Get Played - 25 Years of Playstation 2

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

It's the 25th anniversary of the Playstation 2 and Heather, Nick and Matt discuss their memories of the console, their favorite games, the PS2's impact on gaming and more. Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed. Follow us on social media @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching Gurren Lagan, go to patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayedWanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And that's gum with an M. All right, 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 uh, hey, the Dreamcast is selling great. We're gonna be fun, sitting pretty. We don't need to worry about the competition. Just focus on us. No, I heard, based on the sales, they're gonna maybe add a comma to the number. Yeah, the R number is gonna have, we're gonna have to make a new comma. We're gonna have a comma in there.

Because we're gonna sell 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 fucking anything You could do anything you want fuck you can do you could 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 know I

Actually did read the memo yet since Grand Theft Auto 3 It's the you know it's that they're taking the Grand Theft Auto franchise and taking the three dimensions, and yeah 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 then 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 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. Can we do it? Wait, but 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 They're gonna fuck that guy and we don't have anything to worry about with these You know these Sony fat cats and their really pants or really cuz they're gonna launch a modem Are like cornerstone of online play think you can just plug it into the back of the PlayStation 2 man They're gonna have a hard drive on that fucking machine man Hey, 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 Yeah, and you know I'm just kind of 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 It's so much so easy like I have all these games that we've released I just like I have them burning them on my PC, and I'm I'm in selling out the bat truck of my car I've been burning them on my PC and 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 gonna combine Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters in an action game. You're gonna be able to be friends with Mickey Mouse and Donald and Goofy and Cloud Strife is gonna be there. You know that sounds comprehensible enough where I think we're fucked. That's crazy. They're gonna have a Gran Turismo game

where there are reflections of the sky in the windows of the cars. They're gonna have a game where you can play guitar if you can hold a guitar in your hands. I wanna fucking kill myself! Why did I choose, I had an offer at Sony. They said, do you wanna work at Sega and Sony? And I said, Sony?

They barely scraped by with a PlayStation One and I took the job here and they can have a drum set on their fucking system. Yeah, hi, is this Babbage's? What are you doing? At the mall? What are you calling? First off, you're still in business, right?

Okay, great. Babbage's, you're 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 adjourned. I gotta check out the competition. I gotta make sure that... Ask if we could trade in two Dreamcasts?

Can we trade in a dreamcast for a PlayStation 2 City give us a copy of ready to rumble boxing for a dreamcast Copping that fucking they're not 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, 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 Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premier 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 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 games. 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, and like, Nick just kind of go with me on this. 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 could just play back the tape in fact ranch watch you play back that tape My name's Heather, and I think we should do I didn't know who was talking for a second unbelievable unbelievable. I don't like this AI voices deep fake stuff It is I 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 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, PlayStation one, 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 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 took a while for 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 console. I've got one of those little like, this American lifestyle things that I, a year in advance of how excited they were for this new console. I've got one of those little, like, this American lifestyle things that I, for our little PlayStation conversation today. And I wanna dabble in what you've just talked about.

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 anything. You don't have to get in line to get a concert ticket. Now you just do it on your phone now. We do whatever we want. Don't people still do that for like shoes and shit I just use is different obviously, but I 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 Fucking what's the effect called Mandela? And Delia have a madel 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 called Mandela Effect. Maybe I've not Mandela Effected myself on that, but I do remember that. But that's a discussion that we'll get to down the line. Cause 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 here to talk to my best friends about the history of games. Uh, hey, thanks so much, Merch. You're welcome.

I think of you as a friend as well. Yeah, yeah. You know, the PlayStation 2 was the second system on which I appeared. That's right, because the first would have been the GameCube. Yeah, it was originally Shinji Mikami wanted Resident Evil 4 to be GameCube exclusive. It's like when you have an apartment and then you gotta move. And because the landlords like, get the fuck out of here

until you get a new place. I've never had that exact situation happen. No. But I have moved apartments that I was not happy with my living situation. The, do is my second home That's like that's like nice to think about that is nice nice little escape You're 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 razed to the ground. Oh, boy. And that's because they had to after you left, correct? There's a weird coincidence with 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? Wait, what is that word? Condemned?

Hastily? Condemned. Condemned, yeah. It's like if we're saying this place is not habitable anymore. This place has to be taken off the map. Okay. Okay. I thought that was 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 safe for That's tricky. But yeah, anyway. I'm really excited to hear you guys talk

about the PlayStation 2. Right now I wanna know what you're playing. So let me ask you a 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 the meat, bro. We're not taking any sides and any beefs here on the Get Played podcast. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. 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 GNS. Oh, OK, no, I'm remembering this now. Zach Cherry texted me about a Mustard DJ, and I was like, I thought he was talking to someone about the condiment, and then he explained it to me.

So I did this good happen. OK, 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 loaf DJ mustard I know about meat loaf DJ mustard. I could get I could do my own Fish the band fish. This is a pretty big one. Yeah Are you familiar with McCully 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 Weger, what are you playing? That's a word Al obviously, 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 parody for sure. I know he's the isn't operate only in food but he has a lot of food Related parody and I know that we I just mentioned him But he also has he has some some incredible

He has some incredible... When did I die? He has some incredible... His originals are great. I ate breakfast across the street with a man. I'm dead. No, we heard you. We heard your resonating march. So... Get back to life!

