New console

[kickaha]

I swore I wouldn't buy a new game console until I graduated. That was over a year ago. So last night, I bit the bullet, and bought a brand spanking new... PS2. Oh. Yeah. Baby. Nothin' like living on the cutting edge of technology... for the year 2000. :)

Picked up the PStwo (PS 2 Slim), a two-pack of memory cards, and a couple of games. I have waited years now to be able to play Katamari.


And it looks like I get to keep waiting. Did anyone have one in stock? Oh hell no. We hit every game shop within a 30mi radius, and no dice. Nada. One EB had two used copies, but they were pretty scratched. Time to order online and just be surprised when it gets here, methinks.

We're using a DualShock controller from the old PlayStation, although I'm tempted to go wireless on the controllers. (Any suggestions on that? I was recommended Logitech as having a good wireless/feedback unit, but not sure I want to blow another $80 on two controllers.)


Would love any suggestions on games, but with one caveat: no storyline games. Nothing that requires (allows) my brain to get sucked in for hours on end. That, I still don't have time for, because it will EAT MY BRANES. Yeah, okay, so I made the mistake of picking up the Star Wars II Lego game last night, but *that's it*. I still have frickin' Parasite Eve and one of the Final Fantasy titles from the PS to get through. (Memory card died, got depressed at my hard work gone, didn't pick them up again.) I like arcade-style games more than anything, something I can pick up for 30 mindless minutes of blowing shit up, and then walk away from. (Hence, picking up Burnout 3. Points for massive destruction with an auto? Booyah.)

Comments

Recommendations:

[cthulhim.livejournal.com]

SSX, definitely. Either SSX Tricky or SSX 3. Don't get SSX: World Tour -- it sucks.

Guitar Hero, but that requires spending $80 on *one* controller.

Twisted Metal: Black and War of the Monsters are good smash-up fun.

Re: Recommendations:

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Thanks - we almost grabbed SSX (1) last night, decided to pass until we checked out the rest of the titles in the series. I saw Twisted Metal: Black for $5 in the used bin, but didn't grab it for some reason. We have I think three TM titles for the PS that we can play, and what I'd *heard* was that Black was a weak disappointment... not true?

Also, I passed on a used copy of Katamari last night due to scratches on the disc - they weren't *bad*, and if it had been a DVD, I wouldn't have thought twice. However, having seen how persnickety OS X is with installer discs, and having heard that the PS2 is similarly picky, I declined. How sensitive *is* the PS2 to scratches on the media?

Re: Recommendations:

[cthulhim.livejournal.com]

We've had some problems with media in the past -- if the lens gets a teeny bit out of alignment disks won't read. So not going with the scratched disk was a wise choice. You might have different results since you got one of the tiny new ones, though.

I liked Twisted Metal Black, so I'm not sure what reviews you were reading. The areas are huge and much better rendered. I wouldn't get SSX 1 -- Tricky (SSX 2) has pretty much the same tracks but expanded, and the interface is a little easier.

[margarita-5.livejournal.com]

GEEK!!

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

In this crowd, I'm not even an amateur gaming geek, sweetcheeks.

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

No kidding. If you wanted arcade action you should've got a 360 and gotten on Live, many old arcade games are available for cheap online. :p

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 'cause that's what we want. :P

We have a ton of arcade games for the PS1 already, so that would doubly not make sense for us.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Or I could go get PS1/PS2 arcade collections for about $10 for 20 games... ;)

[margarita-5.livejournal.com]

...why thank you for noticing ;-D

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Well it's hard not to, when you rub them up and down my legs at parties...

;)

[margarita-5.livejournal.com]

hmmm. you do realise that was out loud...

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

AYUP! :D

[margarita-5.livejournal.com]

wrong...

[kimokeane.livejournal.com]

Nice to be an amateur at *something*, huh?

But you couldn't pick something where we could play Halo online, huh?

Loser!

;)

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

Halo sucks! ;p

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Not that you're biased or anything... ;)

[badger.livejournal.com]

He could still be correct, in the "stopped clock correct twice a day" sense :).

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I wouldn't know. I've never played:

Halo
Unreal
Gears of War
World of Warcraft
Duke Nuke'em
Doom

I think the last FPS I played with any regularity was Castle Wolfenstein. :) Oh! No, wait, it was Marathon.

No, wait, I take that back - I played (I think) Unreal Tournament 2K (probably not even close) once at an Epic party, and of course got my ass handed to me. Was fun though, for a few minutes.

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

(UT2K4) :)

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Thank you Epic Bunny!

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

Actually Halo doesn't 'suck' so much as it's mediocre. It's not the amazing game some folks think it is. (I have played Halo all the way through and I own Halo 2 although I haven't beaten it yet)

It's just a typical shooter, but it's the first exposure to shooters for many many console folks so they think it's the be-all end-all. System Shock 2 is the best FPS I've ever played, but good luck finding a copy. :p

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

You jackass, you could've played Gears at my place. And it's third-person anyway. :p

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Did you offer? Nooooooooo. I must have looked at the console half a dozen times with meaningful glances, but nooooooooo.

I'll catch it next time we're down. :)

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

I even kinda skooled him in the third person thing this morning when we were talking about a movie review which referenced Gears (spuriously, unfortunately.) :D

PEMDFF

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

I don't think you've met frank before. Frank's a bitch.

