attention and this is my perfect zen games I’ve decided. Nothing beats building a 1100hp Nissan skyline Gtr and drag racing it. I love it.
I’m on ebay looking at old games to try next but its taking lots of time as there are so many fakes and crap copies. Its cheap fun though. Plus there is no rush as I’m still working my way through the Master chief collection on Pc and very much am loving finally finishing that saga after stopping on Halo 2 years ago. I heartily recommend that to anyone as well. A fabulous shooter
Thats really kind mate. I’ve already got GT4 and pro evo isn’t really my thing so pop those one on ebay! Let me know what the postage comes to and I’ll PayPal it to you! Nice one mate. Thanks!!
I never owned a PS2. My experience with consoles began with the Intellivision III as a kid and I didn’t own another one until I bought an Xbox 360. There was an enormous gap in my videogaming history that was largely filled by coin-op arcade games and Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat on a Packard Bell 386 IBM clone.
The PS2 was probably one of the coolest consoles ever made and I never even touched one.
PS2 was my first game console and when we got that for Christmas we were very disappointed - we wanted a Nintendo 64 as that’s what we played at our friend’s house a few doors down.
That feeling ended quite soon though as we had a good selection of games and my love of racing games got to take off with Le Mans 24 Hours. I soon followed that up with Nascar Thunder 2003 and Ridge Racer V where I discovered my favourite number when I earned #76.
There were many more games too, that’d make a whole blog though.
It was also such a durable console. I was once playing Burnout 3 iirc, with my racing wheel. The PS2 sat atop an Xbox (which if anyone recalls was not flat on top but a shallow dome - but the xbox atop the PS2 would not work) and my brother ran in front of the TV, hitting my wheel’s cable like a trip wire to the shin. The PS2 came flying off the Xbox and smashed into the carpeted floor, snapping the CD tray’s faceplate off. While in many cases a dislodged CD would crash the system - my game was still running as the disk drive made blender noises. I yelled at my brother, picked up the PS2 and using the gap from the now missing faceplate, pushed the CD back into the tray with one finger. Sitting it atop the Xbox, I made adjustments to the table and couch to allow more cable slack to remove the tripwire hazard and kept playing.
Yea, the PS2 was in many ways and still is in many ways - the best console ever made.
Oh my god that game ROCKED. I did it as well. I had to pause and go to sleep for a bit, but I damn well did it. I was expecting some massive fanfare at the end of the race and nothing at all happened. I was gutted. But I did it lol.
Thinking about it now I would KILL to be able to waste 24 hours of my life these days but thats never gonna happen hahaha
I don’t think I ever did a full real-time race. Maybe with saves.
Now we did have a 30 minute daily limit on games way back which became an hour iirc - and I did manage to get an extension to complete Ridge Racer V’s 99 Trial (that took about 1:40 to do).
Those were the days!! 'Please!!! Just 10 more minutes"
I remember buying my ps2 with my first apprenticeship wages and not having enough money to actually GET to work the week after but at least I didn’t have to stop playing anymore
I was ok to be honest. I had the same thought as you but was fine. Seems it was a happy memory during an unhappy time. All good. The bit that got me more that anything was the fight with the Boss at the end of MGS3. Younger me didn’t seem to realise how much gravity that particular moments holds.