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spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash played. Babbel.com slash played. Rules and restrictions may apply. Final Fantasy VII 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 specific interactions.

So like you'll discover something in the environment, you know, like a materia, I forget what those materia the life spring, like, you know, like something like that. And then he'll pop up on your like, you know, it's like a gun slash tablet that cloud will use no pop up on it. And he'll like, and he'll say something to you and it's really cool. I was gonna 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. This is like a million bucks. I do wanna point out, he's so thankful that you found anything for him. 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, 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 how they're represented. I do remember the Chocobo cart. The Chocobo cart, yeah. That's what I think of. 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 holding, I apologize, or something in 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 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 a 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 son of a bitch up. He looks great. 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 son of a 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, you know, 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 with, 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 was getting pretty far along with Cloud, Tifa, and Euphie. Yeah, I don't have Euphie yet. You gotta get Euphie in the squad there, because Euphie just rocks.

Okay, so I will just bide my time until Euphie joins the squad. Because then it's just like there, I mean, Tifa's just like punching and going crazy and then Yufi's like just zipping around the field going as but Barrett Barrett plays fun to like yeah They all that they all feel so distinct In so funny when you get Kate Sith I feel like he's fun to have in the party for a little bit to just to see how he just to experience how he plays

a little bit but I Was just remembering just a second ago to at the I was 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. where you see Kate Sith as like a cameo, and everyone's like, wait, what the fuck is this? Who the fuck is that? He seems important. Yeah, I liked having Cloud and his girls,

his strong, punching, hitting girls. I'm trying to find a good shot of it, but I really like Barrett's tattoo that he's got on his exposed arm. You think you're gonna get it? Non-gun arm. 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, it's, you probably gotta 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 good. 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.. Yeah, yeah.

Do it, Nick. I know, I kinda wanna see how many we could encourage him to get. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah, I'll continue my check-ins with Rebirth because I'm gonna keep playing this game. I see no reason why I'm gonna 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 them 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.

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. You kind of have to do it manually. So these guys are coming after me and I'm like, okay, 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

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 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 good, it's morning. But then my dude starts being like, well, I'm sure I'm hungry. And I'm like, what the fuck, what? What do I do about this? There's been no cooking tutorial,

there's no food that I've found anywhere, except at 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 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 is not on that stove 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 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 theft? And I'm really, really, really trying not to have the fucking playthrough that I had on, God, what was the name of that Baldur's Game? Like 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. I'm glad this game exists. It feels like something of a nightmare to play. It's so fun. And it is very funny. Like I did not beat those two bandits on my first try. No.

Like they 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 a holodeck, but it's like a holodeck where you can't, where you're mute. 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 to into yes, it would be a nightmare

Yeah, yeah, yeah dead immediately. Yeah for sure that and Dark Souls neither those games. I want to be Jumanji What would I rather be in? They 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, for sure you do. Because they could just hide out. In Dark Souls, though, think about this. Yeah. I mean, I guess you would respawn in Kingdom Come, too. But the respawning part of it is sort of part of it in Dark Souls, isn't it? Yeah, that's true. Dark Souls, respawning is built into the system.

Right, and in Elden Ring, you're tarnished, so you can, you're going to return even if you are killed. Yes. Which is obviously something of a horrible purgatory to, 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. It's interesting in a balance. I don't want it to happen. But I feel like, here's another thing I'll say, and not to be too crass, I don't feel like anyone who fucks in Dark Souls is anyone having sex I feel like in Kingdom come deliverance. I kind of feel like um getting it on uh I

Patches who we didn't mention in the bald episode last week and that's just fucking I feel like he lies about it I feel like he says that he is Like yeah, I'm fucking everybody this is crazy 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? I was still playing a vowed. I'm enjoying a vowed. I had to switch to third-person view and that kind of feels like Cheating kind of oh not 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 a little bit more immersed. 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 a preference of like you want to see the character Yeah, I was like, I just like, you know, I mean everyone's reacting to you in a certain way Because if you have these these got like features these this fungus and stuff growing out of your head 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, when you're like, this fucking, I'm sitting here. So I'm still playing that, enjoying it. I'm still playing Pokemon Unbound on me.

Wait, wait, wait, sorry, which 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 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 just to you know I'm 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. Just to, you know, I'm trying to just get more stuff going. 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. But I like, I like my wizard abilities and I'm hoping to find another spell book with more powerful spells. So I'm enjoying that.

I have two party members now. One of them's 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.

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After you purchase, they ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Enhance your everyday with Viya. I do have to point out. Yeah. Heather, you gifted me the Xbox Series X. Yep, 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 okay So you're playing a 1080p output on a 4k TV? I do have a 4k TV. So you're playing a 1080p output on a 4k Yes, and yeah, just even the detail in like the characters like beard hairs

It's so much nicer looking than it looked all scraggly and kind of like fucked up And you know they looked cheap kind of and now it looks great and everybody looks great I'm having I'm having I'm having a great time with it 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 fun and satisfying. I have to talk about the very first gym encounter. Go for it. Okay. You go into this gym,

and it's like all cloudy in there and stuff, and you gotta be meeting all these trainers along the way to the gym leader, and they have sort of like grass or poison type, Pokemon, and it's like everyone's kinda 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. It's a put that in a poke. It's a weed Jim

And I was like this is funny that is funny pretty good kind of like not that I think they should 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 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 Aram hack is going to be an older crap. Yes, exactly. And so I thought that was extremely fun, extremely satisfying. I'm doing very good in the game. The game also has, from what I understand. Dynamic leveling. So if you level up too much, because you used to like,

you could grind and grind and grind and like level up in an area Yeah, 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 badge is required like you guys like your 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 pretty good There's like level scaling or they'll be like yeah They'll be more powerful as you get more powerful, which is I think very cool Yeah, you can 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 shared turned on for everybody in the Vanilla ice cream Pokemon Wigz 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 this in the picture It's in the back. Yeah, I don't know if there's a third form. This one is like an this is three scoops I think there's a third form that has the three scoops. Oh. I think it's maybe this one might be two scoops. Oh, it's a two scoop.