*wave*

Re: PEMDFF

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

You love it. :p

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Is it bad form to say that I'm buying my brother a Wii just so we can play online for half the cost? ;)

[badger.livejournal.com]

Logitech's wireless is pretty good, as in I found it decently responsive and not bad re battery drainage - I went through most of the PS2 wireless controllers last year when I was looking at a dual wireless MIDI controller rig using juNXion. (Still want to find two wireless controllers that will connect through the same wireless receiver hub and then I'll have that last piece of that art installation project built.)

As for games, almost all of the games I've ever played are storyline games. That said, the GTA series will allow you to cheerfully zoom around and break things without having to deal with a single mission or storyline if you don't want to. Also State of Emergency is almost completely mindless violence that might be ok for you.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Cool on the Logitechs. I kinda like the idea of having a clutter free living room again. (Stop laughing, hon... I mean *more* clutter. ;) )

[badger.livejournal.com]

I should have mentioned that M and I both found the Nyko brand wireless controller annoying: one of the two joysticks on the controller tended to stick slightly sideways, resulting in a "constant creep to the right" on screen (intermittent but consistent on two different controllers), and the case was not comfortable: didn't fit M's hands comfortably, and the plastic/rubbery casing was oddly tacky in an unpleasant way to both of us.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

*nod* ginkgo and I noticed pretty quickly that the 'mini' controllers fit her hand *much* better than the std size, while I felt like the Hulk holding them. If we get a couple of wireless units, one's going to have to be a mini, I think.

We also noticed the wide range of grip materials, some good, some bad - as well as the 'cooling' controllers with air vents and *fans* to keep your palms from sweating. You know, if you're playing *that* much... well... eh.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

LSW is pretty episodic, with each "chapter" completable in around ten minutes. Of course, you _could_ spend considerably more time than that, and will probably want to, but it still doesn't have to suck up more than an hour or so per play session. And you already know the story, so you shouldn't have to spend too many cycles on "OMG, what happens next?!?"

The scene in _Empire_ where Lego-Vader shows Lego-Luke the Polaroid of Lego-Anakin and Lego-Padme is flipping hilarious, one of many such moments.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Oh you BASTARD! Where's the spoiler alert, HUH? HUH? ;)

Yeah, I do like the short-story aspect of it. If I have time for just one chapter, it's just a few minutes. If I have more time, I can whip through more.

And holy hell is it fun.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

You're going to want the first game, too. One of the extras you can buy in LSWII is "Use old save", which allows you to free play any chapter with any character you've unlocked in LSWI. Since the only Dark Force user you get in LSWII is Vader, and you have to wait a looong time to unlock him, it's a real plus to be able to free play with Count Dooku pretty much from the get-go.

Plus, Count Dooku rawks. Sure Lucas screwed him in the movies, but he gets his own back in the game.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

So *that's* what the 'Use old saves' is for. Got it.

Actually, I was tempted by the idea of buying the original just so I could kick the crap out of Anakin repeatedly, but passed instead for a better set of characters. :)

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

And there are so _many_ different versions of Anakin out of whom to repeatedly kick the crap...

The first game has a nice character set as well, particularly in their selection of villians. (You gotta love General Grievous' four-lightsaber double-jump attack.) Though I don't think Darth Maul ends up being a playable character, which kind of sucks.

A hint? "Use old saves" and "Invincibility" are the must-have extras to get, and then you might want to start saving up for the stud multipliers, which will dramatically increase the rate at which you can acquire the other extras. Stud multipliers stack, too, so if you go ridiculously all-out with them, you can get a total multiplier of 2x4x6x8x10x, or 3840x.

We waited until the end to start saving for more than the 2x multiplier, so now we're saving studs to buy stud multipliers that will allow us to save more studs which will allow us to buy... more... stud... multipliers... faster...

Good thing the games' fun enough that we only need a circular justification that weak to keep us playing. :)

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Cool beans, thanks for the tips. :)

Wait - does 'use old saves' only apply to SW -> SW 2, or does it also apply across game saves? ie, can I unlock character A in SW2, game save 1, then use that unlocked character in game save 2?

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Sorry, only LSWI->LSWII. So no playing Han instead of Captain Panaka in the Naboo chapters.

Which, considering what the presence of Han Solo would do to the Anakin-Padme romance, is probably a "feature" that was insisted upon by Lucas' continuity Nazis.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait, that's not what you asked. The answer's still "no", though--each save slot (at least on the Gamecube) is fully independent of the others.

I don't even know if there's a provision in LSWII to select which LSWI game save you want to use in "Use old saves", as we only have the one LSWI save.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on. Did I say word one about Vader==Anakin? No I did not. For all you know, Vader could have been showing the picture to Luke and saying, here are your parents. Whom I killed. What do you think of that, Lefty?

Your Honor, I submit that only someone who _already knew_ the relationship between Vader and Anakin could possibly have thought there was a spoiler in the above post.

DA DA DUNNNN...

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

What? Vader is ANAKIN?? Shyeah, nice one buddy.

Jesus, next thing you're going to try and pull on me is that Vader is Luke's father, and the Force is really just little tiny bacteria thingies. Feh. Come on, take this seriously, will you?

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

I went to the midnight sneak preview showing of _Jedi_ 'way back when, and when I got to school that day, everyone wanted to know whether, and nobody believed me that, Vader really was Luke's father.

And I almost got beat up when I told them Luke and Leia were siblings.