You need three scoops. And here's the thing. I know we talked about which Pokemon we eat. Yeah. Safely eat that one, obviously. Oh my god. Can you imagine, though, it's screaming? Whatever you got too high, start melting.

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. Nice. I wanna 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 go because Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is probably my most played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater I was a 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 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. Yeah.

Just never would have happened before. Yeah, that's true. 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? What is, which game is it a rom hack of? It's using the FireRed engine. A lot of the- So was this a this was... For Gameboy Advance.

For Gameboy Advance, okay. Yeah, so a lot of them use that engine in particular because they say it's like the best for the 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 gonna be able to monetize that.

That's not like a thing, like Nintendo's not gonna let you start collecting money off of that. I don't know if you name it Pal World, maybe. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. But there is something of just like, this is, you know, we live in a world of 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 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 of something else I wanted to shout out very briefly.

On YouTube, I watched a 40 minute, the 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. Cause he was just like, I just decided to make this game and it took him seven years. And he was just like, I just decided to make this game and it took him seven years. And he was just like, I was just kind of making it for fun.

I never thought it would even have a publisher. I was going to self-publish it and stuff. A really great story. He seems like a really cool guy. And then he kind of goes through all the build. He shows like build one, which is insane. It changed so much in the in the seven years that he was working on it and I think it's absolutely

worth checking out just just 40 minutes and I had a blast watching it oh 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 a me thing, but like the guy who made that is named Billy Basso. Which sounds like the name of like an Oklahoma like state representative who got indicted for insider trading. Billy Basso.

They talk about how like, they don't, like the publishers talk about how they thought his name was fake. That's a great name. That's a great name. It's a good name. They're 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 like pay homage? They're like, no, his name is Billy Basso. Phil Fish was the Fez guy. Yes. Who's in, we talked about when we watched down. The video game, the movie.

But yeah, check that out. It was, 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, see what's going on.

Yeah, what else you got going on? Yeah, I got nothing. Just a bunch of bullshit dumb stuff Rochelle our producer ranch it made any progress updates on Hollow Knight. No, I uninsulted it I had no choice. Wow. Holy shit. Was it just taking over? Yeah, and it's the same boss fight over and over again. And there's really nothing else I could 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 want more of it. Yeah, I would love it. I mean, I think they might be working on something like that. Oh, really? I would love it, yeah. Do you have the DLC? Did you play through any of that? No, not yet. I think if you're just looking for more,

because I played through the DLC, what I played through 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'm sick with it. You were mentioning Little Nightmares as well, you got into that. Yeah, I played both Little Nightmares

since we talked. Wow. They're pretty short games. They're pretty're pretty sure and that's encouraging to me I think I'm gonna have to hop into that cuz I have I've been interested in those for a while. Yeah, I love them They're they're so beautiful and creepy and yeah. Yeah, it's great. They are they are aesthetically Really cool-looking I've never dug in on the little nightmare series But so was that the similar sort of thing? You were just playing that you were playing though what that while you were doing some podcasting.

Yeah, I needed 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. 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 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. 10 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 fall asleep on the sofa playing Dynasty Warriors. The blue ocean of the PlayStation 2 startup screen have 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 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. Shenmue, 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's more than just popular,

it's inescapable. You walk into a Best 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 the 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 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're 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 still find them. Little scuffed, the disc tray sticking sometimes, but still standing. And if you turn one on, sound the chime the low hum of history Booting up is still there for a second

So is everything else? Wow That was a really well done as always Heather I I like the one week I like when we clap 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 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 gonna get in a time machine, I'm gonna 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 a tough one. He laughed until the sun came up. Yeah, I mean, that's a thing. 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 and starting to be like, oh God, is this guy lying to us? Like, 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. Yeah. But you know, he sometimes, and I remember when I got my, it was a similar sort of thing for when I 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's 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, I could be wrong, but I remember pre-ordering it from GameStop Online. And it was, 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 like constantly hitch when it was trying to spin up. I had super long load times. And it was like, the thing 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 the best as its lifespan was, its launch lineup was pretty puny. I think SSX was like the best game that was in that initial batch. The big thing that happened with the, 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 biggest sport-o here, a preeminence of the marketplace to just completely sit out the Dreamcast. And you know, like we're not, I'm the biggest sporto here, but sports games are a huge seller. 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 is certainly in the United States And so not having Madden on

The dreamcast was 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 the you know Madden comes out on On PlayStation 2 that was one of the launch titles I had and you know what wasn't very good pretty bad pretty bad Yeah, I feel like of the Maddens, that's probably not 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 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 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. But those launch titles, I think the Bouncer was like soon after.

And I got- Yeah, the Bouncer was like sort of late launch window. Yeah, and I got the Bouncer also, and I was like, this game also kind of sucks. Yeah. Like it was like a Tetsuo 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 sucked too. What is also is just like, oh, Square, that was the era Square was trying stuff. Like they had like that fighting game, I don't remember what that's called, and that they had a shooter they made

that was actually pretty good, a pretty decent shmup, a side scroller. That was maybe on PlayStation 1. I brought up 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 27 2000 article on IGN that's still up. But yeah, Dynasty Warriors two was the launch title that would have been the one you played. Eternal Ring. I remember that game. That was kind of like a whatever, like much hyped, pretty decent graphically game at the time, but didn't really, you know, it's funny to call it pretty decent graphically because

I'm looking at some screenshots now. But at the time it was like, oh, this game looks okay, but it was kind of like a whatever sort of RPG. Tekken Tag Tournament, I guess, 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, you know, I was

born at the incorrect time And so I so when the PlayStation 1 comes out I I'm a little bit young for it You know sure and there was three of us so like they were just like they're not gonna really spend the money On a console or not really getting a gameboy at that time like so I I didn't have a gameboy 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 there's like, well, I want a DVD player. I want one of these new things that lets you watch movies and TV shows.

And 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 otherwise, there would have been no way for me to own, 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 It's just like I want a DVD player to sweepstakes like sure yeah Well, so get a little get a little this yeah, this is not exactly the same thing I won a TV like a tube CR duck a 27 inch awesome CRT TV and if at a family reunion. I won the raffle for the big prize

and everybody was fucking furious. Everybody was so fucking mad because I was really like, I have a TV at home. And I was 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 was like, this kid already has a TV,

he'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 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 could fuck up the laser on those things. The PlayStation 1 was certainly more finicky and I Knew friends who would like have their PlayStation one like upside down because yes, like it would read better But I would say that that the the 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 Yeah, it's it's like two DVD cases stacked on top of each other. 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 that thing still works 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. on the television in my apartment. And so that system has traveled with me all over the world. Wow.

Kinda sweet. It is nice. Versus the PlayStation One, which I had. The big issues with the PlayStation One 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 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 play it all you look at old PlayStation one game running on PlayStation one 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 you know filters and what and whatnot The textures were 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 were playing in backwards compatibility

so they would load faster and look way the fuck better. 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 gonna play the old game, so I'm not gonna get one.

Like the idea of something like not being backwards compatibility was a huge blockade for a lot of people, even though you not gonna get one. Like the idea of something like not being backwards compatibility was a huge blockade for a lot of people, even though you're gonna get new games. But part of why Nintendo did that is to force people to buy entirely new libraries. Whereas Sony was like, yeah, whatever, fucking play your old games on this. We want 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 something that is tethered to the hardware itself that is your memory

of PlayStation the hardware, which 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. 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. Like you may not have owned an iPhone one, 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. I like that a lot. I think also if you compare the DualSense 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 fundamentally a very similar thing versus look at like the first controller for an NES versus where it went from generation to generation, you know, supern... A lot of this was, 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 But 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 used for a switch joycon. It's like completely so far removed it's 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 have go from the DualShock 1 to the DualShock 2 It's fundamentally the same controller in a different color. It was a decision a bet on in a different color 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 can't, 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 PlayStation

1 compatibility was the same chip that handled its networking? That was how much hardware had progressed where what used to be like its own set-top box, its own console could now be handled by 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 the emotion engine Yeah of the PlayStation 2 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 know the refurbished

the redesign of the the ps3 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 yeah is I mean it's like six pounds you can do a kickflip with it, I think. Yeah, it's very big. The other thing I was going to say about the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 1, I believe the other thing is that PlayStation 1 games didn't have any anti-aliasing. So again, it just led to this sort 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, chunky looking mess.

And yeah, I do remember specifically firing up Vagrant Story on PlayStation 2. It's like, oh wow, this looks noticeably better even though 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 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 squeeze every bit of horsepower out of that thing. That's why I had to buy a by the time I got God of War, it had been in the greatest hits line and that used to be like the discount line. That's typically when I bought new games because they would be $20 instead of $40 or whatever yeah And I got God of War and my PlayStation 2 wouldn't read it And I was like devastated because like I want to play this game so bad and it had to go and you know Save up some money and wait to play it until I can get this the slim. I think my brother

One of my brothers at least had to have been like let's like pull our resources together because we can't we need it We need a PlayStation 2 we we can't just be sitting around What are we gonna? 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 your busted old, you know worn PS, is that it streamed a lot of data off the disc as you were playing. Which was, at the time, more likely the approach would have been, well, I can 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's like add yes personality to it. This is I mean this to me. Yeah, I really locked in with gaming in this era with

With a ps2 and a Gameboy 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 blink. I'm the blank check kid. 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 What you said about that was like we it was a miracle that I had anything anything new Mm-hmm was not rich at all. Glad you did well. What was your favorite thing menu item for the McDonald's in your house? None of it cuz my mom is a horrible cook

Here's the thing if I had a McDonald's in my house you just never see If I had a McDonald's in my house, you'd just a DVD player. 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, if you wanna play, you know, Sonic Forces, you're gonna have to get, like, it was the everything machine,

and so the machine itself feels less nostalgic. I just realized today when doing the research 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 digs out the trench for the warfare that it ends up winning.

Because for six months, it was like, are you really waiting for the GameCube? Nobody knew if the Xbox was going to suck or not. So all you had was, if I'm joining this generation, I'm gonna 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 big and ugly. The controller's the size of a dinner plate. The fuck is this stupid, this fucking lame ass Microsoft, the Windows company is making a console. 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 an Xbox exclusive at the time. It was originally planned to be also on PC But they were like now we're just will make it live just on this box and and that was enough to completely salvage the brand that it seems like they're maybe now also killing because The craziest shit about halo is that it was initially debuted at a fucking Mac Yeah, like Steve Jobs is the one who's like, let me show you Halo.

Yeah, Bungie were Apple developers. Their marathon was, my friend had on his dad's Mac, like his Mac desktop. Crazy. Anyway, and then obviously the GameCube was gonna, 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 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. 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. 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. 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 in 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 Raider's 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 T messes by Digibimbo Lara is in big trouble.

I... 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 saying he's saying photography is superior to as a foot, you know, photography is a superior medium to, you know, artistically rendering something. I'll read just a little bit more of this, 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 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. Aaron Ross Powell I want to know what the most recent article

is that that guy has written. Aaron Ross Powell Let me look for Jack Kroll obituaries Yeah, cuz they mean this was not the person that wrote this wasn't like 24 years old you know no no Jack Kroll died in the year 2000 It. Oh no! Oh, that's awful! It is very funny though to be like, cause obviously this is wrong, like this guy was very wrong, but also I'm amazed that someone

who's criticizing movies at that time and witnessed the whole thing of like, witnessed the dismissal, thewaving away of this art form by tastemakers in its in you know before we started to get all the the the The 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 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 disco Elysium, things that were really gonna

push the medium in completely different ways. But on PlayStation 2, you have Shadow of the Colossus. Yeah, you do have Shadow of the Colossus. Which came out- Like, it's arguably an actual emotional experience. That's a better example, because that's how recently Which is like what is arguably an actual emotional experience. That's a better example because that's how recently after this guy's article editorial comes out that 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, honestly that's at the top of mind for me. I know people think of Grand Theft Auto. I know people think of the Battle Gears. I know people think of Grand Theft Auto. I know people think of the Battle of 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 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 emitted. 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.

So like to an incurious person, that game is just go beat the big guy. 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 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, from this editorial, it seems pretty clear 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, you know, commit some atrocity 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 II, which is like a through line from, oh God, I feel sadness when I kill these colossi. I don't know if I wanna keep doing this,

but I also wanna 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 II where you're like, if you have any empathy, you're like, I don't wanna do the things that I have to do in order to beat this game. Which is fucking awesome. I hate that article.

You know what? I'm gonna comment on it. How's hell, bitch? Can we talk about the accessories for this system a little bit? Yes, sure. And then I do also want to dedicate some time to talk about the games themselves, but we can go to the accessories. 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 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.

I don't know. It wouldn't have to be that big. It's probably somewhere in that ballpark, if not less. Cause wasn't the PlayStation 3 was like a like a 60 gig drive right? Yeah I'm not sure how big the 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 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 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 a guitars and drums and everything. There was a Beatmania DJ table where you could hook up a pseudo DJ platform in order to play Beatmania. 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 Rez, 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, which is legendary as this sort of gargantuan, clumsy way to play the game. Yeah. There was the Itoy, which was a webcam that allowed you to play Itoy 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 yeah 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 I'm 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 the fuck?

Which. What the fuck? Was a PlayStation 2 game where you put a base on the ground and they had wires that you would pull out of the base unit that was on the ground, 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 people smash their TV. Mm. We played Seaman on the Dreamcast a while back for our old format. There was a limited edition Seaman 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 on on Amazon is 2.1 stars with three reviews. Let's see if there's any actual reviews of the thing or or if it's Here it is that the only review from 2011 You should not buy this product review from 2011. You should not buy this product. By the way, 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 light guns

are still semi-ubiquitous in the world of video games. Yeah, sure. Like the original NES comes with a fucking gun. Yeah. And it's not until we switch over to LCD 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 our fucking rules. So cool. I would have wanted that so bad as a kid, just have an actual fucking rules. So cool. I would have wanted that so bad as a kid. Just have an actual fucking gun. Yeah, you would have been killed by a police officer. Yeah, you would have joined their ranks. There's also Tycho drums for the PlayStation 2. There were so many Tycho drums for the PlayStation 2. There were so many different gizmos and gadgets.

Here's one of the train controllers for the PlayStation 2. That's awesome. Those drums, that little drum character, I thought I had not experienced that character until it was new. There was a version of it that came out for Switch or something. And I was like, who's this? I 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. You know what, guys? The series is Taiko no Tatsujin,

and I don't know what the name of the mascot is, but I actually have a Taikon O-Tatsujin hoodie just because I like the design. Oh, wow. A little bit of a 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 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 used PlayStation 2s for more than $1,000 on this list. It's really interesting to to sort of. Browse through. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, there's some there's some peripherals.

I remember the the just just because you mentioned light guns and they did make one for the PlayStation 2, but I never had it. But in the PlayStation one, you know, this is the era of time crisis. And and point blank these great Namco arcade shooters that got ported and the Namco gun con was just like such an odd like the best light gun ever. That's the Beretta. That's the Beretta is a gun con made by Hori.

Yeah because the the gun with a foot pedal. The gun con is yes the foot pedal was key, which you could, 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 GunCon 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 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 like that. That Hori Beretta though. That Hori Beretta was cool as hell.

Let's talk about some games a little bit. I mentioned ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Those are two I think of. Obviously's talk about some games a little bit. I mentioned ICO 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, what year would this have been? 2001, where they were showing Metal Gear Solid 2 and they had the, 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 it's 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 why I say it 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 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 like three times the day I was there just go see watch the same trailer that was not on a pre

YouTube world projected on this huge screen. And they 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. 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 Deo Kajima game, a Mecha game, I bought Zone of the Enders, which is a Hideo Kojima 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 as Solid Snake, but it's like the entire mission. And so you're getting basically the first act of that game, none of the Raiden stuff.

And it's obviously such a huge misdirect when that game comes out and Raiden is the character that you're controlling for 90% of it. 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 you bought a Star Wars game, wanting to play Luke Skywalker, and then the reaction was like it was like a gig like you bought a Star Wars game Wanting to play Luke Skywalker, and then the reaction was like oh, I have to play as Jar Jar for the game

I was so mad about right and everyone's so mad. They've been you were yes. 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 word the hype cycle and then the reaction. I think of just kind of in memory hold Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater obviously as well just like such a such a triumph and such a huge you know Yeah, yeah 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 yeah

and so having to sort of make the choice to it because there wasn't like you couldn't just save the game save in the cloud there's no place to transfer it to you're just like oh I got 80 hours in this in this game yeah you know am I gonna get get rid of this so you have to sort of then make the choice to be like, okay, I wanna start a new game in something else. Which of these games have I, I guess, am I done with forever? Yeah.

And I'm gonna delete the save of. See you later, Clanoa2. Yeah. The games that I remember most of the PS2, other than Final Fantasy XI, are the Katamari the Katamari Damacy was a monumental experience for me. Another one, just again, it's just like games as art. That would happen in this generation that you were so skeptical of.

And 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 Damacy, which are so unique to having an interactive medium. I also want to shout out Steam Bot Chronicles,

which was an Atlus released, Irem, action RPG where you like, 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 wanna even say hokey, but 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

and people were like, holy shit, this game looks insane. Yes, and it's a new IP. This is not a thing that exists. This is something that came out of nowhere. 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 nowhere I recently rewatched the 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 is 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 rewatch the the Gamecube announced trailer because yeah crowd reaction because people were so hyped for all the footage of games they showed that would never come out they showed that would never come out. But it's like, we're like, oh, that looks cool. Anyway, the other games I think of, you talked about Final Fantasy XI. 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 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. And that's what 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, and the Grand Theft Auto games were the ones with the biggest lasting legacy and obviously that franchise has become on everything and ubiquitous and I guess arguably the biggest franchise in games, one of the biggest. But it was locked into the Sony platform for that entire generation. It was like a – it coming to the Xbox was with Grand Theft Auto 4.

And so they had three that 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 second hand at like Hollywood Video. Sure. The copy of Metal Gear Solid 3 that I still have is the Hollywood Video like bargain bin copy that I had. I love that. It was like $10. That's like my blockbuster virtual boy.

It was just like just how we would do it. I would rent so many games, those games that I would just like try to finish in the rental window that I had 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 ratcheting clank still going yeah, that's pretty great The Sly Coopers of course yeah

I have I have one bullet point that is ratcheting clank slash Jack and Daxter slash psych Sly Cooper Yeah, they took some big swings at mascot that you know games and then I think all those were great yeah, and you know obviously my favorite video game of all time is Kingdom Hearts 2 and that is a Definitive game to me for the for the PlayStation 2. I've told a story before I'll tell 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. He was the, that was the one who did that. Wow, that's amazing. That man bought me Kingdom Hearts 2. That's so cool.

Which is fun lore for the room. Obviously the Guitar Hero game's huge for me. Prince of Persia series, I loved those games. And Simpsons hit and run was a huge one in my house Oh sure I love 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 it was really good Hey, that's a that's a grand theft auto like that's not gonna make your mom upset no and you 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 Sure 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 fantastic four games yeah fantastic

four and fantastic four rise of the Silver Surfer, both Tim Story the movie games. Tim Story movie the movie games. I for sure played the first one. 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. 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, and again, it goes back to just like how they were pushing the hardware. 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. Couple I wanna 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 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 kind of a dungeon-caller, like gauntlet-esque, 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 I 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, the Baldur's Gate license I think went to different developers and then they made Champions of Norrath,

which was the same sort of game, but in the EverQuest world, so that was their follow-up. But those are just super duper fun. When I was a games journalist, it was at the very beginning I when I was a games journalist. Mm-hmm. It was At the very beginning of the the like Xbox 360 era Like I covered a few 360 games

But we were still covering PlayStation 2 games. I did the Final Fantasy 12 review for play magazine and Had like a 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. Cause 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 still had a PlayStation 2 dev kit on my desk when I was working in the industry in like 2006, you know. 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 like yeah, of course, yes the Fantastic Four sequel, rise of the silver surfer was like well There's gonna be a PlayStation 3 and Xbox version Xbox one version But we got to have this come out on a PlayStation 2 as well and that you like that was the version I worked on

Yeah, it's like like 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 like, you know for the first couple years of PlayStation 5 Everything was coming out on 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 going to have 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, because there was like, I mean, they did that similar thing, you know, with the previous generation even. Like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 came out on PlayStation 3, on PlayStation 1, excuse me. And I played it on on PlayStation 2 But like they would do that with some games that weren't as maybe resource intensive or you know like you were you could make a Mean Tony Hawk plays on everything was it yeah? There's like a Tony Hawk Gameboy game like it's a Gameboy Advance Yeah, they're like pretty fun. They're pretty fun. Yeah, they work surprisingly well. And what was the one they put a fucking, was it an FPS they put on Game Boy Advance?

I'm trying to remember. There's like 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 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 license to drive? Yeah that's how I play Mary Kate and Ashley, Sweet 16 license to drive. Wow. The only games I remember having it was like a hand-me-down from my cousin yeah was Mary Kate and, 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 the adventures of Cookies and Cream.

Yeah, I loved that game. 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 on both controllers. I don't remember how that,

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. Two separate controllers, okay. I love that game so much. I've never heard of Cookies and Cream, but 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. I'm like, that's a fucking great name for a co-op game. PlayStation 2, there were three Harry Potters released. Yes. So I don't know which one, Chamber of Secrets, Goblet of Fire, and whatever the other one was. Oh, wait, maybe there are more. The forest area kind of sounds like

it might be the second one, or at least in the beginning maybe 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 Potter's released on the PlayStation 2 Sorcerer's Stone or Philosopher's Stone if you're not in the US the Chamber of Secrets or Philosopher's Stone if you're not in the US. The Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Half-Blood Prince all came on PS2

as well as Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup. That's gotta suck. I think it must have been Chamber of Secrets if I can remember the scenes that happened in that game. It sounds like it's either two or three based on the amount of knowledge I have of it Can't get can't take it out Damn it any other things we should talk about I mean it's like I have so many memories of this of this system

And obviously it's so important still the best-selling console all time You know maybe switch will pass that maybe it won't 160 million units Switch out right now like 154. Yeah, it's it's very close. I don't know if they're gonna do it I'm not with the switch to coming out. I just kind of don't see it happening I don't know I could see it like it might be the sort of thing of like they they discounted it off and people are like Okay, I'll buy I'll buy a switch light for a hundred bucks, but I guess like Six million of something is a lot of something still it's a lot like so they would have to like promise it'll like suck your dick

I feel like Sony if they got close Sony could just be like hey We've found like an additional one million PlayStation 2s and we're putting them on sale for $50 each. We've put HDMI ports in the back of them. Play your old PS2 games. Yeah, yeah. I love the PS2. I do have memories of 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 be like so this is what video games are like now Yeah, and just being like very there's 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, but that seems crazy But he was just like interested in like how it played and like what it seems crazy. But he was just interested in how it played and 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 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 it's like, 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 Jak and Daxter last year.

Right. Just like on my Steam deck. Yeah. It's like, that's like, I don't know, 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 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 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 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 then then what's your incentive to go to this other place and pay per play I'm just also just remembering right now to 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 yeah again again It's it's just Nintendo no longer having a veto power over content It was yeah Oh, yeah, Sony understood that we can have these more these games were adult themes and adult content like like I'm remembering manhunt That was a rock star game where you are a serial killer

Bully wasn't as that is that but I remember watching my uncle play bullying just like I thought it was great And and and fatal frame is another one you guys remember. Oh, yeah, sure. They have a frame was pretty cool. Yeah But those I mean I was not I would get in trouble I'd have to like when I was getting picked my uncle 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 it.

I was in big trouble. 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 Splatterhouse on TurboGrafx-16. And nowadays, if a kid doesn't have their Steam account locked down, they can just play

like Kaiju Princess 2, like a full-on hentai game. Yeah, 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 too easy now. All right, let's do a segment.

["Post-Credit Scene"] All right, guys, for this segment, I'm gonna 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. I'll 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 in a Baconator combo at Wendy's. That's what I was saying. Is that $15 now?

I mean, I think it's I think it's up there. Holy shit. I got that We don't this is for a different show. It is I did go to Taco Bell the other day and I was I Had sticker shock. I get so much sticker shock at Taco Bell. Yeah at Del Taco I spent I mean, it's also me ordering but like I spent like I spent $20 That is a good point. How the fuck did is a good point I did order like five things Let me see how much a bacon air combo is See this is where things are you used to have the 99 cent menu now They're like choose two for seven dollars, but that doesn't even sound like a discount. Yeah. No, it's like 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 it. I mean this cuz the thing was we're by a good Wendy's Yeah, we are by a good Wendy's here's here the Baconator combo. Wow. I got really close Baconator combo medium-sized $14.19. Holy shit. So I'm over 15. Yeah, I'm busting my budget if we're including tax. Yeah, that's this is a bummer

There's no tax There's no tax or hidden fees here in the bargain, but okay great. This is $15 I don't yeah, sorry. I didn't I didn't I don't think I let you set up the segment. I was talking about Wendy So it's okay. I don't see a god hand on this list my friend I well here's the here's the thing and I knew that I was gonna get immediate shit for this one this I 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

I think I'm gonna try to go off of Metacritic's like highest reviewed sure PlayStation 2 games and then what other ones what other ones that people consider to be like the best ones okay So these are all in the upper percentile of reviewed PlayStation 2 games. So 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 too.

A nice mix of exclusives and third party games that are strongly identified with the PlayStation 2. do you want to just run down the roster? Yeah, 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 caliber 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? Burnout 3, Takedown, Devil May Cry, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.

In the $3 tier, Madden 2003, Sly Cooper 2, Band of Thieves, Katamari Damacy, and Ratchet and Clank, Up Your Arsenal, which is the third one. And that was just kind of funny. They're always like doing butt. Yeah, it's funny. It's really funny. Yeah, it's funny.

In the $4 tier, Grand Turismo 3 A-Spec, Kingdom Hearts, God of War and Jack and Daxter. And the $5 tier, which I think is possibly the heaviest five dollar tier we've had. That's Kingdom Hearts one? That's Kingdom Hearts one. Okay okay. In the five dollar 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 five dollar tier you could still you know get a lot of game for your buck. Oh, yeah. So who who who feel I you know, I think I can go first just to give everybody a little time.

OK, great. 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. Then great choice. It's a great choice. It's it's 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. Now the $4 tier, darlings are getting killed.

It's tough to think about what to do here. I could pick Kingdom Hearts, I could pick God of War, I could pick Jak and Daxter and be happy. But my life is completely different if I don't 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, it really perfects it. Well, and it's also like those games are if you like one you'll like three you like two you'll like way 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

They're all 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 gonna 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 gotta do. Prince of Persia, the sands of time, baby. Wow, okay.

I will also abide by the getting one from each category We have to do that. No, you don't have to but I'm choosing to do that Cuz cuz 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 10 you know, I think Soul Calibur 2 is is Good, but also and and Prince of Persia is good, but also, 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 affection for Okami, but Devil May Cry, I think, is just so cool and, again, a game I already cited. $3 tier Katamari Damacy. $4 tier. I think it's gotta be God of War there for me. And the $5 tier, I'm going Shadow of the Colossus. 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 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 loved it.

I guess if there's anything maybe there, I guess Final Fantasy X is really meaty and Double May Cry could replay the shit out of. So I don't have to worry about Shadow of the Colossus having maybe a slimmer campaign versus some of those other ones up there. I like San Andreas you could just play forever oh yes okay I wanted to replay it um you can do that to 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 then then you guys did yes it changed 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. Because my boyfriend would be so upset if I didn't choose him.

Your boyfriend, Pyramid Head. Yes, my boyfriend, Pyramid Head. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Head. Yes, my boyfriend, Pyramid Head. Yes. Um, if you call my phone right now, it's Lonely Rolling Star from Katamari Damacy 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, Katamira Damacy 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.

Two best choice. I, I don't know. I guess I'll get, I mean I kind of just want to give you guys my two dollars. Can I suggest something for you? Yeah. Give Final Fantasy X another shot and then you get one buck left. I don't like Final Fantasy X. Maybe give it another shot, maybe this is the time you give it another shot as a Final

Fantasy fan and then you get a buck left for Soul Calibur 2 and you like fighting games So you got that like fighting games and the soul still burns Burnout fan I am a burnout fan. I am I'm a burnout fan. I liked burnout three takedown. Uh God um, they'll make cry games a lot of killing a lot of fun I liked Burnout 3 Takedown. God. There'll be a cry games, a lot of killing, and the hardest shit. A lot of killing, a lot of fun. I guess because of the legacy I'll get, Soul Calibur and Final Fantasy X is my final two games.

Wow. But yeah, like, if Final Fantasy XII's on there in the $5 tier, I kill Silent Hill 2. If Shadow of the Colossus and Katamari Damacy 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 this Soul Galliber 2 exclusive character on? Nightmare. Because each platform, it went multi-platform, Soul Galliber 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've been a Tekken guy.

Oh yes, you're right. Hey Hachi 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 gonna go on the Microsoft platform, the Xbox, it's gotta be Master Chief from Halo, but no, it was Spawn.

Xbox exclusive characters spawn from the Spawn comic books. Video games rock. Yeah, video games are great. The PlayStation 2 really was a good time. Yeah, great system. Good system, good times. Yeah, I mean, you know, again, I just, for me, I have so much more, I have so much affection for the Dreamcast, so much nostalgia for the Dreamcast specifically, I mean, you know, again, I just 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 obvious 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 get- Unlikely. You can't get the PC. It's not a PC. PC's not a console. Okay, then like, yeah,, I'll get... Unlikely. You can't get the PC. It's not a PC.

PC's not a console. Okay, then 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. Really does. 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. Like, do I have to play? You have to play a new one every five days. Some of those are gonna be real bad. Yeah. Sorry, you have to play Futurama the game.

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, that's this week's Get Played. Our producers are Michelle Chen, Ranchyard underscore, underscore Sard. Our music goes by Ben Prunty Ben Prunty music.com our artists by Duck Brigade design Duck Brigade.com Did you stream Little Lightmares at all? We've

been playing that I just been by myself. Are you streaming anything lately? I still haven't 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 gum back catalog plus ad free main feed episodes and our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated. Matt, what are we watching this week? We're watching Gurren Lagann, baby. We just started a new series. It's a great time to get in there because we're going crazy watching Gurren Lagann, baby. We just started a new series It's a great time to get in there because we're going crazy for Gurren Lagann get those drills and let them

Fuck I always forget what it is Here's the heavens, baby it's on Netflix if you want to watch along and Get animated is over at patreon.com slash get played and To the PlayStation 5 we love you. Yes, and you got the PlayStation 5, we love you. Yes. And you got played.

PlayStation 5? I meant to. All right, Matt got played. That was a hate gum podcast.